Analysis of the May 1998 mathematics SEC paper

Abstract

This dissertation involves an analysis of the May 1998 Mathematics SEC Examination. It is divided into two main parts: Part A entitled 'Item and Error Analysis' and Part B entitled 'Gender Differences'. Part A deals with an item and error analysis of all the three papers constituting the examination under consideration. This analysis is based on a sample of 849 candidates all of whom sat for Paper I, which includes the Mental and the Core papers. Of these 849 candidates, 428 sat for Paper IIA while 421 sat for Paper IIB. Overall, the papers were found to include a balanced amount of easy, moderately difficult and difficult items. A few of the questions set could be improved in clarity by slight language adjustments. Part B treats an analysis on achievement by gender. For this study the marks of the whole population were used, and by working out the differences between the means no significant statistical gender differences were found in each paper except in Paper IIB. In the latter paper, differences were found in favour of males .