Written by B.A. Birch

Educators across the US are on red alert as students begin to gain access to sophisticated gadgets that help them cheat. Going as far as to digitally insert answers into soft drink labels, kids are finding new ways to deceive educators and exam boards, writes Greg Toppo at USA Today.

“There’s an epidemic of cheating,” says Robert Bramucci, vice chancellor for technology and learning services at South Orange Community College District. “We’re not catching them. We’re not even sure it’s going on.”

There are companies thriving on providing these kits for students. One, called Spycheatstuff.com, allows students to mail-order a kit that turns a cellphone or iPod into a hands-free personal cheating device featuring tiny wireless earbuds that allow a test-taker to discreetly “phone a friend” during a test and get answers remotely without putting down the pencil, writes Toppo.

A new study by Common Sense Media has found that more than 35% of teens ages 13 to 17 with cellphones have used the devices to cheat.

52% of those polled admitted to some form of cheating involving the Internet.

Earlier this year, Omar Shahid Khan, 21, an Orange County student, pleaded guilty to stealing Advanced Placement tests and altering college transcripts. Khan is said to have hacked into the school’s grading system by installing spyware on school computers.

“This is about the pressures that kids are feeling in school,” says Jill Madenberg, a Great Neck, N.Y., college consultant. “The pressure to do well, the pressure to get into a good college… It’s literally all over the country — it’s an epidemic of sorts.”

Experts have been keen to point out that these technological advances aren’t increasing the number of cheating cases, they’re just making it harder to detect.

“The naïve folk belief is that cheating never used to be a problem,” Bramucci says. “It’s always been a problem.”

As a former high school guidance counselor, Madenberg believes that the recent Long Island SAT scandal will act as a positive catalyst for students to discuss the pressures they feel.

“There’s no question that people are beginning to look at that,” she says.

This article was originally published on Education News.

Here are the departmental exam papers and memos for Life Sciences and Lewenswetenskappe for Grade 12 for 2011. They are a great revision tool to prepare for the upcoming exams. Good Luck!

Life Sciences:

Life Sciences Grade 12 Paper 1 March 2011

Life Sciences Grade 12 Paper 2 March 2011

Life Sciences Grade 12 Paper 1 March 2011 – Memo

Life Sciences Grade 12 Paper 2 March 2011 – Memo

Life Sciences Exemplar Papers:

Life Sciences Grade 12 Exemplar Paper 1 June 2011

Life Sciences Grade 12 Exemplar Paper 1 June 2011 – Memo

Lewenswetenskappe:

Lewenswetenskappe Graad 12 Vraestel 1 Maart 2011

Lewenswetenskappe Graad 12 Vraestel 2 Maart 2011

Lewenswetenskappe Graad 12 Vraestel 1 Maart 2011 – Memo

Lewenswetenskappe Graad 12 Vraestel 2 Maart 2011 – Memo

Lewenswetenskappe Voorbeeld Eksamenvraestelle:

Lewenswetenskappe Graad 12 Voorbeeld Eksamenvraestel 1 Junie 2011

Lewenswetenskappe Graad 12 Voorbeeld Eksamenvraestel 1 Junie 2011 – Memo

These are the departmental papers for English Home and First Additional Language for 2011. They are great to work through before the exams, so that you know you are ready! Good Luck!

English Home Language:

February/ March 2011:

English HL Grade 12 Paper 1 2011

English HL Grade 12 Paper 2 2011

English HL Grade 12 Paper 3 2011

English HL Grade 12 Paper 1 2011 – Memo

English HL Grade 12 Paper 2 2011 – Memo

English HL Grade 12 Paper 3 2011 – Memo

English First Additional Language:

February/March 2011:

English FAL Grade 12 Paper 1 2011

English FAL Grade 12 Paper 2 2011

English FAL Grade 12 Paper 3 2011

English FAL Grade 12 Paper 1 2011 – Memo

English FAL Grade 12 Paper 2 – Memo

English FAL Grade 12 Paper 3 – Memo

Passionate Cape Town maths and science teacher, Paul Carter, has teamed up with Cambridge University Press and South Africa’s leading online training company to create an eLearning project that he hopes will help improve the struggling matric maths pass rate. Carter feels this is the next step in his quest to make maths more accessible to those who think they can’t do it.

Of the 263,034 pupils who wrote the mathematics paper in 2010, 14% fewer than in 2009, only 47.4% of matric candidates passed the final exam, with a shockingly low 30.9% achieving the marks required for a university entrance.

When the class of 2010 received their results earlier this year, the Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, said, “We are certainly not happy with the current number of passes in mathematics.” She went on to explain that the department is committed to continue investing resources and time to ensure that the quality of maths and its pass rate improve this year. Carter decided to step up and do something about the discouraging pass rates.

Speaking from his Cape Town home, Carter explained, “There is a real need in South Africa for improved maths education and I felt compelled to close the gap.” Many university faculties, especially the most popular engineering, science and commerce ones, place a heavy weighting on maths results. South Africa needs engineers, businesspeople and other skilled mathematical workers to break the cycle of poverty and improve the country’s overall welfare.

Carter has been teaching maths and science since 1997, including at two of Cape Town’s most prestigious schools, Bishops and Rondebosch Boys’ High, and has authored 15 books, including all five of the Study & Master Mathematics Study Guides. He has also written features for publications like Hip2B2.

He explained that the Cambridge University Press Grade 12 Maths course is available to all matrics throughout South Africa who have internet access and covers everything learners need to prepare for their final matric maths exam. Spanning 12 weeks and covering the entire grade 12 maths curriculum, learners are provided with a platform where revision and rich feedback is possible when teachers are on leave and even during school holidays, when the all-too-important revision process is neglected.

Learners will be able to interact online with other matrics from around the country, share ideas and advice, and confront their maths demons in the safety and anonymity of an online forum. Parents will also be able to keep track of their children’s progress with detailed weekly feedback and will eliminate commuting time to extra maths classes.

The course starts on 1 August 2011. Contact Lyndsay on 021 447 7565 or lyndsay@getsmarter.co.za, or visit www.getsmarter.co.za for more information.

Past exam papers are normally a mission to find. TestGrab, a new service launched recently by EvaluNet, offers past exam papers for download from their web site, all based on the grade 12 matric exams for South Africa.

Subjects included are:

• Accounting
• Afrikaans
• Business Studies
• CAT
• Consumer Studies
• Economics
• English
• Geography
• History
• Hospitality Studies
• IT
• Life Science
• Mathematics
• Maths Literacy
• Physical Science
• Tourism

These past papers are based on the 2010 March and November matric exams. The past papers can be accessed from the Free Stuff section of the TestGrab web site.

Malcolm Venter

The 2009 Matric results have, once again, revealed the sad state of our education system, with two out of every five who wrote failing, and with a pass rate 2% lower than in 2008. The pass rates for gateway subjects such as Maths, Science and Accounting, and the failure rate for Home Language were also alarming. We must, however, give Minister Motshekga her due – for a change, there was no ducking and diving and sensational spinning. The results also put paid to the view – often held by those who do not want believe that anything good can be done by the government (or South Africa) – that standards are dropping in order to get good results. As President Zuma put it, the drop in the pass rate was an indication of ‘the rigour of our examinations’.

The key question which arises is: Why should this be so? Various factors have been mentioned: poor (or unqualified) teachers; lack of resources; ineffective school leadership; poor socio-economic circumstances; and so on. All of these are valid and need to be addressed. However, there is one simple but vital factor which seems to have escaped the notice of analysts.

And it relates to the point made by the President – the ‘rigour of our examinations’. The National Senior Certificate (NSC) is based, in the end, on an examination system: School-based Assessment accounts for only 25% of the final mark; and even this is moderated beforehand and then, if severely out of sync with the final examination mark, is adjusted to bring it in line. Which means that, in the end, it is actually part of the exam system.

But the problem arises from the huge gap in the types of assessment between the GET and FET bands. In FET, the main emphasis is on tests and exams: the Subject Assessment Guidelines (SAGS) pay lip-service to other types of assessment. It is stated (page 1) that Continuous Assessment should use ‘various types of assessment forms, methods and tools’. But this is not reflected in the actual requirements for assessment: each subject must include two exams and two tests (out of seven for most subjects). Although it is then stated that the remaining tasks (three for most subjects) ‘should not be tests or examinations’ and that they should include such assessments as ‘debates, presentations, projects, simulations, written reports, practical tasks, performances, exhibitions and research projects’, the actual requirements per subject ignore these. In the languages, for example, all the tasks are pencil-and-paper tasks (other than the assessment of speaking the language). Similarly, in History, the SAG states that ‘the remaining three tasks should make use of different forms of assessment such as source-based writing, assignments or investigations’ – all pen-and-paper. In other words, the assessment tasks are all exam-orientated, and therefore help to prepare learners for the final NSC examination.

Not so at the GET level – one could believe that the two bands are unrelated. Here examinations are non-existent – and even tests are relegated to one of many different forms of assessment. The Assessment Guidelines (Annexure A) mention tests, but then go on to list a host of other types of assessment as equal in status. Where schools veer away from this variety, they are slammed for relying on ‘pen-and-paper tests’. The result is that learners are suddenly thrust into exam-mode in Grade 10 – and, to make matters worse – the end-of-year-exam counts 75% of the total mark.

Who would consider a sports programme which did not coach the players for the game? Who would consider producing a play without rehearsals? And yet this is what we do with our learners: for nine years, they play around with little tasks set on little pieces of work, most often in collaboration with others; and then, suddenly, in the last three years, they are expected to handle examinations which demand sitting and concentrating for a long period of time, answering demanding questions – on their own – based on large sections of work.

This is one of the reasons why the schools which have not obeyed the letter of the law and used more tests and have – skande! – set exams for learners in primary school and in Grades 8 and 9 of the high school have fared better in the final exams than those that have allowed themselves to be browbeaten my zealous bureaucrats and Whole-School evaluators.

If the Department wants to improve the matric results, then, one of the things they must do is to relegate the ‘other’ types of assessment to informal daily assessment, and to require schools to draw up an assessment programme which consists of tests, research assignments and examinations focussed on preparing learners for an end-of-year examination, from primary school upwards, which forms a major part of the overall assessment – possibly starting with 50% in primary school, and then gradually increasing to 75% in high school.