Exam Time!

Now that Form 2 and Form 4 have finished their National Examinations, it’s about time for Forms 1 and 3 to take their terminal examinations. In both of my classes, we have spent the past few weeks reviewing various topics from the syllabus, taking practice exams, and preparing to take the final exam for the year. My students take every exam very seriously, and most have been studying hard in order to do well. It’s been interesting seeing their progress on recent exams, especially in Form 1. I gave them an exam a few weeks ago, without warning, that covered every topic from Form 1 that they are expected to know according to the syllabus. It was 20 questions, each worth 5 points, and the class average was 18/100. Two boys scored over 50%, and the high score was a 70%. Clearly, we needed some review. Everyday since then, we’ve covered a different topic, reviewing rules and examples before the students practice on their own. I’ve given them two smaller exams since then, both only 10 questions each, and thankfully we’ve seen some improvement! The class stats for both exams were nearly identical, with an average of 4/10, 22 students passing with 50% or more, and 2 students scoring 100% on each. Overall, I was pleased with the improvements, but it is still difficult knowing that there are 40 students who did not pass, with a dozen scoring 0 or 1 out of 10. These scores seem so low, but then I have to remember that there are so many factors affecting these students in and out of the classroom. Let’s imagine for a minute here: You have missed the past few days at school because you needed to work in your family’s shamba/fields or take care of younger siblings and the house. You are finally able to come to school again, but to get there you must wake up and start walking before the sunrise. You walk 5 to 10 kilometers to school, without food or water, and arrive in time to do some cleaning on the school grounds. When classes finally start at 8am, let’s say your foreign teacher walks in, greets you in a language you don’t understand, and tells you there is an exam today. She gives you 5 minutes to study, but since you’ve missed school for a few days, you have no notes to study from. Then she writes the exam on the board, in English, which you still don’t understand, and expects you to figure out the complicated mathematics behind it all. At this point, a score of 4 sounds pretty good, doesn’t it??

            Now, I’ve also neglected to mention the difficulty of the syllabus in Tanzania. It’s unlike math education in America, where the general format of high school math classes is Algebra freshman year, Geometry sophomore year, Algebra 2 junior year, Trigonometry/Pre-Calculus/Statistics senior year. Here, there is a syllabus of mixed topics for each year. Unfortunately I do not have my syllabus with me as I am writing this, but I do have my final exams for Form 1 and Form 3. This will give you a little taste of the material I am teaching, and the level of mathematics the students are expected to know.