The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) has come out in strong defence of the quality of its Mathematics exam.
CXC's defence was in response to concerns raised in an Observer article and Editorial on Thursday questioning whether the CXC exam had become too easy as a number of pre-eleventh graders have received high passes in Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Math.
The CXC in its response said the suggestions and innuendoes in both the article and the editorial strike at the integrity of the examination.
The Council in defence of the results said it uses the Criterion Reference System of assessment.
Through this system a standard for each grade is set when the examination paper is prepared and only candidates who achieve this standard are awarded the grade.
The Council denied reports that it uses the Norm Reference System, commonly referred to as the Bell Curve, in which a candidate’s grade is determined by the performance of the entire examination population.
The Council said it is therefore confident that the grade each candidate is awarded reflects his/her true achievement.
The response also said a comparative analysis of the content and objectives tested in the Mathematics papers in May 2006, 2008 and 2010 are very similar and were determined and constructed using the same table of specifications.
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