Social studies above maths - Manchester students rank GSAT papers

Mandeville, Manchester:

Of the two papers completed yesterday by students who sat the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT), there was

general consensus among the Mandeville Primary and Junior High School students that the social studies examination was much easier than the mathematics.

According to principal, Marcia Sayers-Johnson, 235 students sat the examination at the school last year, and with a 95 per

cent pass rate, the institution is looking forward to the same or even higher collective average.

Grade six teacher Jason Scott said that the weak areas were language arts and mathematics last year but several students expressed confidence in their performance on the maths paper this year.

"Maths is my favourite subject, so it wasn't that much of a challenge for me, but social studies, I would say was fair. I'm just looking forward to what tomorrow (today) has in store and hope it's a better day," said Ashor Howell.

Social studies a breeze

For Candice Fagan and Dovani Isaacs, social studies was a breeze.

"It was easy because our teacher had gone through past papers with us and we found that many of the questions were repeated. Maths required us to think because how they phrased it made it look hard, but it was pretty straightforward. That was the only challenge we had with that," said Fagan

Gabrielle McIntosh and Brian Bailey admitted that they fumbled on a few questions as they did not understand the responses they required. However, they ensured that they attempted all the questions.

"I think I did well enough to pass, even though I had problems with about two questions. We did everything on the paper, but some questions really gave me a hard time ... . I'm looking forward to language arts tomorrow," McIntosh said.

The Gleaner caught up with twins April and Alex Wilkinson, who were fortunate to have had the same experiences with both papers.

"The social studies was so easy, we pretty much breezed through the paper, but maths took a little bit more time. It required us to think deeply, but we did our best," stated April.