The final examination consisted of 31 questions covering basic statistics, making calculations in bases other than ten, determining slope and intercept from raw data for both linear and quadratic systems, writing the equation of the arc of a ball in the air, and making siteswap calculations. 

Most of the material would be familiar to mathematics instructors, the siteswap mathematics is a fairly young and immature field of applied mathematics that permitted me to introduce a mathematical system different from anything the students had encountered before. The one day exercise also assisted in making the point that there is more to mathematics than algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus. In fact, this traditional sequence was designed by mathematicians with the goal of moving students along to calculus.

Student performance on the final examination was fairly strong with, on average, 83% of the students answering all questions correctly. The percentage of students getting a specific question correct is given in the following table, along with a descriptor of the question.
1 Find minimum value in a data set 97%
2 Find maximum value in a data set 100%
3 Calculate the range for a data set 83%
4 Determine the mode for a data set 100%
5 Determine the median for a data set 67%
6 Determine the mean for a data set 83%
7 Critical thinking: inference from a mean 87%
8 Hexadecimal RGB color code matching 97%
9 Hexadecimal RGB color code matching 97%
10 Hexadecimal RGB color code matching 100%
11 Hexadecimal RGB color code matching 97%
12 Hexadecimal RGB color code matching 97%
13 Calculate a result in base five 87%
14 Calculate a result in base sixteen 100%
15 Calculate a result in base sixteen 93%
16 Plot points on a graph 100%
17 Find the slope from points on a graph 80%
18 Find the y-intercept from points on a graph 93%
19 Write the slope-intercept equation 67%
20 Predict a result from a slope-intercept equation 67%
21 Predict a result from the inverse of the slope-intercept eqn 57%
22 Square a set of data values 100%
23 Find the slope from points on a graph of x² versus y 83%
24 Find the y-intercept from points on a graph of x² versus y 90%
25 Determine a and c in y = ax² + c 80%
26 Predict a result from a quadratic equation 3%
27 Read a given value 83%
28 Determine the average distance to the roots given formula 93%
29 Write out the quadratic equation of a ball arc 7%
30 Determine the number of balls in a siteswap sequence 93%
31 Determine the number of balls in a siteswap sequence 87%

For problem number twenty-six, with only a single student getting the problem correct, the difficulty was not that students used the wrong equation. 80% of the students had determined that the coefficient a for y = ax² + b was 4 and that the constant b was 0. When asked to determine the y-value for an x-value of 20, couched in the language of the language (time and distance), students primarily forgot to square the 20 seconds.

Reasons for the collapse on number 29 are less clear, but many students simply did not understand how to use the y-intercept and roots to set up the quadratic equation. The task was actually one of substitution into a given equation and simplification, but this eluded all but two of the students.

Overall students appear to have become comfortable with plotting data and then deriving slopes and intercepts from the graph. Many are able to go on and use that equation to make predictions for other values of x (67%) and to infer an x-value from a y-value (57%).