callmemadam (callmemadam) wrote,
callmemadam
callmemadam

Maths is a langwidge

Another shock horror story about declining exam standards in today’s Telegraph. Apparently, it’s possible to pass GCSE maths by getting only 20% of the answers right. I have every sympathy with the candidates. The discovery that I’d passed O-Level maths and would never, ever have to do maths again was one of the happiest moments of my life. If, as Molesworth’s teachers opined, ‘maths is a langwidge’, how come I could do French, Latin and German but not maths? I was good at sums, as shown by this little book my mother preserved from the time I was six.



She also kept the school entrance test she had to do at eleven:



Yikes! Multiply 568 by 397. Use your answer to find 569x397. No calculators in 1935.

At one time I volunteered to teach adult literacy and was horrified to be asked to take on a numeracy student. I swear I learned more about numbers during that time than in all my years at school and what’s more, my student passed her exam; I don’t know which of us was more thrilled. I must be numerate but I still class myself as a person who can't do maths and I wonder how I'd get on with that GCSE exam?
Tags: arithmetic, exams, maths
Subscribe
  • Post a new comment

    Error

    switch
    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    When you submit the form an invisible reCAPTCHA check will be performed.
    You must follow the Privacy Policy and Google Terms of use.
    Help
  • 9 comments