Not here yet.

NY State is cheating. Well, no, but sort of.

NY State hired a private company to cheat for them. They are peeking at your scores, and after they’ve counted and mulled and counted some more, they will decide on the passing score. And the 85 score.

Here’s the long version:

(and if you want to look, here’s the multiple choice section)

Because this is the first year New York State gave the exam, and because they are unsure of how to write an exam, they devised an extraordinary procedure.

First they make all the teachers in all the schools across the State grade the exams very quickly, and find the raw scores. We did that Tuesday afternoon and finished Wednesday morning.

Then they made us ship all the forms to the vendor’s facility in Arkansas or Montana or somewhere else not in NY.

Then, remember how the forms looked, with lots of extra bubbles on the back? That was so the vendor could scan all the forms, and collect stats on which questions kids scored how many points on, and prepare a report.

Then a group of teachers from around the state go to Albany and look at the report, and assign value or difficulty to each question.

Then that report and the original report are summarized and presented to a panel of teachers, assistant principals, principals, math chairmen, special ed coordinators, curriculum coordinators, superintendents, board of education members (and I’m missing some). This panel then decides what score represents passing and what score represents “mastery.”  I sat on this panel for Integrated Algebra two years ago (and was easily at three extremes – the least powerful position since I was just a teacher, the least impressively dressed, no jacket, no tie, and the most annoying, but not in a fun way).

Finally New York State takes those two numbers, passing and mastery, and sets those two numbers at 65 and 85, set 88 raw points at 100, set 0 at 0, and then fit a cubic function to the four points. That’s how they get the scale. You can use a cubic regression, same result.

Except, I don’t know how much New York State does, and how much the vendor does. The vendor is a private company. Pearson.

The process feels iffy to me.

But this is exactly what is happening in Albany now (if they are done scanning the forms at the company’s facility in Iowa or Texas or somewhere else not in New York).

And this is why the conversion chart will not come out until June 24.

At least in time for report cards… I hope.

June 17, 2010 pm30 9:50 pm 9:50 pm

whats ur gut feeling on this generous curve or just a normal curve like every other math regetns

June 17, 2010 pm30 9:57 pm 9:57 pm

Oh, for the good old days of 30 multiple choice questions weighted 2 points each and the student’s choice of 4 out of 7 ten point questions to make up 100/100 points. There was not as much “voodoo mathematics” back in the day – and the answer sheets never had to leave the school!

June 17, 2010 pm30 9:59 pm 9:59 pm

The process seems unfair…just can’t put my finger on what’s bothering me somehow. I guess it’s all the ‘passing around’ and the panels etc. If they can make their own regent, those same people should be able to mark it, right? And if not- something is fishy, and unfair in that process. Let’s protest! Just kidding- it doesn’t bother me THAT much

June 17, 2010 pm30 10:07 pm 10:07 pm

you said you can’t scan the exam (i assume that’s because it’s too time consuming) but thanks for the pictures! Maybe in the same manner can you take a picture of the one page of the answer sheet for the mult. choice? Everyone wants the answers

June 17, 2010 pm30 11:04 pm 11:04 pm

I was wondering same thing as Ray.

• June 17, 2010 pm30 11:16 pm 11:16 pm

Will do.

June 17, 2010 pm30 11:49 pm 11:49 pm

What about the short answers? Is it possible to get those posted?

June 17, 2010 pm30 11:59 pm 11:59 pm

All my m/c matched the ones he posted, I’m sure these are all correct:

28. +/- 4
29. population standard deviation 7.4
30. sum = -11/6 or -2.2 and product = -3/5 or -0.6
31. graph and y = 0 for the asymptote
33. exact value of sin 240 is NEGATIVE radical 3 over 2
34. 604 square feet for the area of the parallelogram
35. (d-8)/5
36. probability to the nearest thousandth, 0.167
37. 0, 60, 180, 300
38. Tennessee = 3780, Vermont = 5040, thus Carol is not correct
39. 33 degrees.

Unless you want to see work, and I didn’t originally post, some guy by the name of LI math teacher did on some other post on this blog, but he seems realible/

5. June 18, 2010 am30 12:04 am 12:04 am

Noel,

all correct, except for

30. I assume that’s a typo, should be $-\frac{11}{5}$

32. Both you and the Regents are wrong. Answer should be $-|x| \sqrt{3x}$

June 18, 2010 am30 12:07 am 12:07 am

30 yeah sorry it is 5, i did put 5 on my test, hmm didn;t notice when I copied pasted the guys short answer, yeah it should be -11/5.

32) I don’t understand can you explain why the absolute value of x?

June 18, 2010 am30 12:14 am 12:14 am

I don’t remember question fully, but I remember at end it was like:

5x sqrt(3x) – 6x sqrt(3x)

That yields -x sqrt(3x)

Where do you get [abs] from. If x is negative there is no solution in the real number system anyway because in the sqrt there is (3x). So the domain would have to x>/ 0.

• June 18, 2010 am30 12:26 am 12:26 am

I posted here.

In general the square root of a square is the absolute value of the number. For example the square root of -10 squared is 10.

One would not be justified in assuming x non-negative without stating so…

It’s not right to talk about a solution here, since we are not solving, but simplifying an expression.

jd

June 22, 2010 pm30 8:21 pm 8:21 pm

Can you explain the probability problem?

June 18, 2010 am30 12:18 am 12:18 am

im with the Noel guy on this one…that makes no sense!

June 18, 2010 am30 12:20 am 12:20 am

does anyone remember the original equation for the answer that ended up being d-8/5?

• June 18, 2010 am30 12:29 am 12:29 am

That one is $\frac{\frac{1}{2} - \frac{4}{d}}{\frac{1}{d} + \frac{3}{2d}}$

June 18, 2010 am30 12:40 am 12:40 am

yeah…thanx so much!

June 18, 2010 am30 12:43 am 12:43 am

yeah…i had a question on that problem…how did u get d-8/5…cause on my exam i kept gettin d-8/5d n i dont no what i kept doin wrong!

June 18, 2010 am30 12:46 am 12:46 am

[(1/2) – (4/d)] / [(1/d) + (3/2d)]

Multiply top and bottom by [2d/2d]

(d – 4(2)) / (2 + 3)

(d – 8) / 5

June 18, 2010 am30 12:46 am 12:46 am

oh…i just realized my mistake..shoot..oh well!

June 18, 2010 am30 1:19 am 1:19 am

hmm I’m going to say that I’m going to stop posting, and focus on my two other regents that are next week. I’ll check on 25th or 28th one last time, to see how everyone did, even if I get 100 by the state, it isn’t a 100 because 32 is wrong. So sorry to those who I may of offended or anything in my posts, I didn’t mean it, and I guess if you felt I was hounding here, I really didn’t have anything better to do. Good luck to all with scores and other regents if you have any.

June 18, 2010 pm30 1:08 pm 1:08 pm

Hey where is the conversion chart? The real one?

June 18, 2010 pm30 10:18 pm 10:18 pm

It hasn’t been posted yet, and might not be until the 24th.

June 19, 2010 pm30 3:12 pm 3:12 pm

Gracias!

June 19, 2010 pm30 3:12 pm 3:12 pm

Grasias!

June 21, 2010 pm30 4:44 pm 4:44 pm

For 28 it is not +/- 4. it is just +4. If you used -4 you would not have equal roots as the questions said witch would be the value for k that has equal roots and equal to 0. Roots for +4 came out to both 2 which are equal of course, and roots for -4 came out to be +2 and -2 and those are not equal.

June 22, 2010 am30 1:25 am 1:25 am

I don’t remember the exact wording of the question, but I think -4 does work, and that seems to be agreed on by everyone else, also. I could help you more if you remember the question.

June 23, 2010 am30 12:39 am 12:39 am

Now that 28 has been posted on this blog, I can help you.
First, you should label a, b, and c. a=1, b=-k, and c=4
Now, you use the discriminant, which is the part of the quadratic formula under the square root sign. The roots can only be equal if the discriminant is equal to zero, so set it equal to zero:
b^2-4ac=0 (b^2 = b squared)
(-k)^2-4(1)(4)=0
(-1)^2*(k)^2-4(1)(4)=0 (this step just serves to get rid of the negative sign)
(k)^2-16=0
+16 to each side
(k)^2=16
sqrt each side
k=+/-4 ((-4)^2 = 16)

Check by plugging it in:
x^2-(-4)x+4=0
x^2+4x+4=0
(x+2)(x+2)=0
x=-2

June 23, 2010 pm30 12:31 pm 12:31 pm

x^2 -4x +4
The solutions are both -2

x^2 +4x +4
The solutions are both +2

b^2 – 4ac if you do algebraically will have + and – 4 for solution = 0

June 21, 2010 pm30 6:35 pm 6:35 pm

I feel they should give a generous curve, that atleast most students should be able to pass.