Thousands of German students protest against maths exam deemed 'too difficult'

[Tabrotar]

High school, gymnasium, secondary school are the same thing, but they are focusing on different subjects. In gymnasium you are going to learn the basic subjects on a higher level. In highschool (for example IT High School) you are going to learn programming, networking, english and the basic subjects.
Maybe "high school" seems confusing for you.
In my coutry you start in elementary school (8 years) then you can go to secondary school/gymnasium/highschool (we call it "middle school") or vocational school (if you want to be a workman).
After the final exam in highschool, if you earned enough points, you can apply for college/universities.

I thought the same system works in Germany.

We have the Grundschule for 1-4 grade.

Then it decides if you go to the Gymnasium or the Mittelschule/Realschule, where the Gymnasium is the higher learning school.

Gymnasium is 6-8 years from 5-12 grade (depending on the state) and Mittel/Realschule is 6-10 grade.

[Noradin]

This would bit a bit of a problem.

Actually, that is a requirement for all tests in Germany.
On third of the points is awarded for problems not seen before.
You aren't just supposed to demonstrate you can repeat what you did in class, you are supposed to demonstrate you can repeat it, demonstrate you did understand it, and demonstrate you can adapt it. Those are the tree parts.

What is a problem is that the test wasted time on unneccessary texts and didn't offer additional time to compensate.

[Noradin]

I thought the same system works in Germany.

When Germans hear "highschool" they think of "Hochschule" (lit.: "highschool"), which is a college or university.

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Isn't it irrelevant how difficult the exam is, since your results would be compared to those of the other students?

Your results will be compared to students from other years, too.

[Aurrora]

It's not meant to be a practical way to subtract, rather it's a way to test that the children understand how to work with numbers rather than simply blindly following an algorithm. It's something that's difficult to do in schooling.

It tests that they're not blindly following an algorithm... by having them blindly follow a different algorithm.

[PL-Cibo]

Edit:

Not sure if they were posted before, but here are exerpts from the actual exam you're discussing:

https://www.spiegel.de/media/media-44422.pdf
https://www.spiegel.de/media/media-44423.pdf

I suck at maths, I physically detest it, so I'm not even qualified to comment on them or make a proper translation. Perhaps someone with more affinity for fucked up cryptic bullshit can do it so you guys can figure out if you think it's really outrageous or if it should be solveable.

Here's a German maths dude discussing it (in German obviously):

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLy...Js81Z6Ju_Kdbmg

Well I looked trough it. Nothing too hard I would say. Most Questions have clear cut answers, like full numbers or not fractioned functions in case of analysis or curve discussions. Stochastic questions are the same, but then again my math is at university tier and i studied information technologies... So no, i don't think the students are right to complain. But don't know what level you should have at the abitur...

[Gaidax]

Not sure if they were posted before, but here are exerpts from the actual exam you're discussing:

https://www.spiegel.de/media/media-44422.pdf
https://www.spiegel.de/media/media-44423.pdf

From the looks of it it's basic Infinitesimal Calculus mixed with Discrete Mathematics - from the questions the level is not insanely hard really, because students will be studying one step above that in the very first semester in College/University technological field studies.

I think it's fine and it is what people are expected to know entering the college. Humanitarian students do not need this, but I am pretty sure that they can already choose to not study math at this level in the High School.

People who want to go to computer sciences, electronics, physics and so on - will need to know this by the end of first semester in College, let alone University. As a matter of fact it's actually half of what they will need to know at that point, so... stop whining.

[Gaidax]

...and herein lies the problem. You cannot chose. Even if you know you want to study ...say...art, or a language or anything other than physics, science etc..you still have to learn this and take this test. You cannot quit maths (anymore).

I get it. You should have a basic education, you will need maths to a certain degree in your life. Just as you should know the basic history of your country, have a second language (that you often can chose yourself), know some basic biology, chemistry etc etc - but a big percentage will not need maths on this level.

Well then, they can just wear their big boi/gurl pants and do it. That level is nothing to write home about really, high school students can deal with it, it just requires to drop their tinders and snapchats for a moment and sit down and study and not really that much at that.

[Flurryfang]

That's fine...but being just what makes you happy is not what it is always the best for you. If your kid wants a candy because that would make him/her happy would you just stuff it with candies all the time? Or you would feed him/her some healthy food as well no matter how hard does it object?

Being payed well doesn't have to do anything with being happy. Whole point of studying is developing who you are. Some people want to develop who they are and work on themselves and that makes them happy. Those very same people find challanges in studying and learning and others don't. Others rather find a challange in who would look on the outside "more happy" and then judge the people who get payed well how they are "too serious" but they are just smart.

Your comment make it sounds like life can only be good or fufilling if you strive to the top, to be a rocket scientist or enginer.

My point is, that there is nearly an infinite amount of ways to live a good life, where you work and do what you like, not what would be absolute best for you and the world. If you had a kid that asked for candy and you always just stuffed something healthy in him, he will not only resent you, but proberly find a way to get the candy on his own.

Having spent nearly 8 years in the university sphere, i can very much say you, that many people who are challenging themselves, striving for the top and going for the most well paying job, are often also too serious. There are more depressed people and alcoholics in that genre of education for a reason. People see money as the prime value of life, look for the education with the most well paying jobs and go for it. Sure, they are knowable people, but they are not smart. Smart would be knowing your own limits, know that it takes time to know what will make you happy and having the most money as you get, is not a happiness well. Many smart people drop out of STEM fields for reasons other than it is too hard. Doing a job in that area requires a specific personality and attitude towards life and work, and many people learn that it can make you stressed beyond belief and depressed if you force it.

[Gaidax]

Yeah, like that one guy said..it only needs a person who can easily figure this out and go "lol, lazy fuckers"

Didn't have Tinder / snapchat / internet yadayada back in my time and eventually just couldn't keep up with maths. I barely made the pass at 11th grade. (I graded in ALL other subjects I had to take just fine. Not even average...actually good grades. Just bloody maths killed me.)

I know you guys will go "It is just very logical, so because it is logical everyone should be able to do it", so there probably isn't much point if I suggest that the level at which I am skilled at playing an instrument or drawing " is nothing to write home about really, high school students can deal with it".

I just don't get the underlying point WHY it needs to be mandatory at this level. Maybe it isn't arbitrary but it sure feels that way.

Why not make Mandarin mandatory or force everyone into mastering a second language like English?. We would certainly profit more from that.

It is simply down to technique nothing unlike playing instrument or drawing. What this gives is teaching you how to study and that level of math opens and is a requirement for pretty much vast majority of non-humanitarian courses and even some humanitarian ones.

Mandarin on the other hand is not required for studying for dozens of potential career paths in higher education.

Both Calculus and Discreet Mathematics are pretty much a set of algorithms aimed at solving issues, you pick the right solution and execute it, nothing out of this world there. The challenge is that there are a lot of different problems and solutions and you need to know how to identify a pattern to pick proper solution, but other than that? You just need to sit on your ass and study - something you will need to learn to do anyway if you want higher education.

[kamuimac]

Yeah, like that one guy said..it only needs a person who can easily figure this out and go "lol, lazy fuckers"

Didn't have Tinder / snapchat / internet yadayada back in my time and eventually just couldn't keep up with maths. I barely made the pass at 11th grade. (I graded in ALL other subjects I had to take just fine. Not even average...actually good grades. Just bloody maths killed me.)

I know you guys will go "It is just very logical, so because it is logical everyone should be able to do it", so there probably isn't much point if I suggest that the level at which I am skilled at playing an instrument or drawing " is nothing to write home about really, high school students can deal with it".

I just don't get the underlying point WHY it needs to be mandatory at this level. Maybe it isn't arbitrary but it sure feels that way.

Why not make Mandarin mandatory or force everyone into mastering a second language like English?. We would certainly profit more from that.

erm define mandatory . i doubt that things like calculus should be mandatory but its not like that 1 or 2 exercises using calculus that they had were defining for passing mark or not passing.

after all if they dont care to purse carreer in enginering they dont need more then 50-60 % to pass (forgot how it was in high school but thats what most universities use as passing grade)

but i do think that people who want to recive high school diploma should have basic nderstanding of things like algebra , trigonometry , probability etc etc .

after all they went to high school and not technical / job school for a reason .

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Your comment make it sounds like life can only be good or fufilling if you strive to the top, to be a rocket scientist or enginer.

My point is, that there is nearly an infinite amount of ways to live a good life, where you work and do what you like, not what would be absolute best for you and the world. If you had a kid that asked for candy and you always just stuffed something healthy in him, he will not only resent you, but proberly find a way to get the candy on his own.

Having spent nearly 8 years in the university sphere, i can very much say you, that many people who are challenging themselves, striving for the top and going for the most well paying job, are often also too serious. There are more depressed people and alcoholics in that genre of education for a reason. People see money as the prime value of life, look for the education with the most well paying jobs and go for it. Sure, they are knowable people, but they are not smart. Smart would be knowing your own limits, know that it takes time to know what will make you happy and having the most money as you get, is not a happiness well. Many smart people drop out of STEM fields for reasons other than it is too hard. Doing a job in that area requires a specific personality and attitude towards life and work, and many people learn that it can make you stressed beyond belief and depressed if you force it.

the limits are there only to be broken .

those people understand that in order to make a career they need good grades etc.

after all sure you can be a happy wall painter or mechanic .

but those people would be extremly unhappy and depressed if they ended up doing physical labour.

so they aim for the top - and most of them succeds.

[Flurryfang]

erm define mandatory . i doubt that things like calculus should be mandatory but its not like that 1 or 2 exercises using calculus that they had were defining for passing mark or not passing.

after all if they dont care to purse carreer in enginering they dont need more then 50-60 % to pass (forgot how it was in high school but thats what most universities use as passing grade)

but i do think that people who want to recive high school diploma should have basic nderstanding of things like algebra , trigonometry , probability etc etc .

after all they went to high school and not technical / job school for a reason .

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the limits are there only to be broken .

those people understand that in order to make a career they need good grades etc.

after all sure you can be a happy wall painter or mechanic .

but those people would be extremly unhappy and depressed if they ended up doing physical labour.

so they aim for the top - and most of them succeds.

If you push people, they bend or they break. If you can accept the broken, i guess you can gain the bendt, at a price.

The idea, that the way to get a career, is to get good grades is just misidentifying the ways to succes.

Rarely good grades at the higher levels will move you anywhere. Whats important is attitude and connections, then grades really does not matter. I think the entire "grade is the most important thing in the world" is what breaks people. It is what makes people go without sleep for days in a row becasue they fear a grade less than perfect, it is what make girls be depressed and suicidal because they think that a low grade will ruin their life and make them locked in lower positioned jobs.

The people who do well when it really matters, is often the people who are more focused on working on the right thing than making a thing perfect. Instead of getting an A+ on a soulless project, a B on a clearly passsionate project will lead you much further, especially in the IT industry.

If you are in a situation, where you are a grown up and getting grades, doing physical labor as a job is already pushed aside. In my country, you can go directly to the job market after high school and never touch physical labor in your professional life if you want. 9/10 people i know who does physical labour as a job, do it by deliberate choice.

And that is in the end the attitude i try to fight against, that if you don't strive for the top and get really good grades, you are gonna end up a plumber or a road worker. That is simply not true. There is a long way between perfection and failling, and in that area lies 99% of all other jobs, that people find happiness in doing.

[Themius]

Actually, that is a requirement for all tests in Germany.
On third of the points is awarded for problems not seen before.
You aren't just supposed to demonstrate you can repeat what you did in class, you are supposed to demonstrate you can repeat it, demonstrate you did understand it, and demonstrate you can adapt it. Those are the tree parts.

What is a problem is that the test wasted time on unneccessary texts and didn't offer additional time to compensate.

Problems not seen before or concepts not seen before?

[kasuke06]

I don't understand their issue. I had to answer problems we hadn't even discussed in AP comp sci. 3 people passed that year from a class that started with 20, I was one of them.

Fun fact, said test was 2 hours, 4 questions and you had to get 3 to pass, and failing the test was an automatic F in the class.

[Noradin]

Problems not seen before or concepts not seen before?

Concepts, actually.

[Kuntantee]

I hope they do not lower the difficulty, if it is not unusually difficulty, because masses of snowflakes think they are entitled to higher scores.

[ldev]

It's not random. 32-12=20
They start from the second number, and try to get up to 32 in increments of 5 / 10.
12+3=15
15+5=20
20+10=30
30+2=32
3+5+10+2=20

With small numbers like this... it's really pointless. It's more work writing it all down than just getting the answer in a fraction of that time.
I mean... you can calculate addition and subtraction with 6 digit numbers in your head usually.

Ooooh.
So like
12 + 8 = 20
20 + 10 = 30
30 + 2 = 32
8 + 10 + 2 = 20

Kay. Logical, but pointless.

I can go
12 + 20 = 32
20 = 20

It shows how we get there, but doesn't teach how to calculate?

[Kakylukia]

Your comment make it sounds like life can only be good or fufilling if you strive to the top, to be a rocket scientist or enginer.


My point is, that there is nearly an infinite amount of ways to live a good life, where you work and do what you like, not what would be absolute best for you and the world. If you had a kid that asked for candy and you always just stuffed something healthy in him, he will not only resent you, but proberly find a way to get the candy on his own.

That is not what my comment was about. Just as you say that there is an infinite amount of ways to live a good life, for some people good life is when they can get things done by using their educational progress. I never once said that it is the only way to live a good life.

If you had a kid that asked for candy and you always just stuffed something healthy in him, he will not only resent you, but proberly find a way to get the candy on his own.

You do not gain the love of your kid by avoiding a possibility that kid will "resent you". There is something called "tough love" that I can already see you will call me a tyrant just by mentioning it. It is something where you make the best version of your kid, while making hard decisions even when you don't want to say it to the kid and when you know your kid doesn't want to hear it. It is not about dictatorship but rather making an order out of chaos that otherwise would be there.

Having spent nearly 8 years in the university sphere, i can very much say you, that many people who are challenging themselves, striving for the top and going for the most well paying job, are often also too serious.There are more depressed people and alcoholics in that genre of education for a reason. People see money as the prime value of life, look for the education with the most well paying jobs and go for it.

If people study to strive for the top to get most well paying job, no wonder they are fucked up. Their self-esteem is already so low that they do not follow their inner core of who they are but rather external which in this case is money. As someone who spent 6 years in university sphere and 4 years working as software developer I can tell you that people with low self-esteem are easily recognizable and they do not last long. They either change to those who have good self-esteem or they leave because they are deep into their issues where they measure money as prime value of life. The directors of company I work at are this people. Am I? Of course not. Is my manager? Hell no. I just say this to point out how people who do studies are either money-hungry-prime-life-valued or they are not. It is not that they are just money hungry.

Sure, they are knowable people, but they are not smart. Smart would be knowing your own limits, know that it takes time to know what will make you happy and having the most money as you get, is not a happiness well. Many smart people drop out of STEM fields for reasons other than it is too hard. Doing a job in that area requires a specific personality and attitude towards life and work, and many people learn that it can make you stressed beyond belief and depressed if you force it.

There is quite a difference when you study to be smart or better say "learning how to think" and when you study just to pass or better said "learning what to think". This is why the issue of diploma today where everyone can have it exists. That is why employees don't realy care for your diploma if you can not think. Smart would be to: when you play a game you do not focus on one field of it when there is 5 of fields to play in.

Many smart people drop out of STEM fields for reasons other than it is too hard. Doing a job in that area requires a specific personality and attitude towards life and work, and many people learn that it can make you stressed beyond belief and depressed if you force it.

I find this a little bit odd to say, because if they were "smart" as you put it, why would be they doing it in the first place? My experience , from what I've seen about people who drop out from STEM fields is because they started out of reason to get more money and then they realized they can not do it. But that is again a question of: did they drop out because not everyone can do it and it is hard? Or they are yet again insecure in what they want to do.

You just can not make things black and white. Your comment sounds to me like one of those people who justify why something is bad, or has a bit of envy towards people who find it easy in doing what they like to do and get it all. But the truth is that no one has it all, everyone pays the price of somekind somewhere, it is more a question of how an individual is ready to deal with that price. I can tell you my example in short:

I do gain more then most here where I live and I do see how sometimes people forget I am a human but want of me to say something majectic that would justify that what I do and how much I earn. I don't do that and then they hate me because I am honest, carying and kind guy. It just doesn't get to their minds how is it possible I have it and they don't? But they do not understand that I was rather rejected by everyone because I never fit in with the way I think and I am like this since I was a kid. I had quite issues just because I was "thinking" more then others. So I always payed that price because of who I am. And I always will I guess but it payed off trough the work I've been doing but to me it came easier then the most.

So as I said already, it is not for everyone and it is hard.