Testing

On question 32 of the January, 2018 Common Core Algebra 1 Regents exam, students were asked to explain why a quadratic whose graph is given might have a particular set of factors. Here are two sample student responses from the state-produced Model Response Set.

On the left, the student says “Yes”, sets each factor to 0 and solves, and produces the roots x = -2 and x = 3. On the right, the student says “Yes, because the x-intercepts are (-2,0) and (3,0).”

One of these responses received full credit, the other half credit. I posted this to Twitter and invited people to guess.

One of these responses got full credit, the other got half credit. Which is which?#math #mathchat pic.twitter.com/4fw1QK2GWP

— Patrick Honner (@MrHonner) February 11, 2018

According to the official scoring guide, the response on the right earned full credit: it is a “complete and correct response”. The response on the left earned half credit, because the student “gave a justification, not an explanation.”

It seemed as though the majority of respondents on Twitter favored the response on the left; a few even specifically said it offered a better “explanation” than the full-credit response. Many did choose the response on the right, especially those familiar with how New York’s Regents exams are scored.

To me, both answers are unsatisfying. The full-credit response offers an “explanation” but is devoid of justification: the student doesn’t make the connection between the x-intercepts and the roots. The half-credit response derives the roots algebraically, but fails to explicitly connect the roots to the intercepts. It’s hard for me to accept that one of these responses is substantially better than the other: both responses expect the reader to fill in an equally important gap.

It’s also hard for me to accept what counts as “explanation” here. Several teachers familiar with New York’s Regents exams commented that, in this context, “explain” simply means use words. And we’ve seen example after example of ridiculous “explanations” on these exams. It sends the wrong message to students and teachers about what constitutes mathematics, and since the message is transmitted via high-stakes exams, it can’t be ignored.

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In a controversial post last year, I argued that it’s perfectly acceptable to work on both sides of an equation in proving an algebraic identity. While it’s common to tell students “You can’t cross the equal sign” in this situation, doing so is mathematically legitimate as long as the new equation is true under exactly the same circumstances as the original.

For example, when proving an algebraic identity, multiplying both sides of an equation by 2 is permissible, because x = y and 2x = 2y are true under exactly the same conditions on x and y. Squaring both sides of an equation however, is not, since

can be true under conditions that make x = y false, say, when x = 2 and y = -2.

The post in question, “Algebra is Hard”, was a response to a June 2016 Regents scoring guide that deducted a point from a student who, in proving an algebraic identity, multiplied both sides of the equation by a non-zero quantity. The student was penalized for “not manipulating expressions independently in an algebraic proof“, a vague and meaningless criticism.

“Algebra is Hard” received quite a bit of attention, and while many agreed with me, I was genuinely surprised at how many readers disagreed. Which was terrific! Of course my argument makes perfect sense to me, but it was great to have so many constructive conversations with teachers and mathematicians who saw things differently.

But my argument recently received support from the most unlikely of sources: another Regents exam.

Take a look at this exemplar full-credit student response to an algebraic identity on the August 2017 Algebra 2 exam.

Notice that the student works on both sides of the equation and subtracts the same quantity from both sides. Even though the student did not manipulate expressions independently in an algebraic proof, full credit was awarded.

The note here about domain restrictions is an amusing touch, given that it was the explicit domain restriction in the problem from 2016 that ensured the student wasn’t doing something impermissible (namely, multiplying both sides of an equation by 0).

So in 2016 this work gets half credit, and in 2017 this work gets full credit.

While it’s nice to see mathematically valid work finally receiving full credit on this type of problem, it’s no consolation to the many students who lost points for doing the same thing the year before. What’s especially frustrating is that, as usual, those responsible for creating these exams will admit no error nor accept any responsibility for it.

Be sure to read “Algebra is Hard” (and some of the 40+ comments!) for more of the backstory on this problem.

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High school math courses contain more statistics than ever, which means more statistics questions on end-of-year exams.  Sometimes these questions make me wonder what test makers think we are supposed to be teaching.  Here are two examples from the June, 2017 exams.

First, number 15 from the June, 2017 Common Core Algebra exam.

This question puzzled me.  The only unambiguous answer choice is (3), which can be quickly eliminated.  The other answer choices all involve descriptors that are not clearly defined:  “evenly spread”, “skewed”, and “outlier”.

The correct answer is (4).  I agree that “79 is an outlier” is the best available answer, but it’s curious that the exam writers pointed out that an outlier would affect the standard deviation of a set of data.  Of course, every piece of data affects the standard deviation of a data set, not just outliers.

From the Common Core Algebra 2 exam, here is an excerpt from number 35, a question about simulation, inference, and confidence intervals.

I can’t say I understand the vision for statistics in New York’s Algebra 2 course, but I know one thing we definitely don’t want to do is propagate dangerous misunderstandings like “A 95% confidence interval means we are 95% confident of our results”.  We must expect better from our exams.

UPDATE: Amy Hogan (@alittlestats) has written a nice follow up post here.

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