Sheffield students complaining over "impossible" question

Darg · 30 Jan 2015 at 14:03

Students in Sheffield University shocked to find simple mathematics are indeed a part of economics:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31057005

Consider a country with many cities and assume there are N>0 people in each city.

So there are cities with people in them.

Output per person is aN^0.5 and there is a coordination cost of yN^2. Assume that a > 0 and y > 0.

Output per person is a constant "a" multiplied by the square root of the number of people in the city.

The cost of running the city is a constant "b" multiplied by the square of the number of people in the city.

We can draw from this that the more people there are in a city the slower the output grows and the higher the coordination cost grows.

The questions that follow (see the link) are basically asking them to explain why this might be so and what factors can affect the constants. Pretty basic stuff, better communications will lower y, better workflow will increase a etc etc...

I've never studied economics in my life. I have a reasonable understanding of maths but seriously, this is squares and square roots, that's taught at the age of 12 if not earlier.

Are students so entitled these days that they expect to know the nature of every question that will appear on an exam? Do they expect advance warning of every issue that will arise when they have a job in the real world??

Sarah469 · 30 Jan 2015 at 14:19

I remember something similar happened on my last year at uni, we were the first lot to take this new module and the exam had never been taken by previous years (so no past papers to revise from) the topic was partially taught but the time they gave us to do the exam wasnt really enough. In the end I think the exam board bumped up everyones marks to compensate

balky12 · 30 Jan 2015 at 14:19

Some of the terms could throw people who are not familair with them but seeing as they are at University I would imagine they have come across the language before.

What made me laugh was:

"We had been told it was not a maths-based paper.

"We feel misled and angry.

"Every part of the question was, 'Calculate this, partially differentiate that.'"

Sorry you are studying economics. Maths is going to crop up.

Far from an 'impossible' question though. 50% of the country is 'educated' to this level. Makes you wonder eh?

Judgeneo · 30 Jan 2015 at 14:21

Final year students can't do this at Shefield? Good lord, I would expect this level of question in first year economics surely.

ChroniC · 30 Jan 2015 at 14:24

balky12 said:
Some of the terms could throw people who are not familair with them but seeing as they are at University I would imagine they have come across the language before.

What made me laugh was:

Sorry you are studying economics. Maths is going to crop up.

Far from an 'impossible' question though. 50% of the country is 'educated' to this level. Makes you wonder eh?

I'd say it's way way lower. I don't consider myself a complete tard, but I would not be able to answer that question.

balky12 · 30 Jan 2015 at 14:29

ChroniC said:
I'd say it's way way lower. I don't consider myself a complete tard, but I would not be able to answer that question.

No I just meant 50% of the country is educated to a degree level supposedly. Then when faced by a question like the above they scream 'impossible' and start a petition... they are suppose to be our best a brightest.

Quite a few people would not be able to answer the question, but if you have studied Economics for 3+ years, you should be able to answer it, or at least have an intelligent guess at what the answer could be.

PaulStat · 30 Jan 2015 at 14:36

I'd probably panic if I saw a question like that, but then again it is 15 years or more since I've done anything remotely close to that type of question. However seeing as they're doing an economics course I'd expect them to be able to answer it.

We had something similar in our final year comp sci degree, I think it may have been an exam on data structures/algorithms or something like that. A number of questions relating to BFS/DFS etc.

It was tricky, but tbh it was a final year exam it was supposed to be, most of my friends marched up to the students union to complain about the exam. I refused to.

balky12 · 30 Jan 2015 at 14:44

PaulStat said:
It was tricky, but tbh it was a final year exam it was supposed to be, most of my friends marched up to the students union to complain about the exam. I refused to.

This is my kind of view. An exam throwing in one question that perhaps they haven't learnt in detail...

It's not going to be the end of the world that one question. If someone can answer it and answer it well then it shows that they have gone beyond what their peers have done. Researched the topic in greater detail, etc. Why can't they be rewarded for it?

If questions were completely off topic then yes, it's wrong. By a similar token if all the questions in the exam are in the revision book, how to you really distinguish excellence?

I disagree with how all levels of education are so modular and exam orientated anyways, with no real world application. People are just learning to regurgitate information for an exam with less and less understanding as to why.

kael13 · 30 Jan 2015 at 15:35

balky12 said:
This is my kind of view. An exam throwing in one question that perhaps they haven't learnt in detail...

It's not going to be the end of the world that one question. If someone can answer it and answer it well then it shows that they have gone beyond what their peers have done. Researched the topic in greater detail, etc. Why can't they be rewarded for it?

If questions were completely off topic then yes, it's wrong. By a similar token if all the questions in the exam are in the revision book, how to you really distinguish excellence?

I disagree with how all levels of education are so modular and exam orientated anyways, with no real world application. People are just learning to regurgitate information for an exam with less and less understanding as to why.

Definite agreement with how I feel exams are a waste of effort. Simply several weeks of stress on how well you can memorise how to answer particular types of question. I did my final year computing exams last October; it was not a pleasant experience. Not that it should be, of course, but I don't feel like it tests your knowledge of a huge and wide-ranging subject very well. The timetabling didn't help, either.

As for this question, well the algebra part is simple, you can see what the basic idea behind the question is, but OP really has simplified what they're asking for. Asking a question like this is suitable in assignments and coursework where you can research the problem (just like real-life or the workplace!) but not an exam if you haven't covered the topic before.

Dis86 · 30 Jan 2015 at 15:41

It seemed relatively simple to me too. Then again I have an engineering degree and I'm familiar with maths. You know, like someone who's studied economics for three years should be...

Also note university isn't just about regurgitation. You should be reading outside and around the subjects and not just relying on what your lecturers have taught you. For every hour I spent in a lecture or seminar I spent at least one outside of it studying.

Rroff · 30 Jan 2015 at 15:43

When I first read I couldn't get my head around it in one go and had to go back over it 2-3 times before I knew what I was doing. (Mostly due to it being a long time since I've really had my head in real maths).

It seems fairly fundamental to economics though so not really surprising to see it in a higher level exam IMO.

I see it as an increasing problem these days though - increasingly the larger majority of people can't apply what they've been taught to situations outside of what they've been taught by rote.

rubberduck · 30 Jan 2015 at 15:44

Only need 69% for a 1st class degree so you must expect some questions to be tough. I bet there were some pretty easy questions in there too.

bitslice · 30 Jan 2015 at 15:49

"and there is a coordination cost of yN^2"

Why is this cost exponential? (assuming we are not talking about about Labour councils here)

more people= more coordination,
but I would assume this to be fairly linear?

balky12 · 30 Jan 2015 at 15:55

Dis86 said:
Also note university isn't just about regurgitation. You should be reading outside and around the subjects and not just relying on what your lecturers have taught you. For every hour I spent in a lecture or seminar I spent at least one outside of it studying.

You did, I would be surprised if the majority did this.

A petition because a question was too hard. Come on.

Exams are getting easier if anything... some of the people I deal with in work, mainly entry level colleagues, struggle with basic Maths and English. Don't get me started with things like Geography.

You look at their CV's though and they have A*s coming out their arses at GCSE, more A Levels than they know what to do with and even some of them have degrees... give them percentages or fractions and they don't know what to do. (I work in insurance)

I was in an interview for someone the other day. PhD in Risk Management. This was for an entry level role that we are interviewing college leavers for as well..

We showed him a graph and started talking about standard deviation, and asked him what the bars mean on the graph and why they might exist, he didn't have a clue.

Gilly · 30 Jan 2015 at 15:56

Unless I'm missing something the answer isn't even maths based? It's pure economics. You only need a rudimentary understanding of the maths the question is based on. I'm disgusted final year economics students have a problem with this, but then it shows a lack of proper tutelage too.

rubberduck · 30 Jan 2015 at 16:19

bitslice said:
"and there is a coordination cost of yN^2"

Why is this cost exponential? (assuming we are not talking about about Labour councils here)

more people= more coordination,
but I would assume this to be fairly linear?

Yeah I can't get my head round this. If you double the population your total coordination increases by a factor of 4 (2 squared).... Doesnt seem reasonable to me with economies of scale etc.

jonas123 · 30 Jan 2015 at 16:20

bitslice said:
"and there is a coordination cost of yN^2"

Why is this cost exponential? (assuming we are not talking about about Labour councils here)

more people= more coordination,
but I would assume this to be fairly linear?

random guess, but if you take traffic as an example, the more people you have, the worse it gets

Sarah469 · 30 Jan 2015 at 16:22

I think the problem is that at A level and GCSE pupils are taught exactly what they will be expecting in the exam, and when you get to university you are required to actually do your own reading on the topic, which many students either forget or don't know how. basically people are spoon fed too much at school

XeNoN89 · 30 Jan 2015 at 16:24

I am bad at maths and do not understand that question

balky12 · 30 Jan 2015 at 16:28

XeNoN89 said:
I am bad at maths and do not understand that question

Which means it's working as intended.

When you have 3years+ of 'degree level' education in economics, coupled with all the maths skills you would have acquired along the way.. to turn round and start a petition and say this question is impossible is pretty outrageous.