Unified State Examination results in mathematics: a series of observations

More than 45 percent of the children passed four GIA-9 exams with grades of “four” and “five”; the number of those who received more than 80 points on the Unified State Exam increased by 1.1 thousand.

Moscow schoolchildren showed good results at the state final certification (GIA). Graduates of 11th grades successfully completed the tests. Ninth-graders have more excellent and good results in Russian and mathematics, as well as elective subjects: physics, chemistry, geography, history, literature, and foreign languages.

The main examination period lasted this year from May 29 to July 1 (including reserve days). For GIA-9, 624 examination points were organized in schools, for GIA-11 - 290. 151 graduates took exams at home. Those treated were tested at five hospitals and centers.

More points on the Unified State Exam

This year, 84,657 people took the Unified State Exam (USE). Most of them - over 54 thousand - are graduates of the current year. The rest are graduates from previous years, those who received unsatisfactory results last year, college students, and tenth graders (more than 19 thousand).

The most popular elective subject, as in previous years, was social studies, which was taken by 58 percent of participants. 34 percent of schoolchildren chose English, 20 percent chose history. And some exams have become more difficult: the test part has been eliminated from assignments in chemistry, biology and physics.

This year, more children received high results - from 81 to 100 points. Compared to 2016, the number of high ratings increased by 1.1 thousand and reached 39.2 thousand. Moreover, 7.6 thousand graduates earned more than 250 points by passing three subjects. More than 220 points in three subjects were received by 17.3 thousand people. Five Moscow schoolchildren managed to score 300 points in three subjects.

The results in subjects studied within engineering profiles have also become better.

Better grades on GIA-9

78,876 people took part in GIA-9. In 2017, they took four exams: two compulsory (in Russian language and mathematics) and two optional. Unlike last year, the results of all four tests affect the final grades and receipt of a certificate.

Almost eight percent of GIA-9 participants received an A in four subjects. There were 1.1 thousand more of them than last year. More than 45 percent of the children passed all exams at four and five.

Compared to last year, the number of children who passed exams in physics, chemistry, geography, history, literature, and foreign languages ​​has increased with excellent and good marks.

For special achievements

In 2017, 5,007 graduates received the Moscow medal “For Special Achievement in Education,” which is 186 more than in the past. It was awarded to the winners and prize-winners of the All-Russian Olympiad for schoolchildren and graduates who scored 100 points in one subject. Also, a medal was given to those who had all the marks “excellent” in their certificate and who scored at least 220 points in three subjects.

From preparation to results: how the exams went

In preparation for the exams, the guys wrote, tried their hand using the “My Achievements” service, and followed the advice collected by the competition participants. To feel the atmosphere of testing, test their knowledge and help children prepare, about a thousand Moscow parents and 40 thousand teachers took the Unified State Exam.

The exams were held as transparently as possible: at all exam points where the Unified State Exam was taken, there was a video surveillance system. In 50 of them it was possible to follow the tests online. In addition, about seven thousand public observers worked at the exams in Moscow. 58 public observers monitored the progress of the Unified State Exam in the situational information center.

Graduates could find out their results using the Unified State Exam Results service and at their school. Thanks to new technological solutions and the well-coordinated work of the organizers, this year schoolchildren were given grades earlier than planned.

If a graduate does not agree with the result or believes that the procedure for conducting the exam was violated, you can file an appeal. Only those who have not passed the Russian language and basic level mathematics can retake the Unified State Exam this year. Everyone else will do it only next year.

The Unified State Examination in the Russian language is a mandatory exam. In total, 616,590 people took part in the main period of the Unified State Examination in the Russian language in 2017 (in 2016 - 658,392 people; in 2015 - 672,407 people).

The results of the Unified State Examination in the Russian language in 2017 are generally comparable with the results of the Unified State Examination of previous years.

On the official website of FIPI, in the section “Analytical and methodological materials”, “Methodological recommendations for teachers, prepared on the basis of an analysis of typical mistakes of USE participants in 2017” have been published, this is where you can find information about What was the average Unified State Exam score in Russian in 2017?.

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Table 1

Average Unified State Examination score in Russian language 2015 - 2017

The share of examinees who scored 100 points on the exam remained unchanged compared to 2016 – 0.5%. The share of high-scorers also remains stable: 25.5% in 2016 and 25% in 2017.

In 2017, the share of graduates who did not pass the minimum threshold (who did not receive the minimum (24) test score) decreased by 0.5%: from 0.99% (2016) to 0.54% (2017). The main reasons for the decrease in the share of such participants in the Russian language include the successful implementation of the Rosobrnadzor system of measures to improve the quality of teaching the Russian language in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. Data on changes in the number and share of 100-point students in 2015–2017. are given in table. 2.

Table 2

Statistics on the performance of work as a whole and individual tasks make it possible to identify the main problems in the preparation of examinees in the Russian language. As in previous years, sections of the course related to the formation of communicative competence remain insufficiently mastered. Insufficiently developed skills of analytical work with words and text, the lack of sufficient practice in analyzing linguistic phenomena also affect the quality of writing an argumentative essay. Graduates experience the greatest difficulties when applying punctuation and spelling standards in written speech.

The website “Teach at School” presents an interesting article Average USE score 2017 in the Russian language, based on other data from the Internet.

Every student completing a high school course is required to take the Unified State Mathematics Exam in our country. We will not go into details of possible changes in the form of the exam and those exceptional cases when a graduate, being the winner of, for example, the All-Russian Olympiad, automatically receives 100 points for the Unified State Exam.

Let's look at the results of the Unified State Examination in mathematics in previous years, when it contained both very simple problems, complicated ones that could be solved by graduates of regular schools, and very complex ones that required special training. Based on statistics published on the Official Information Portal of the Unified State Exam ( http://ege.edu.ru/ru/main/satistics-ege/), the picture turns out to be as follows:

Results of the recent Unified State Examination in mathematics

In fact, throughout the entire 11th grade (and sometimes longer), students prepare for the final exam, which for some of them is also the entrance exam. And what is the result? The majority of graduates wrote the Unified State Exam with 51-60 points (26%), the percentage of “twos” is very noticeable (up to 20 points, this is about 6.2% or almost 50,000 people!), and only 0.7% of all students were able to pass the Unified State Exam by 91-100 points! And in general, only 8% of all children who completed the 11th grade of high school were able to pass with decent scores (more than 70) required for admission to the country’s leading universities.

It is interesting to compare the results of the Unified State Exam in mathematics with the results of the Unified State Exam in the Russian language.

Unified State Examination results in mathematics and Russian language

We see that successfully passing the Russian language was incomparably easier. The turning point in points occurs around 60. This is also shown by the average score: in Russian - 63.4, in mathematics - 48.7.

At the same time, 2,559 people wrote work worth 100 points in the Russian language, and 538 in mathematics (i.e., almost five times less), which is less than 0.07% of all results.

It is in mathematics that there is the lowest percentage of maximum results among all subjects taken in the form of the Unified State Exam! And these are still “optimistic” statistics! Not so long ago, after a series of scandals surrounding the Unified State Exam, the high results were carefully rechecked, and as a result, only 64 people received the maximum score in mathematics - 8.4 times less than the year before! As a result of inspections, the proportion of graduates who passed with more than 80 points also decreased.

Now let’s look at the results of graduates of the same year who were trained at Matematushka. 32 people scored more than 70 points, of which: 71-80 – 19 people, 81-90 – 9 people, 91-100 – 4 people.

Now these are students of Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov, National Research Institute Higher School of Economics, Russian University of Economics. G.V. Plekhanov, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Moscow State Technical University. N.E. Bauman, Federal University under the Government of the Russian Federation and other prestigious universities in our capital.

Among the graduates of “Matematushka” there is also a 100-point result for the Unified State Exam. Ivan Pavlov received it in a year when only 157 people from 43 regions of Russia passed the exam with the maximum score. It is logical that among all the faculties, Ivan chose Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University. Konstantin Slavnov, who entered the Faculty of Computer Science and Technology of Moscow State University, was very close to this result. He passed the Unified State Exam with 98% (at that time 214 people passed the Unified State Examination in mathematics with 100 points, which amounted to 0.03% of all graduates).

Thus, “Matematushka” carefully prepares its graduates, and they successfully pass the Unified State Exam not only with high, but even with maximum scores! Which, as one could see from the Unified State Exam statistics, is a very, very rare result.

The other day, a new wave of the Unified State Exam began, and over the 8 years that the Unified State Exam has been mandatory, the controversy surrounding it has not subsided. In this material, we make an attempt to show the dynamics of the average Unified State Exam scores in Russian language and mathematics in the regions, and also to explain what may be responsible for regional differences in exam results.

The data presented here is collected from open sources. The Unified State Exam results were obtained from regional websites of educational departments and centers for assessing the quality of education. Other indicators are collected on the websites of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Rosstat, and the Federal Treasury.

Unified State Exam results: regional differences

If you look at the map, you can see that the regions of the Central Federal District show the highest average scores in both the Russian language and mathematics. In 2015, the leaders in the Russian language were the Orenburg and Samara regions, as well as the Perm Territory, and in specialized mathematics - the Republic of Kalmykia, the Perm Territory and Udmurtia. The lowest results, contrary to stereotypes, are observed not in the North Caucasus regions, but in the Far East.

Of particular interest is the dynamics of Unified State Examination results in the regions. It is incorrect to directly compare scores over the years - the exam has gone through many changes over the years. For example, in 2013, during massive leaks of answers, the scores of participants in the country as a whole were higher, but in 2014, after tightening security measures, they fell. With this in mind, we looked at the position of regions relative to the average score in Russia and used standardized z-scores. In other words, we compared the dynamics of the regions relative to the national average. The results of the regions were compared in 2010 and 2014, since during this period the content and structure of the exam were the most stable.

In general, significant (more than one standard deviation) growth over these five years was demonstrated by 16 subjects in mathematics, and 11 subjects of the Russian Federation in the Russian language. Basically, these are the regions that showed below average results in 2010. A serious decrease in scores occurred in mathematics in 6, and in the Russian language in 3 regions - where in 2010 the scores were quite high. In subjects of the Russian Federation with average results, there were no significant changes in scores.

Factors of regional differences in Unified State Examination results

2009-2014:

To understand what explains the USE results in mathematics and the Russian language in 2009 - 2014, we analyzed their relationship with a number of regional characteristics. The focus was, firstly, on the role of resource provision for schools, and secondly, on the role of family resources.

School resources are largely determined by the amount of government funding. If we adjust the volume of per capita funding for schools for inflation and differences between regions in the cost of living, then the growth of this indicator from 2006 to 2013 was about 40 percent. At the same time, the maximum gap in per capita financing over the same period decreased slightly - from 6 to 5 times. The greatest increase in school funding occurred in 2012, when the “May Presidential Decrees” were adopted.

Changes in school funding are important for student outcomes. According to our estimates, regions with a higher level of per capita financing show higher average Unified State Exam scores in mathematics (with equal levels of economic development, household income and a number of other characteristics of the regions). In the Russian language, there was a significant connection between Unified State Exam results and per capita financing (taking into account other regional indicators) in 2009 - 2014. not found. This can be partly explained by the fact that the social characteristics of families play a large role in Russian language results.

The main share of budget funding for schools comes from teachers' salaries. At the same time, the dynamics of their salaries relative to the average wage level in the region is important. Overall, this dynamic was positive. The most significant increase in relative salaries of teachers was observed in 2008 and 2012 - 2013, with a slight decrease in 2007 and 2010.

According to our estimates, the level of teachers’ salaries relative to the average salary in the region is positively associated with regional Unified State Examination results in both the Russian language and mathematics. Pay determines which teachers will come to schools and with what attitude they will work. For example, data from the 2012 PISA survey of school principals shows that in regions with higher relative salaries, teachers are more motivated, enthusiastic, and driven to achieve.

In addition to the state, families invest in children's education. Families' resources are determined by their income. Our analysis shows that in regions with high levels of poverty (the proportion of people with incomes below the subsistence level), Unified State Exam results are lower. A high level of income inequality within a region also negatively affects average Unified State Examination scores (given equal levels of budget funding for schools and a number of other regional characteristics).

In other words, family resources are also important to improve the educational achievements of schoolchildren. At the same time, in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation with low incomes, on average, the resources of regional budgets, and therefore the funding of schools, are lower.

In general, at this stage, equalizing the level of budget funding for schools between regions is not enough to equalize children’s scores.

2015:

If we talk about the results of 2015, the gap between regions with the minimum and maximum average USE scores can be 28 points in Russian and 16 in mathematics. The socio-economic characteristics of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation (gross regional product, school funding per student, the share of the population with higher education, as well as the share of the urban population) explain the average Unified State Exam score in mathematics by 25 percent and the average Unified State Exam score in Russian by 34 percent. Children from less affluent areas are less likely to achieve high test scores than those living in more economically developed parts of the country. Moreover, in the Russian language this gap is somewhat larger than in mathematics.

To almost the same extent (28 percent in mathematics and 30 percent in Russian), average regional scores are explained by the characteristics of schools and teachers. It is important to consider how many children in the region go to college after 9th grade, and how many remain in high school and take the Unified State Exam. As our analysis shows, in schools where less than half of ninth-graders remain in high school, the results are also higher than in schools where the selection (or self-selection) of children is less strict.

Teacher characteristics also matter. In all regions, teachers with completed higher education predominate, however, where such teachers make up more than 80 percent, students’ Unified State Examination results are higher. But the relationship between the results and the category of teacher turned out to be not so clear - the highest results are among graduates in regions where the share of teachers with the highest category varies from 22 to 30 percent.

Thus, our analysis shows how students from different regions do not have equal chances of achieving high Unified State Exam scores. By the way, the average results of Moscow schoolchildren on the Unified State Exam are 13 points in specialized mathematics and 5 points in the Russian language higher than those of schoolchildren from the Republic of Buryatia.

In general, the economic and educational characteristics of the regions determine USE scores by 64 percent in the Russian language and by 53 percent in mathematics. At the same time, these factors are outside the sphere of influence of teachers and schools themselves, so it is incorrect to evaluate them based on this result.

Conclusions

As our analysis shows, in Russia there are quite large regional differences in the educational results of schoolchildren. These differences can determine the future fate of children, including influencing their admission to universities.

This difference is largely due to the extent to which schoolchildren are provided with educational resources. There are inequalities of resources both at the family level and at the level of government funding for schools. Often one accompanies the other.

Our analysis does not take into account variations in unified exam scores within regions, although this task seems extremely useful in developing educational policy measures. For such an analysis, researchers need access to anonymized Unified State Examination data. In developed countries, the results of such tests are used for analysis and development of management decisions, and it is important to use this experience in Russia.

The Unified State Exam as an objective tool for assessing school graduates has shown that there is a problem with inequality in education. The responsibility for solving this problem cannot be placed entirely on the exam itself or on the teachers. Equalizing educational opportunities is a public policy task.