Create A Test Blog

Create A Test biggest update since launch has now been live for a month and we have enjoyed receiving your feedback about the changes.

School account updates
There are several changes we are making around the Pupil&Group accounts section. We have improved the pupil and group account with the introduction of two versions of this section. The two sections are:

Group accounts - this allows schools to create class and group papers as you always have. Give pupils the chance to do extra papers at home or to complete a paper as part of their homework.Individual group accounts - here pupils get an individual account. Pupils can do both papers you set them and papers they choose to cr... [More]

Tags: news, new feature

For a long time now Britain has been proud to educate far more than its far share of the worlds youth. Pupils travel from around the world to attend boarding schools hidden away in the beautiful surroundings of North Yorkshire or the well known Public schools like Eton, The Manchester Grammar School, St Pauls and Dulwich.


Not only do pupils come here but the schools go the other way. Now if you want a British education why not have it in Singapore, Beijing, Qatar, or Bangkok. Many of our best-known private schools have already set-up shop abroad and of those that haven’t so far, many have plans to do so*.


It is not just private schools making this contribution. Even at a loca... [More]

Tags: uk education, gcses, igcse

The really big changes you will notice with Create A Test:
New Home Dashboard and improved usability throughout the site Create your own questions! Improved question bank with search feature added
Improvements you will really appreciate:   New functionality to compress maths questions to remove white space (for those thinking of those printing bills!) Improved tooltips to help you use the site New tutorials to help get you started with Create A Test (more coming in the following weeks) Quick Tests available to build a brand new paper in seconds Dynamic questions converted to fixed questions earlier in the paper creation process
Other tweaks:
Resolved issues with m... [More]

Tags: updates, maths

I was flying back to the UK from Switzerland a few weeks ago and I saw this picture on the inflight easyjet magazine, Traveller (partially edited). I think it could promote some rich in class discussion.


They asked people in different Countries what they took pictures of and put the answers into 5 categories (blue, pink, green, purple, orange). This would be a nice image to show at the start of a lesson. You could ask students what they take pictures of most often, try to put the answers into five categories, and try to guess as a class which category goes with each colour. The catergories are as follows: Blue - Landscapes, Pink - Family and Friends, Green - Random Stuff, Purpl... [More]

Tags: statistics, dan pearcy

School account updates
Create A Test is now a brand of Technology in Education Ltd. With recent changes we hope to bring you a faster developing product that really is designed for teachers by teachers (and with teachers input!).
All future payments to Create A Test will now be made to Technology in Education Ltd and future invoices will be sent with updated bank details.

The new groups & pupils accounts section has now been active for a month and we would welcome feedback as always. Thank you to our current test users. If you would like to become a tester of this function please contact us at cat@createatest.co.uk

All accounts: Faster dedicated server
Create A Test has m... [More]

Tags: technology in education

Big changes to GCSEs may no longer be happening  and many teachers are happy. One positive development may be on its way though. Schools themselves may be assessed in a more effective way in the near future.

As maths teachers many of us may have benefited from time to time from the current systems focus on the Maths and English D/C borderline pupils (personally my department has had a very generous budget when other departments are struggling). However, focusing on this narrow range of pupils is not what schools are set up to do. Hopefully the widening of five GCSEs to eight GCSEs and the move to a more value added measure will improve the current system.

It must be remembered... [More]

Tags: gcse, igcse, league tables

New Year is here and we can see many of you are back making papers

School account updates
Notice the new groups & pupils accounts section on your account. Just as before you can create a “group” account and distribute the password to pupils in your class. These papers can then be accessed by the pupils at home for revision or homework purposes.
 
We have now created individual pupil accounts within this section. All users get 5 accounts for free to test and use. We will be pricing up accounts shortly. This new feature will mean on top of the school account (with group accounts) each pupil can have their own individual account. This will allows...
 
1 ) pupils to... [More]

Tags: news, adapative testing

Some of the Create A Test team went to the “End of the World” show at the Hammersmith Apollo this Christmas. Great mathematicians and scientists such as Simon Singh, Marcus du Sautoy and Brian Cox (among others) presented with non-mathematicians and scientists including Hugh Grant, Robin Ince, Steve Coogan and DReam to create a night everyone could enjoy. Making mathematics enjoyable and entertaining is one key ingredient in enhancing pupils experience of the subject. This got us thinking what are the key ingredients to make education better for teachers and for pupils this New Year?

We came up with four:
1.    Make Subjects Entertaining and Relevant
2.  &... [More]

Tags: education policy, personalised education

Christmas approaches. A warm welcome to the schools joining Create A Test in the build up to this holiday season. 

School account updates
We already know that many of you love leaving papers online for pupils. The opportunity to set papers that pupils can either do as homework or use for revision is something we wish to enhance and build on.
Coming shortly we are creating an account in which a teacher can set individual tests for every pupil. All you’ll have to do is set the correct level and away they go. As pupils complete tests information is displayed to their teachers of the progress they are making, in addition tests adapt to offer pupils a more appropriate test the more... [More]

Tags: news, new feature

When I was at school I remember my first unit of work on negative numbers. In the second lesson, our teacher wrote the note below on the chalkboard and asked us to memorise it:



“WHAT???” I thought. “This is just Great! (sarcastic tone) I don’t have a clue what’s going on now!” 

I had no idea what it meant but I just wrote it down and hoped it would come to me later on in the lesson. Fortunately, I figured out a few minutes later that it was a set of rules to help with multiplying negative and positive numbers together. Once I’d deciphered the note, I was then puzzled by the second line:

“So, a negative number multiplied by a negative number is a positive number. Ho... [More]

Tags: negative numbers, maths, dan pearcy

With two months of the year already gone teachers hopefully know all of their pupils names, and students are turning up to the correct classrooms. Some schools are already preparing for Christmas and January exams while all teachers are assessing pupils learning with end of unit tests. Whatever you use Create A Test for, we are here to help.

School account updates
The school updates have now been live for a while and we hope that you like the changes. Thank you for those giving feedback on the new system, we are always really interested to hear what you think, so that we can ensure that the site works for you. Please contact us via email cat@createatest.co.uk

Individual and paren... [More]

Tags: News, new feature

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
                            Abraham Lincoln

I had a lesson which made me think of this quotation today. The class were looking at an interesting sequences problem which is stated below:
I’m walking down a long path in the park and I notice that the gardener has planted the trees and flowers next to the path in a particular order. He started with a tree, then planted two flowers, then a tree and then one flower, with this sequence continuing all the way along the path.

The path is... [More]

Tags: sequences, dan pearcy

How should maths exams be graded?
The focus in education this summer has been the grading of GCSE exams. Pupils across the country have received lower exam grades than they would have done in December and last summer.


Why has this problem arisen? Grade inflation has been an issue that needed to be addressed since the introduction of GCSEs and absolute grading. Past governments have allowed grading to get out of control and something did need to be done. However making the grading so much tougher in one exam period was extremely short sighted but has helped highlight the failings of the current grading system.


The solution? Here at Create A Test we believe the only solutio... [More]

Tags: maths exams, gcse maths papers, gcse maths

Create A Test School & Educational Establishments Modifications Live!!
As many of you will know we have now launched the updated School & Educational Establishments part of the website. Feedback so far has been great and we welcome any further feedback both positive and critical. We will be looking to make similar modifications to the other accounts over the coming year

Refresh your web browser
If you are finding that the changes to the website are not working correctly please use the F5 button to refresh your web browser.

Just a reminder (The Big changes to the school account)
If you wish to read more about the modifications that we have recently made please read our... [More]

Tags: News, Website updates

Big changes to the design of the school account
We have been working hard to update the look and usability of the school account during the summer holidays. We have taken on board your suggestions and added a few of our own ideas into the mix to create what we think is a big enhancement to this part of the site.

The changes will be uploaded shortly and include:
New Tab user interface to help improve usability for creating a paper and managing paper questionsA change to the way we create pdf maths papers. This has enhanced the quality of paper and allows users with slower internet speeds to benefit from quicker loading times.Paper size selection. One of the biggest requests we have ... [More]

Tags: news, maths papers, school account

The summer holidays are here and we know many of our users are either enjoying the Olympics or the sun shine (abroad most likely). Hopefully the Olympics will not disturb our work too much here in London. If you find time between events please take a look at the following:

New testimonial page coming for School Accounts
We have had some very positive, unprompted feedback over the year and have decided to add a small testimonial page to the site. If you can contribute to this page we would be very grateful. Comments can be added with or without mentioning the school/ name of author. It will be good to tell potential users of Create A Test what the current users think of the service.**... [More]

Tags: News, new feature, parent account

Create A Test News
Exam time is coming to an end and we hope you are looking forward to the summer.  The holidays are a good time for teachers to get organised, and for pupils and teachers to rest for the year ahead. We hope you have found Create A Test useful this last year, and improvements will continue over the coming academic year.


Automatic mark sheets in the School Account
We have had users testing the new mark sheet feature and the feedback so far has been very good. This was developed following a suggestion from one of our current users and we are happy to see it producing such positive feedback. This feature allows you to very quickly create a spreadsheet that... [More]

Tags: news, end of exams

Create A Test News May 2012
A short newsletter this month as exam time is here and priorities are now on the current exams. As you can understand we will now not be making any changes to the working of the website until after the exam period. This will allow minimum disruption to the service during this vital period. 

Further Developments to both accounts
We will be developing the Create A Test further over the summer holidays and this is your chance to let us know any extra features or changes you would like to make to the website.
 
Features we are currently working on include:
    an automatic mark sheet generating system to go with your generated... [More]

Tags: News

Compound interest: the most powerful force in the universe?

Compound interest is a very impressive force and it is an interesting part of mathematics. Albert Einstein himself said that compound interest is the most powerful force in the world and it is pretty hard to disagree.


What is compound interest?

For those that are not aware of the concept of compound interest we will give you a very simple example. If you have £100 in a bank today and your account pays 10% interest a year how much money do you have in a year?

Well firstly you have the money you originally put in (£100) but you also receive £10 interest from the bank. So at the end of the year you have £110... [More]

Tags: Albert Einstein, Percentage, Compound Interest

April 2012 Create A Test News.
Easter is over and hopefully everyone enjoyed the two weeks away from school. Now though it is time to get back to the final term and there is a lot of build up towards exams so hopefully you are using Create A Test to help you in this build up. We are working hard to help you as a teacher, pupil or tutor in this process.

Further Development in School Account
Now you can lock and secure papers you have created in a way that doesn’t remove the departmental sharing functionality. When creating a new paper notice that you can now choose to lock the paper. If you have already created a paper you want to lock you can edit the paper and lock it. We have ha... [More]

Tags: News, Developments

If you travel between countries and are not able to speak in another language other than English you can have problems. This is less of a problem today than it was in the past as English has become the lingua franca of the world.
 
What is the lingua franca of maths? How do mathematicians communicate? Is German Maths any different to English or French Maths?
 
Maths is universal language and a mathematician, scientist or engineer will all use the same mathematics language to communicate ideas and theories. Having one of an item or two of an item is the same in any language. This is true for more complicated mathematics and though a student may be sitting a GCSE exam, IB ex... [More]

Tags: mathematics, IB, GCSE

Further Development in School Account
The school account has developed once again with improved functionality and quicker loading times on older computer systems. Paper creation and editing is now easier than ever allowing you to make an exam paper quicker with Create A Test than with any other method. 

Pricing Change for Parent and Individual Accounts
As you may have noticed already we have changed the pricing structure of these accounts. We hope these changes will simplify the buying process and give you the opportunity to choose the account that best fits your needs.

New features coming in the near future
In the school account we are currently testing a new way for... [More]

Tags: News, School Account

Ofqual tightens up mathematics GCSE exam
Ofqual wants to tighten up GCSE mathematics so that students study the whole curriculum rather than a subset of the curriculum. It is important that students are not just taught to the test or told they only need to know a portion of the exam and syllabus. It is essential that pupils get a rounded view of every subject and the testing process is an important part of this. Testing is very important to the process of assessing what pupils and students know and what they need to work on.

One of the biggest benefits of having exams and tests is often overlooked.  Many pupils and individuals can be greatly motivated by an up and coming exam an... [More]

Tags: Exams, tests, personal experiences

Create A Test News

As you may already have noticed, here at Create A Test we have been working hard to bring new features and enhancements to the different accounts we provide. Here's a couple of things we've improved for you.


Enhanced marking system

A new marking system for papers completed in the individual and parent accounts is now live. You can choose to mark your papers more quickly by selecting correct or incorrect options, as well as being able to specify method marks.


Developing the question bank

We are continuing to improve our questions based on your feedback. Not only are we adding more questions, but we're also improving the current questions ... [More]

Tags: news, IGCSE, GCSE, mathematics

GCSE vs IGCSE: The debate starts again

The IGCSE (international GCSE)
Some schools in the UK have now moved fully or at least partly over the IGCSE based qualifications. These qualifications now come by several names but the essence of them is the same. They offer a more “traditional” teaching with more emphasis on final exams and less time spent doing coursework and controlled assessment. Some highly regarded educators see this as beneficial to their school and pupils.

“… Controlled assessments are cumbersome and time-consuming and restrict the ability of schools like [ours] to provide inspirational teaching for the most able pupils… “
 Head Teacher, UK

Another facto... [More]

Tags: Government Policy, IGCSE, Teaching Maths

What do the football league tables show? I would suggest that the league tables show which team has the best players not which team produces the best players. If I get a foreign billionaire (possibly Russian) to buy my local team and then use his money to buy the world’s best players and finally win every league and cup available I have not produced the best team, I have bought it.

Now let’s look at schools. If I take over my local school and only take the brightest pupils and come at the top of the league tables haven’t I just done the same as the Russian Billionaire?

We have two very different situations here. I think that though it is ok to rank football teams on how good t... [More]

Tags: League Tables, Government Policy, Schools, Russian Billionaires, Football

Christmas day is nearly here and here at Create A Test we have been working hard to bring new features and enhancements to the different accounts we provide at Create A Test.


Updated individual and parent accounts now live

Log in and find a completely revamped user interface. We are very thankful to all those who have given createatest feedback over the past three months as we have updated the individual and parent accounts. As users know these accounts have changed dramatically based on this feedback and we hope you enjoy experiencing these modifications. However modifications will be ongoing and please do pass on any feedback that you have.


Improved functionallity in... [More]

Tags: Parent Account, School Account, Individual Account

Many numbers are interesting for their specific properties, for example:

2
the smallest even prime number
2! = 2
a Fibonacci number

25
= 5 x 5  - A square.
= 1 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 9
= 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7
= 3 squared + 4 squared - A square number which is the sum of two square numbers.

163
a prime number
the smallest number impossible to make with three darts


Some numbers are ‘uninteresting’ because they don’t possess any properties similar to the above.

There is an anecdote about the mathematician Ramanujan and interesting (or uninteresting) numbers.  Ramanujan was an outstanding Indian mathematician with little formal training who worked wi... [More]

Tags: Interesting numbers, Uninteresting numbers, Hardy, Ramanujan, Square numbers, Prime numbers

The end of October is creeping up, and as with every year since 1916 the clocks will change. In the UK (along with the most of the European Union) clocks go back one hour on the last Sunday in October and forward by one hour on the last Sunday in March.

This year clocks will go back one hour at 2am on Sunday 31st October in a return to Greenwich Mean Time.

It is also usually about this time of year that the argument about clocks changing resurfaces: should they or shouldn’t they?

But why do the clocks change? Can we use maths to help explain the benefits and drawbacks of a clock change?

The History

In 1907 a campaign began by an Englishman, William Willett, to chan... [More]

Tags: Daylight Saving Time, Greenwich Mean Time, Willaim Willet, Clocks Change, October

Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
There are many careers that mathematicians can go into, some of which can be very lucrative.
However if you really want to hit the mathematical big time, and get rich in the process, solving one of the Millennium Problems would be a great place to start…

The Millennium Problems are a collection of mathematical problems to which a $1 million prize is offered for finding a solution. The prizes were offered in 2000 by the Clay Mathematics Institute, and as at the time of this blog, six of the seven problems remain unsolved.

1.    P versus NP problem
This is a problem based in theoretical computer science and asks whether, for all pro... [More]

Tags: Clay Mathematics Institute, Millennium Problems, P versus NP problem, Hodge conjecture, Poincaré conjecture, Riemann hypothesis, Yang–Mills existence and mass gap, Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness, Birch and Swinnerton Dyer conjecture, Millionaire

We would like to welcome everyone to our updated Create A Test website. Thank you to everyone who gave us feedback and help in producing this updated version of the site. We would welcome further feedback so that we can continue to make improvements and enhancements to your experience of the site. Additionally we would like to congratulate the pupils who got their GCSE and IGCSE results from AQA, Edexcel, OCR and other exam boards last week. We know that many pupils, teachers and tutors worked very hard in the build up to these exams. The Create A Test team hopes that Create A Test helped in this build up. We hope to continue to help future pupils in preparing for their Mathematics GCSE a... [More]

Tags: GCSE, IGCSE, AQA, Edexcel, OCR, Exam Results

A journalist, a psychologist and a statistician are travelling from London to Edinburgh by train. As the train crosses the border, the three travellers look out of the window and notice a black sheep standing alone in a field. The journalist says, “Look! The sheep in Scotland are black.” To which the psychologist replies, "Actually, we can conclude at least one sheep in Scotland is black”. The statistician shakes his head and boldly states, “I think you’ll find we can confidently say that at least one half of one sheep in Scotland is black.”Statistics is the study of the collection, organisation, and interpretation of data. You may be familiar with Statistics in the form of surveys and ... [More]

Tags: Statistics, Maths jokes, Misuse of Statistics, Bad Statistics, Questioning data, Analysis, Motivations

Here are some exam answers to avoid. Using Create A Test should help reduce the following types of mistake... 1. Question: Expand (x+2)(x+3)Answer: ( x + 2 ) ( x + 3 ) 2. Question: Change 8/9 to a decimal. Answer: 8.9 3. Write three thousand, nine hundred and seventy-three in figuresAnswer: three thousand, nine hundred and seventy-three in figures 4. Question: There are 200 pupils in Year 9. Emma and John complete a survey to find out the most popular subject. Emma asks 10 pupils and John asks 50 pupils. Who's results will be more reliable?Give a reason for your answer.Answer: John, because he's a man. 5. Question: What is a random variable?Answer: Someone with multiple p... [More]

Tags: Exams, Funny Maths, GCSE

What's the Point?If you're sick of sequences, you've had it with histograms and can't see the point of Pythagoras, then take a look at some of the articles below.These are some of the Create A Test team's favourite 'alternative' uses of maths. Have a look as a break from revision or a just some light-hearted reading.A formula for the perfect bacon butty? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/6538643.stmWhat will my tatoo look like when I'm old? http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/28/tattoo-formula-faded-body-artHow can I beat my brother at Monopoly? http://www.suite101.com/content/the-math-of-monopoly-a326114How to create the perfect pint? (over 18s only) http://www.e... [More]

Tags: Tatoo, Model, Formula, Stout, Guiness, Monopoly, perfect pint, uses of maths

Osmosis, meditation and hypnosis: What is the best way to revise? Revision time is an important part of the year for budding mathematicians (as well as budding historians, physicists and students of any other discipline). Pupils all over the world are now working towards exams that often take place in the early summer. GCSE and IGCSE exams are sat in the many countries across the world as well as in the UK. Schools in Hong Kong, Switzerland, the UAE, Brazil and Cyprus (just to name a few) will be joining those in the UK getting ready for exams. The question I want to look at today is how these pupils should revise for their exams. There are many books and web pages (not mention advice from t... [More]

Tags: Maths, GCSE, IGCSE, Exam Revision, Create A Test, International schools

Recently there has been a large stream of Maths and Science videos to entertain us on BBC 4. Some of these programs have managed to bring in much larger audiences than you might expect. There is no doubt that at least some maths teachers will use these programs at some point but are they worth watching in your own home. First of all, what type of programs are we talking about? I have chosen three programs to look at to give you an idea of what is available. The first program we will look at is “The Joy of Stats” presented by Hans Rosling. This is a lively view on the world of statistics and gives the viewer a good sense on how statistics is been used to achieve things like language translat... [More]

Tags: Maths, Maths and TV, The Joy of Stats, Marcus Du Sautoy, Teaching Maths, The Story of Maths, Beautiful Equations

What is the English Bac?The English Bac is awarded to GCSE pupils who achieve a C grade or above in Maths, English, a science, a foreign language and a humanity (ie history/geography). It is not an extra exam but rather a push by the government to put more importance on the subjects listed above. Here at Create A Test we always have different views about government policy in education. However there are normally things we do agree about too. We are sure that though the focus on traditional subjects seems like an excellent idea in principal it does have some flaws. A list of possible flaws are included below: The new English Bac only been achieved by 1 in 6 pupils. 5 out of 6 pupils... [More]

Tags: Government Policy, Maths, GCSE, League Tables, IGCSE, Schools, English Bac

Why do we keep hearing acronyms like STEM subjects? Why are the Maths results for a school so important in how it is ranked? Why is the government cutting university spending on Maths and other key subjects by a fraction of the cuts to film studies?Here are a few suggested answers: Jobs (getting a well paid job or just a job full stop!) It is the queen of the sciences and helps us in so many other subjects from Physics and Medicine to Computer Science and Economics So you can manage your personal financesPlease feel free to add your own reasons here…. Homer might say (or rather I might suggest to him): Well your car wouldn’t work Your new HD TV (ok any ... [More]

Tags: Homer Simpson, Maths, Employment, Create A Test