sitsunderbridges

There is an ever increasing trend in our schools to reward students for failure rather than success. In Mathematics especially, a student could be given 2/3 marks on a question such as expand (x-2)(x+6) if they put steps in their answer and still get the answer wrong.

In this example a student could write

(x-2)(x+6) =

(x)x(x)+(-2)x(x)+(-6)x(x)+(-2x6) =

x^2+(-2x)+(6x)+(12) =

x^2+8x+12

Even though the final answer is wrong the student would be awarded 2/3 marks for them knowing how to solve the problem and lose one mark for not getting the answer right.

When I look at that example I would just write (x-2)(x+6) = x^2+4x-12 and get 1/3 marks because I got the right answer but did not show any steps as to how I arrived at it. This method of marking holds true both in High School Mathematics as well as our College level (in my experience). Does anyone have any idea when / why it became common to reward students who do not know simple math but can memorize the “steps” to solve a problem over the ones that can actually do the math efficiently in their heads?