Farcical Scholarship exam exposed

More flaws have been exposed in national scholarship exams after revelations students needed only 18 per cent to pass last year's calculus exam.

Despite assurances from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority that there would not be a repeat of the 2004 scholarship debacle, 227 students out of the 970 who sat the calculus exam scored zero, while a further 195 students scored between 1 and 5 per cent.

In fact, the three-hour paper was so tough the head of mathematics at one of the country's top academic schools took more than five hours to complete it. Other maths teachers, all with honours degrees, could not even finish it.

There appear to be similar problems with scholarship biology exams, which were heavily scaled after only one student received an outstanding pass mark. After re-marking, a further 16 were bumped up to an outstanding scholarship.

There are also issues with the statistics scholarship exam with teachers upset that "brilliant solutions" to six- or eight-point questions were given no marks because students omitted something as simple as a dollar sign.

But teachers say the worst inconsistencies have emerged in calculus, an exam they say was too difficult. Elite students had failed because of a "bloody-minded" marking schedule.

Macleans College student Adam Walker got 95 per cent in the equivalent Cambridge calculus exam but scraped through scholarship with just 37 out of 120. He could do only small parts of each question.

"It was ridiculously hard. After sitting it I knew I wouldn't get over 50 per cent ... I thought I wouldn't get a scholarship. I'm used to exams - they can be difficult, but you can work through it. This was just too hard," he said.

In 2004, 4500 students sat scholarship, but their results were inconsistent. Hundreds who had performed well all year failed the exams, prompting the Government to take the unprecedented step of introducing "distinction certificates".

The high-profile casualty of the scholarship fiasco was NZQA head Karen Van Rooyen, who resigned in May last year after a highly critical State Services Commission report.

NZQA head Karen Sewell told the Herald on Sunday yesterday that calculus was a very difficult exam, but there was a "perverse fairness" in that all students were still faced with the same questions. She insisted every paper and every question had been checked, and was absolutely confident students had received appropriate scholarships no matter what their raw score.

Ms Sewell said the issue of awarding partial marks had been raised, but she thought that system was more appropriate for university-level exams. In scholarships, students were supposed to "be able to show us what they can do".

The calculus exam was marked out of 120 with the top mark, 91, scored by Burnside College's Heather Macbeth.

Of the 970 who sat the exam, only 25 students scored more than 47 marks, but the authority stuck to a predetermined 3 per cent target and awarded scholarships to the top 2.98 per cent of students sitting level 3 calculus. That meant students who scored 18 per cent in the exam were awarded scholarships.

John Hattie, a member of the Scholarship Technical Advisory Group, said the exams were written a year and a half ago, before the watchdog group was formed.

"It was too late for us when we came on to have a major effect on the exams. I'm not saying it's all perfect, but I'm very confident that the right kids got it [scholarship]."

The calculus exam had been "extremely difficult," he said, but the group had looked at students' NCEA Level 3 marks in their scholarship subjects to make sure there were no inconsistencies.

Tomorrow the group would meet markers and examiners to discuss the 2006 exams and the possibility of introducing partial marks instead of the all-or-nothing system. He said the 227 students who scored zero in the calculus exam - but who may have made only simple mistakes - could not be scaled in any way.

David Bridges, deputy principal at Auckland's King's College, said the only way teachers knew of the "strange" results was through students who had brought their papers to school for checking.

"It's ridiculous, it's embarrassing actually. The problem is it was just ridiculously hard."

The teacher, who took more than five hours to complete the three-hour calculus exam, said: "What is a poor teenager, probably taught by a teacher who couldn't begin to do the paper, supposed to do in three hours?" He had written to Ms Sewell asking her to sort out the "mess".

"What sort of a future lies ahead if the best and brightest are treated in this disgraceful way?"

- HERALD ON SUNDAY