Fewer centums in mathematics again

Sourcce :  The Hindu,Liffy Thomas,May  27,2010

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Of the 9,67,420 students, a total of 2,399 secured full marks in Mathematics

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CHENNAI: For the second consecutive year, centums in Mathematics have seen a significant drop at the S.S.L.C examination.

Of the 9,67,420 students who appeared in the examination, a total of 2,399 secured full marks in Mathematics. This is against last year's 5,112 and the previous year's 11,000 students who secured centum.
However, Matriculation and Anglo-Indian schools have not seen any drastic decline in the number of centums.
A total of 2,638 Matriculation students secured full marks in Mathematics, against last year's 1,374.
Teachers say this trend has to be worked upon as subjects such as Mathematics and Science mainly help students increase their overall total.

Disappointment
Many schools expressed disappointment that students who generally secure good marks in the subject fail to secure centum at the public examination.

“Maths is easy to score but the fear is high when the students appear for the public examination. Many are tensed and tend to confuse concepts.

‘One mark' questions especially is where a majority of students lose out. Also, trigonometry and analytical geometry are new topics where a student starts studying only from Class IX,” says S. Porchelvi, maths teacher, Children's Garden Higher Secondary School, Mylapore. Three students from the school secured centum, as against 10 that she had expected.

Basic grounding
Mathematics teachers say all the questions are from the textbook and basic grounding in the subject is essential while answering the tricky one-mark questions. Guess work should be avoided and teachers have a role to play in preparing the students, they add.

“Teachers should be receptive to the needs of the class. Schools should have special classes for underachievers and coach them,” says K. Srinivasa Rao, retired senior mathematics professor, Institute of Mathematical Science.