Despite more females than males writing the 2011 NSC examination (265,244 versus 230,846), males achieved a higher pass rate (71.9% versus 68.6%). (Report on the National Senior Certificate Examination 2011)
This week’s theme: Matric 2011
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Could it be that males who felt they were not up to scratch decided not to write, while females wrote even if they felt that they would fail?
Speculative comment on this piece of stat is a waste of time as this could mean anything swung either way
Why not include the ratios/weight calculations to account for the over-representation of males to give us a real indication of the difference in performance.
There are more females than males that wrote the examination (265,244 versus 230,846) and in terms of numbers more females achieved the NSC (182,060 versus 166,057). However, the percentage of males that achieved the NSC is higher than the percentage of females (71.9% versus 68.6%). This confirms that males are performing better than females.
The ratio is usually like this – it would be interesting to cross reference the percentage of female teen pregnancies, with the failure rate – I’m willing to bet you’ll see a strong correllation.
Comparing numbers and ratios, however, is a bit of a waste of time