I like the idea of having descriptive* math levels, not necessarily to filter for difficulty, but to give test writers a better sense of what kinds of questions the rules were meant to inspire. I imagine some of the rules out there could be interpreted in different ways, since topics are sometimes just listed (eg: Chem Lab had "magnetism" last year, and I definitely interpreted that differently from what other people did...).drcubbin wrote:I think most of the students who do the physics events are pretty aware of what to expect, but maybe (just a suggestion) an addition to event "Description", such as "Impound: Yes or No" or "Eye Protection: B or C" there could be a Math Level: A, B or C (but not limited to)
Math Level A: Number Sense, Algebra, Geometry and Spatial Reasoning, Measurement, Data Analysis and Probability
Math Level B: Algebra I & II, Geometry, Trigonometry, Pre-Calculus
Math Level C: Trigonometry & Analytical Geometry, Calculus I & II, Differential Equations
* Don't hold me to what I am including here. These are just off the top of my head.
That said, the quality of the questions really depends on who's writing them (and by extension, how clear the rules are). Issues with math difficulty usually stem from topic ambiguity or people trying to make hard/easier questions but not knowing how. I've seen difficult questions that didn't require more than algebra I, and I've seen underwhelming/off topic questions written with calculus. But test-writing is something that is a lot more difficult to train, and there are many different schools of thought as to what a good exam is. Different can of worms.
One reservation I have about putting math difficulty levels on rules is that I'm worried SOINC will undershoot when tying difficulties to classes. Case in point: Chem Lab is tied to "first year [chemistry] high school courses". Besides the fact that first year chem classes have ridiculous fluctuations in difficulty (ranging from "can get top 150 in ChemOly on the first try" to "thinks NaCl has sodium, carbon and iodine in it"), it makes it so that an exam written to those specifications might not be as good in separating teams or being intellectually stimulating.** It'd be bad if physics events were capped at Algebra I and below, which I could see SOINC doing.
*Descriptive being more specific, not refering to any field of science/math that may have the word "descriptive" in it.
**This isn't to make fun of kids starting out in chemistry; it's just at the states and nationals level, most teams are sending second or third or even fourth year chemistry students to compete. I also suspect this is why the Chem Lab Nats exam often gets complaints of being too conceptually easy, since the rules themselves are on the easier side.
