In the third instalment of our coverage of the National Senior Certificate exams we look at mathematics, a subject that has come under increased scrutiny since the abolishment of the higher and standard grades.
Judith Crosswell the head of mathematics at Norman Henshilwood High School in the Western Cape says both the pure Mathematics and Mathematics Literacy papers were fair.
“I only had a brief look over the papers, but it seems the department kept almost exactly to the exemplar,” she said.
Crosswell was impressed with the standard of the paper, and says there were no real surprises in the three-hour exam.
“The standard of the paper was almost exactly as they (the department) said it would be and I think they were very cautious when setting the questions.”
Although she feels all learners would have been comfortable with the level of difficulty of the questions, Crosswell would have liked to see some ‘tougher questions to challenge the more advanced learners’.
However, Judith found the Mathematics Paper 2 more of a challenge for the learners, in both mathematics and maths literacy.
“There was nothing unexpected about the line of questioning, but there were some areas that were definitely trickier this time around,” she said.