I gave my students a take home exam over spring break. (This is normal where I teach) One of the questions was particulary difficult. It came down to a factor of three in the solution. That factor inexplicably appeared with no justification on many of their exams. I intend to have the students I suspect of cheating come to my office to solve the problem on the board. What would you do?
I found the equivalent of high school maths in my country to be similarly intuitive and trivial. The kids who think that the maths they’re being taught is obvious will just memorise what the examiners want to see and regurgitate it even if they feel like it’s teaching shapes to a baby. If you are “gifted” and truly do understand it then it shouldn’t be hard to just overexplain (which is what most exam boards are looking for)
Yeah, I figured that out in high school too. I think it just irks me that different students are being graded on a different standard, subjectively speaking. The neurotypicals are being judged on their ability to learn, while the gifted kids are being judged on their ability to explain. Maybe the gifted kids wanna learn too. They’re all told their whole lives the point of school is to learn, and then they’re met with disappointing reality. We expect gifted kids to grow up so fast, and having to explain the material back to the teacher to prove they know it doesn’t help. I wish they got to spend a little longer just being kids.