Believe it or not. #12 is not an error. Now put the semantics of that sentence in your hat and reevaluate the entire test and the concepts that went into the test. Think about it from a pedagogical standpoint.
We're adults, we've been through school. We can make some assumptions. We can guess that a "subtraction story" like in #9 is supposed to be an explanation of the algebra problem (in 1st grade) 8 - ___ = 2.
Something like "I had 8 problems, but got 6 answers wrong. I only got 2 right."
We can establish that a subtraction story is tied to the concept of subtraction which is indicated with this symbol '-'. (I'm not going to address the picture).
We know, because we're smart 1st graders, that a story is made up of sentences. So a subtraction story, must be made up of subtraction sentences. And we know from concepts like the ones that built up to #9 that '-' is the symbol for subtraction and there's some kind of concept that an equation like 8-6=2 must be a subtraction sentence written with symbols and not words. Though this equivalence isn't easy for kids to get, which is why word problems are always so hard in maths pedagogy. But let's say I'm sharp and I get that.
Now reassess #12. The obvious related subtraction sentence, written with symbols, should be something like 7-3=4 or 7-4=3 (there's no context to let us know what we're subtracting from the lego diagram, so either answer should be correct). But we look down at the answers, and there's no '-' sign! In desperation we circle 'c' because it has all the right numbers, even if it doesn't make any sense conceptually...none of the other answers have numbers we can fit into the picture.
Now absurdly this is marked correct! Whew, my grade is saved. But my concept is broken. Subtraction sentences do not feature the symbol '-', they feature the symbol '+'. I'm 6, and I'm just being introduced to this, so what am I to think? Subtraction stories use '-' but subtraction sentences use '+'...even though stories are made up of sentences. So either my English class is wrong, or Math is wrong...
But wait. #6 uses "subtraction sentence" also, but the correct answer used a '-'! Now what am I supposed to think? We know what a number sentence is. We know what a subtraction story is. But we have no clue what a subtraction sentence is and the concept for what it is is utterly lost. Now instead of learning about subtraction, I'm an extremely frustrated 6 year old who gets through tests by random guessing instead of learning.
This isn't a bad exam, this is terribly pedagogy. As a former professional educator, my assessment is that this is the work of idiots who were purposely trying to sabotage 1st grade math education.
By topic #2, in 1st grade we've utterly and completely failed every child who took this test. They couldn't even get through a few weeks of school before we managed to alienate most of the class from math education and a large number of these kids will carry this around with them for the rest of their schooling.
I think the problem is, you are (with merit) criticizing Pearson for a crappy test. This isn't specifically Common Core's problem, this is Pearsons problem for a pretty awkward approach to Common Cores standard.
You could argue that because Common Core was adopted, Pearson and all of the other curriculum/lesson planning content creators were forced to build out new, less vetted curriculum, which has not been battle tested. That would be true, but it's not specifically Common Core's fault. It's simply quality control issues for Pearson and others for not vetting their methodology.
Here is your big chance: begin to write your own curriculum, and do a better job. Upset the entrenched Pearson curriculum. Be the change you want to see
Had I been in the class perhaps I'd have understood what the requirements of the quiz were and understood what a "subtraction story" is. Looks like the kid who flunked that quiz did sort that one out.
You might not like the idea of a "subtraction story," "math story," "counter," etc. I am not really a huge fan off the bat, though I'd need to research to understand the principles behind it before I made any strong judgment.
If you want to vent righteous fury somewhere, then attack Pearson, who wrote the quiz and introduced these terms. I'm all in for criticizing textbook companies - they are completely horrible leeches who produce minimum quality work to leech capital out of education funding in a totally parasitic and damaging relationship. They constantly release minor needless updates to books and end publication of past editions so districts can't replace books but regularly have to buy new full sets they don't really need.
However, you'd be misdirecting vitriol if associate this with Common Core, since both the inept greedy textbook publishers, and the math ideas in the ideas that bother you aren't actually a part of the standard, but have been around since before that standard ever existed.
We're adults, we've been through school. We can make some assumptions. We can guess that a "subtraction story" like in #9 is supposed to be an explanation of the algebra problem (in 1st grade) 8 - ___ = 2.
Something like "I had 8 problems, but got 6 answers wrong. I only got 2 right."
We can establish that a subtraction story is tied to the concept of subtraction which is indicated with this symbol '-'. (I'm not going to address the picture).
We know, because we're smart 1st graders, that a story is made up of sentences. So a subtraction story, must be made up of subtraction sentences. And we know from concepts like the ones that built up to #9 that '-' is the symbol for subtraction and there's some kind of concept that an equation like 8-6=2 must be a subtraction sentence written with symbols and not words. Though this equivalence isn't easy for kids to get, which is why word problems are always so hard in maths pedagogy. But let's say I'm sharp and I get that.
Now reassess #12. The obvious related subtraction sentence, written with symbols, should be something like 7-3=4 or 7-4=3 (there's no context to let us know what we're subtracting from the lego diagram, so either answer should be correct). But we look down at the answers, and there's no '-' sign! In desperation we circle 'c' because it has all the right numbers, even if it doesn't make any sense conceptually...none of the other answers have numbers we can fit into the picture.
Now absurdly this is marked correct! Whew, my grade is saved. But my concept is broken. Subtraction sentences do not feature the symbol '-', they feature the symbol '+'. I'm 6, and I'm just being introduced to this, so what am I to think? Subtraction stories use '-' but subtraction sentences use '+'...even though stories are made up of sentences. So either my English class is wrong, or Math is wrong...
But wait. #6 uses "subtraction sentence" also, but the correct answer used a '-'! Now what am I supposed to think? We know what a number sentence is. We know what a subtraction story is. But we have no clue what a subtraction sentence is and the concept for what it is is utterly lost. Now instead of learning about subtraction, I'm an extremely frustrated 6 year old who gets through tests by random guessing instead of learning.
This isn't a bad exam, this is terribly pedagogy. As a former professional educator, my assessment is that this is the work of idiots who were purposely trying to sabotage 1st grade math education.
Here's what I think of #1 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8820195
By topic #2, in 1st grade we've utterly and completely failed every child who took this test. They couldn't even get through a few weeks of school before we managed to alienate most of the class from math education and a large number of these kids will carry this around with them for the rest of their schooling.