Can you answer these NCEA level one maths questions?

  • 21/11/2017

Students across the country have been left distraught after an extremely difficult NCEA level one maths exam. 

Teachers are complaining to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Tables, Equations and Graphs, Geometric Reasoning and Chance and Data papers were labelled a "disaster".

Student Lavanya Gupta says a new style of questioning left her without options to study in previous papers and shocked by the difficulty of the questions.

"Remembering one of the questions, I later showed to my father who is an engineer. Upon looking at the question my father was baffled, he knew how to answer but using high level math that was not taught to use."

Due to the release of the exam papers today, readers have been given the opportunity to try the questions for themselves. Below are three example questions, one from each of the exam papers.

Geometric Reasoning:

Can you answer these NCEA level one maths questions?
Photo credit: New Zealand Qualifications Authority

The kite GDBE is placed in the square ACHF. DG = GB = EG.

Calculate the size, x, of angle DBE.

Tables, equations and Graphs:

Can you answer these NCEA level one maths questions?
Photo credit: New Zealand Qualifications Authority

In a children's playground there is a rope hanging from two points, A and B, on a horizontal beam. A and B are 6 metres apart. 

The lowest point of the rope is 1 m above the ground. The shape of the rope can be modelled by y = x 3 ( x p) + 4 where y is the height above the ground, and x is the distance from A. 

How high above the ground is A?

Chance and Data:

Can you answer these NCEA level one maths questions?
Photo credit: New Zealand Qualifications Authority

Ngaire wants to buy a car. She took a sample of cars and drew a graph of the age of the cars (in years) and the distance they had travelled (in kilometres). 

State the relationship that exists between the age of cars and the distance they have travelled AND find the average change in distance travelled by a car each year as the age increases

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