Is this exam question really too difficult?

[J.J.T.]

Very well said! J.J.T, I totally agree!

The real problem is that no one is designing tests to be focused on critical thinking, because once you let that into the mix different students at different levels of understanding will come up with solutions in different ways that could all be correct. Like the difference between my answer and Vanadium's, neither answer is wrong, nor is either answer "more correct" than the other, but that doesn't bode well for the world of standardized testing, because they just want to put a monkey with an answer key at a desk with 1000 exams to grade . Match the students answer to the one on the key, rinse, repeat x 10,000 more questions. Thus the system is set up with the efficiency of the examination in mind and the student's actual understanding is put on the back-burner.

Thus when you take students that have been given a modern-style education that haven't done their own research/work on their own outside the realm of the classroom and give them a critical thinking question they are kind of right to be upset, but for the wrong reasons. The question itself isn't unfair, but it is unfair that these students have been prepared improperly. It's like training a chef in a classically Italian manner and never training him in any type of international cuisine, and asking him day-in day-out for years to cook classic Italian food. Then one day out of the blue you want Thai-style yellow curry and calling him a failure because he put "too much" garlic in it.

The failure of these students to come up with a correct response is less an academic failure on their part than it is a moral failure on the part of the educational institution.

 

[maCrobo]

I think that is a doable problem for a kid of that age. I mean, the thinking is the following. How many sweets do I have? N. How many of them are orange? 6. On the total amount of sweets what portion is orange? 6/N. Then, what? I have 6/N orange sweets, (N-6)/N yellow sweets. mmh... How can I get it right? If I pick up blindly a sweet N times, 6 times on the total it will be for sure orange, the remainder it will be yellow... then 6 times over N I may take an orange one. Then the possibility is 6/N. Once I've taken one, there will be only 5 left in the bag and the total will be N-1. Then the same things I thought before apply and I have 5/(N-1) possibilities to get an orange one at the second pick. How can I put them together? ... well, the first time I have 6/N possibilities, and it will be orange. In case I get an orange sweet and I try again to pick again it is not said I will have an orange one again, it can be it will be yellow, so only 5/(N-1) times of the 6/N times I will have orange sweets. That means the possibility is the 5/(N-1)*6/N. The book says I have 1/3, than I can say that thing I've just found is equal to 1/3. *Do a little math* .. DONE.

The fact that is "doable" does not mean everyone can do it, it is needed a bit of smarts; I mean, the kid must be good at playing logic games.
The point here is, as someone else already said, whether teachers deal with such topics so that students can get used on such a way of thinking. Not all of them will naturally go through all those steps intuitively, and a school system is supposed to shape students minds (before preparing them for the exams).

 

[Dembadon]

On a more general scale, one of the main issues I see with students in the tutoring center is their lack of patience. Whether or not this applies here, I'm not sure, but it seems reasonable to me given my experiences in the tutoring center and SI sessions.

When I am helping someone through a problem, they will often accept defeat before they've even given an attempt at a solution. If the answer (or procedure *cringe*) isn't immediately apparent, they become despondent and agitated. I'm not sure where this comes from, but it's pervasive in the tutoring center. They don't want to have to try something new. Some of them don't feel they should have to, while others seem genuinely afraid of not doing it correctly the first time.

 

[Gaz]

he n sq - n - 90 makes it simple you don't even need the sweets you can work that out in your head in a min.
But doing it the other way it's that easy I'm not surprised there complaining here is my attempt it took me a while but I ain't done maths since school about 20 years ago = )