Prevalent Complaints in MATSEC Examinations - May 2015 sitting by Pulse Malta

Prevalent Complaints in MATSEC examinations MATSEC MAY 2015 SESSION

Introduction: Pulse opened a complaint system for students to be able to submit any issues concerning their examinations on May 26th 2015, following which a number of students sent in their complaints on the following subjects: Pure Maths (Intermediate & Advanced) Physics Biology Geography Computing Marketing

Pure Maths: On 26th May, 2015, Pulse representatives met Professor Frank Ventura and Mr. Dario Pirotta and discussed the issue with regard to the Maths Intermediate examination so as to obtain a clarification. This was done prior to Pulse issuing a statment; in so doing ascertaining that the MATSEC board is not incorrecly interpreted. During the meeting, we were told that the examiners shall be correcting the paper as per procedure. It is after this that should there be a problem with any question, in particular question 10 that the question itself would be disregarded. Following this meeting that the MATSEC Board issued a statement of its own, confirming that question 10 was not covered by the syllabus. Pure (Advanced Level) - Regarding Maths Advanced Level, the question arose on the difficulty of the paper, to which a student stated “the questions were very hard to comprehend due to complexity in meaning and understanding”.

Physics Questions: There was no speciﬁc question, mainly about the overall setup. It was alleged that the questions were complex and not comprehendible to the required extent, in turn making it hard for students to be able to fuﬁll what was asked of them in the allotted time frame.

Biology: Questions: The complaints received were on the following questions: Paper 2 - no. 1 Paper 3 - no. 2.3 Paper 3 - no. 3.2 Queries regarding these questions were sent by some students to Mr. Pirotta who replied with acknowledgement to such complaints. Paper 2 - no.1: In the email sent to the students he said that they should have covered this (extinction) under the SEC syllabus, which the students themselves acknowledge. Paper 3 - no.2.3: Mr. Pirotta acknowledged the mistake the students complained of. So much so that he added that “in view of this candidates will be compensated.” Paper 3 - no.3.2: Mr. Pirotta replied to the student stating the question was covered at SEC Level and that this should be part of the general knowledge expected to be possessed by students. In this regard however, Pulse expects further clarity in the future in order for students to be better aware of what degree of general knowledge they are expected to have.

Geography: Questions: The complaints received were on the following questions: Paper 1 - Section C - no.8 (missing value) Paper 2 - Section A - no.2 (mediterranean hurricanes) Paper 3 - Section A - no.1 (misleading words) It is important to start off by noting that according to the complainants, all of these questions have been confirmed by the lecturers themselves, who confirmed with the complaining students that they were either impossible to work out, not in the syllabus or has misleading words, thus, placing the students at a disadvantage. Paper 1 - Section C - no.8: We were told that the question had a missing value. This being the case, it was not possible for the students to work it out. It was thus inevitable that the students will lose marks. Should compensation of marks be given, Pulse requests that the MATSEC Board informs students on what form of remedy it will seek. Paper 2 - Section A - no.2.: Students approached us after confirming with their respective lecturers that this question was not in the syllabus. The question was about Mediterranean hurricanes, when in fact they had covered tropical hurricanes in the syllabus; once again placing the student at a disadvantage. Paper 3 - Section A - no.1: Some words were misleading, these being “developed and developing”. We were told by those student that it is a general practice that words similar to each other should be made in bold, underlined or in block letter - a rule which according to the student who sat for the examination, the MATSEC examiners who set the paper failed to do.

Computing: Questions: The complaints received were on the following questions: Paper 1- Section A - nos 1b & 2 Paper 1 - Section B - nos 8b, 12b, 13, 15 & 18 Paper 2 - nos 6 - Part a (iii & iv) & 7d This subject is worrying to us due to the fact that as one can notice above there are a lot of questions which according to the students had a lot of mistake. Once again bringing us to pose the question; where does this leave the student? Paper 1 - Section A - no.1b: The students noted that the question was ambiguous, as well as that it might be plagiarised from the following source: http://stackoverflow.com/a40523/1708818. One student further noted that the contributions to this website are licensed under the CC-BY SA 3.0 License, which means that attribution is required and the question must be shared under the same license. Unfortunately it seems that MATSEC failed on both accounts. Paper 1 - Section A - no.2.: The examiner asked of the student to identify 5 differences between the object-oriented paradigm and imperative paradigm. The students noted that this question could be answered only with 3 differences, as they were taught under the syllabus of Module 8. Paper 1 - Section B - no.8b: This question confused some students as to whether they actually had to identify what a translator was or its subdivisions. Paper 1 - Section B - no.12.: There was mention of the “software development cycle”, which was not mentioned in the syllabus. Paper 1 - Section B - no. 13.: Once again the student who brought forward his concern with respect to this question explained that it was inconsistent and did form part of the syllabus. Paper 1 - Section B - no.15.: There was a mishap or type as to the terms employee” and “employees”. A typo which could have actually created an issue

due to the very notion that should such table (as this was what was mentioned in the exam paper) been run, it would have in turn produced an error, making it impossible to run. Paper 1 - Section B - no. 18.: Once more students were asked to answer a question to which they did not have the full knowledge of, since there was a part of question 18 which was not in the syllabus. Paper 2 - no. 6 (Part A (iii &iv)): There was the same inconsistency as seen under Paper 1 - Section B - question 12. Unfortunately, “software development lifecycle” is nowhere to be found in the syllabus. Paper 2 - 7d: Students were asked to give an approximation of the time it took to sort a lost on the same computer though with 2n terms. Such being a topic with according to the said student was not in the syllabus. As a result the students were not able to work this question, as they did not possess the necessary knowledge.

Marketing: Questions: No actual questions were referred to, though students spoke of the paper in general. A-level: There were questions on VMS and casual research which were not in this year’s syllabus but in the one which is set to start as of 2017. Intermediate: Students complained of a question on price elasticity demand which was in fact part of the syllabus of those studying Marketing at A-level.