Teachers Defend Higher Maths Exam Despite Student Concerns
Teachers have defended a controversial Higher Maths exam paper after students told BBC Scotland News that it was "unrecognisable" compared to the papers they had prepared for in class.
More than 14,000 individuals have signed a petition calling for a review of the exam paper, describing it as "poorly worded, inconsistently structured, and out of step with every previous paper".
Students reported that the wording of the questions was confusing, leaving them uncertain about what was being asked. However, teachers have maintained that the exam was fair and consistent with previous years' papers.
Qualifications Scotland, the newly established exam authority, stated that all papers undergo checks to ensure they are "clear, fair and suitable".
This is the first year of exams administered by Qualifications Scotland, which replaced the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) earlier in the year. The SQA was disbanded following criticism from educators and politicians, partly due to its handling of exam grading during the Covid-19 pandemic and issues with the 2024 Higher history exam paper.
The Higher Maths exam consists of two papers, both of which have presented challenges for students, although the petition specifically addresses concerns with paper one.
Teacher Perspectives on the Exam
Andrew Moulden, a qualified maths teacher and operator of the maths resource website maths.scot, stated that the paper was fair and comparable to previous exams.
"I run maths.scot and I'm very, very close to all of these questions," he said.
"I have a good idea of what's come up back to the year 2000. This was nothing special."
Moulden explained that he had compared the command words — terms that indicate how students should answer questions — with those in previous papers, noting that all had appeared before.
"There was no phraseology at all that was out of the ordinary," he added.
"It's a bit of a mystery to me really. The experience of the students is, of course, undeniable, it's clear that a lot of them were thrown sideways. But we don't know why."
He also noted that it is not unusual for questions to cover two different subjects or for the exam to focus more heavily on particular course material.
Moulden added that some questions are designed to "separate those who have a really deep, solid understanding of the intricacies of a topic, and those who don't."
David Clelland, a maths teacher who runs the YouTube channel Clelland Maths, described the paper as "quite a high pressure paper and hard in places."
"I run a last-minute livestream the night before the exam, and a lot of the questions I went through were pretty much in the exam.
Obviously things were different, but in terms of the style and words - and I made that up based on previous exam papers."
"I feel bad for the pupils that feel really bad about it," he said.
"But at the same time, although the paper might have been a bit more challenging than last year's paper, it isn't beyond the realms of what we'd expect."
Clelland noted that the command words used were not unusual, but some questions were "quite abstract" and "different to what pupils were expecting."
He emphasized that grade boundaries are flexible each year during marking.
Approximately 20,000 pupils sat the Higher Maths exam last year.
Student Experiences and Concerns
Darcy Ford, a 16-year-old from Renfrewshire, told the BBC she had been predicted to achieve an A grade in maths throughout the year.
"When I was working through them, I found that the question wording and formatting is actually very consistent," she said.
"But compared to the questions in our exam this year, they were unrecognisable.
"I spoke to a lot of people that sat the exam as well, and people are under a huge amount of pressure now because they feel that the effort they put into the exam will not be reflected in their final grade. And they think this could seriously impact their future."
Darcy is aspiring to pursue a career in engineering.
"Obviously maths is one of the main subjects required for that and it's a very competitive field," she added.
"But now I am concerned that my maths grade is going to hold me back."
She has submitted a complaint to Qualifications Scotland regarding the exam and suggested that cut-off marks should be adjusted to account for the difficulties encountered.
Arran Bauer, a 16-year-old from Stirling, described the final question in paper one as a "total curveball."
"It was very weird language, and there were quite a few questions within there that were not standard practice and I had to stare at the question for a while to figure out what was going on."
"The language was similar to past papers in the 2000s, but it was not routine to the modern day higher."
"There were definitely a few spread throughout the paper where it was different wording that they hadn't used before, but I kind of recognised the question type, which helped me answer the question."
Qualifications Scotland Response
A spokesperson for Qualifications Scotland stated:
"We welcome all feedback. We know sitting exams can be a stressful and challenging time and learners will feel differently about how each exam has gone for them.
We also receive feedback from teachers and the maths community, who have said that while challenging, they found the exam to be fair.
Exam papers can vary in difficulty year by year and this is taken into account during our normal marking and grading process so learners can be assured that their final grades fairly reflect their achievements and maintain standards."
