Interview with Emre Balkis, Year 12 and Emanuele Angelo Lanza De Cristoforis, Year 12
By Ismail Abaza, Year 12
Year 12 has just finished their first Maths examination of the school year. With it being completed, I interviewed some Year 12 students to get their opinions on the exam, to see how they felt about it and if they believed it was fair or not. I interviewed two students by the names of Emre Balkis and Emanuele Lanza to get their opinion on the matter. Emre is a Maths HL student and Emanuele is a Maths SL student, so as to provide perceptions of the Maths Exam from two different Maths levels, and to see if all of the discussions about the Maths exam’s unreasonable difficulty are true. They have both been in this school for a long time, and thus have successfully completed many math exams in this school before. So what made this exam different?
How did you feel about the Maths Exam?
Emre:
I felt that the math exam was okay, it wasn’t easy at all, but it also wasn’t extremely difficult. There were just a few questions that I felt like we might have not looked over in class very well, and the teachers didn’t really put emphasis on some parts, especially on the graphing of functions. I personally thought there would be a greater insistence on trigonometry, however it turns out there was actually very little trigonometry on the exam.
Emanuele:
I was relatively nervous about the Maths Exam as it was my first time doing an actual IB-level exam. Overall, it wasn’t too difficult, however I do believe that it wasn’t overly easy either. One of the reasons I feel like it was difficult is because some of the questions were unfair as I do not believe we had covered all the material in class. I would have liked it if they had given us more question types to study with at home and in class.
Do you feel like the Maths Exam was fair to you?
Emre:
I felt like overall it was fair, I just felt like we were slightly unprepared for some of the questions on the exam. I felt like my Maths class was also at a disadvantage as our teacher was absent for the few Maths periods before the Maths exam. We did have a replacement teacher, and although he was good, he couldn’t teach us the subject as well as our usual teacher. So I feel like we were disadvantaged, especially on the last unit: further functions. In fact, now that we are back in Maths classes and looking over some of these questions again, I’m learning new things about absolute values after the exam is over. Unfortunately for my class, it wasn’t extremely fair, although I still do feel like the exam was doable overall.
Emanuele:
I believe the exam was mostly fair, however I feel like there were some questions that we were unprepared for. I believe that there were some question types that we had not looked over in class which I think was a bit unfair. I think other SL students also reported to have felt the same way about it, that there were some questions that we had never looked over in class. Overall, the math exam was not completely impossible, however I do feel like we were put at a disadvantage.
What would you have changed about the Maths Exam and why?
Emre:
The way I would’ve changed the exam, I would put more emphasis on trigonometry as to balance the exam out. I felt like the exam was too heavily focused on graphing questions and absolute values. There was also only one logarithm question, however I do feel as though that was fair since logarithms were covered last year. However, the difficulty of the question that was there was pretty intense considering we were only given Year 11 exercises to practice, which was on a lower level of difficulty. I feel like either they should have given us more logarithms and exponential questions or they should have made that question slightly easier. Other than that maybe just a graeter focus more on trigonometry and polynomial questions would have been helpful.
Emanuele:
There are a few things that I would have liked to change about the exam. First of all, I would have personally changed the timing of it. I would have much preferred it if the exam was done in the morning as opposed to after lunch. I felt a bit lightheaded and unfocused due to this, so that would be my first change.
Second of all, I would have liked it if they were to prepare us for more types of questions for the exam. I felt that there was a large disparity between the exercises given in class and the questions in the exam. I believe it would have been better if the questions given to us for revision were more similar in structure to the exam questions.
To conclude, it can clearly be seen that for both students, the Exam was mostly fair and doable, but they both believe that some of the questions put on it were not looked over on class clearly, which not something that should happen at all, as there is nothing worse than having no idea how to solve a question on a test, or even worse, on an exam.
