Australian Geometry Test Too Difficult?

[AlexFekken]

After reading the "evidence" somewhat carefully:

There is a difference between students being tested on skills they weren't taught and students claiming so. Any half-decent journalist would not report such a claim by itself but at least try to confirm with the teachers and report their response or lack of response. In other words, reporting such claims says more about the journalist than the curriculum.

Also, the teacher who was mentioned did not confirm the claim that students were tested on skills that had not been taught (just that "she and other maths teachers struggeld") and presumably she would have confirmed the claim if it was true.

Paul's list confirms that nothing fancy is needed to solve these problems. Perhaps this student (and certain teachers) are having the same problem as one of my former class mates. After weeks, if not months, of solving variuos instances of the quadratic equation a*x^2 + b*x + c = 0, he complained that he could not solve an equation of the type a*t^2 + b*t + c = 0 because he had never seen such an equation before. He didn't start crying or escalate it to the minister of education however...