I'm in Year 10 doing the accelerant maths course and I recently did a 3 unit maths exam where I did REALLY badly (looking at 20-30%) Thing is though I studied from the day when we got the revision sheet and did questions from Cambridge and Fitzpatrick. I revised each topic thoroughly (exam was based on Trig, Locus and Calculus) and reviewed over each topic every study night before moving onto the new work. I knew all the formulas and procedures and had done all the questions from the textbooks, but I still did terribly. I talked to another guy in my class after the test and he said he thought he passed and he had only studied 2 nights before the exam! I have no idea why this happened, it happened to me in the last 3 unit exam (I got 7/30...) and it annoys me more than anything because I have worked very hard and have still done much worse than other people who didn't study as much as me. I don't really think my study methods are entirely inefficent, and most other people in my class aren't even using Cambridge, they're using the Jones and Couchman book the school uses. I really want to do MX1 next year, but I need to know what I did wrong. I can't do past papers to study because all the tests we have do don't cover every topic, they only cover a few topics that have been studied recently. Can anyone help me here? It seems that some people can barely lift a finger and score better than me while I'm constantly studying and failing my exams.
-
Looking for HSC notes and resources? Check out our Notes & Resources page
Failing after studying everything properly? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Pacism
- Start date
Top Secret
Member
Find out what your doing wrong, or what your weaknesses are.
Work on past papers, and see what mark you get. That way, you'll know when you've done enough.
Work on past papers, and see what mark you get. That way, you'll know when you've done enough.
Gussy Booo
Mathematics <3
The answer IS PAST PAPERS !
Don't give me that "I can't do past papers to study because all the tests we have do don't cover every topic" shit.
Go to past paper. Look through all the questions. If you see a question which goes under your particular area of study go for it.
I understand your pain. However, in times like these, you have to be perseverant and strong..
Gl
Btw. Those 3 topics are probably the hardest to do in the prelim ext course.
Gosh, you would have had to study extra hard for that.....past papers would've really helped
Don't give me that "I can't do past papers to study because all the tests we have do don't cover every topic" shit.
Go to past paper. Look through all the questions. If you see a question which goes under your particular area of study go for it.
I understand your pain. However, in times like these, you have to be perseverant and strong..
Gl
Btw. Those 3 topics are probably the hardest to do in the prelim ext course.
Gosh, you would have had to study extra hard for that.....past papers would've really helped
Last edited:
I guess I can find qus in past papers that are relevant but how will I be able to do timed conditions then. One of my biggest problems is that the time allocated for the exam is too short for me and I cannot think properly knowing there's so little time.
Gussy Booo
Mathematics <3
Just get a question and see how fast you can do it.
It took me 2 exams to realize that pace was a big thing in maths. Especially Ext Maths.
You just have to try and do questions as fast as possible whilst being focused at 100%.
Then when you have time to spare, you look back.
I think your problem might be in "recognizing questions".
Sure, anyone can practice practice and practice, but sometimes its hard to tell what to do, and where to do it. Can you see where I'm coming from?
I used to have that problem. I'd write notes.
E.g : When you see -this- and you see -that-, do this.
Something like that.
It helps
It took me 2 exams to realize that pace was a big thing in maths. Especially Ext Maths.
You just have to try and do questions as fast as possible whilst being focused at 100%.
Then when you have time to spare, you look back.
I think your problem might be in "recognizing questions".
Sure, anyone can practice practice and practice, but sometimes its hard to tell what to do, and where to do it. Can you see where I'm coming from?
I used to have that problem. I'd write notes.
E.g : When you see -this- and you see -that-, do this.
Something like that.
It helps
K
khorne
Guest
Study smarter, not longer...
What exactly didn't you get? The questions?
What exactly didn't you get? The questions?
It was mainly how they were asked, I'm not very good at being able to apply knowledge from many areas into one question. It's also partly because I couldn't think straight. I had studied trig the most, and the trig equations in the exam I should have been able to solve, but I didn't have any clue in the exam.
I understand what you mean, but I did write notes. If there was formula or a procedure I found tricky to remember, I'd put it on a piece of paper. And I studied all this stuff on the paper before going into an exam. eg for some differentiation stuff I had something like "To find the gradient of a tangent do this and then to find the equation sub the x value in etc" So I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.Just get a question and see how fast you can do it.
It took me 2 exams to realize that pace was a big thing in maths. Especially Ext Maths.
You just have to try and do questions as fast as possible whilst being focused at 100%.
Then when you have time to spare, you look back.
I think your problem might be in "recognizing questions".
Sure, anyone can practice practice and practice, but sometimes its hard to tell what to do, and where to do it. Can you see where I'm coming from?
I used to have that problem. I'd write notes.
E.g : When you see -this- and you see -that-, do this.
Something like that.
Gussy Booo
Mathematics <3
Ok, it's definately your lack of practice papers.
Your brain has no clue, because It doesn't know how to range from question to question.
It seems like, you studied pretty good.
Though, I can't stress how important practice papers can be.
Your brain has no clue, because It doesn't know how to range from question to question.
It seems like, you studied pretty good.
Though, I can't stress how important practice papers can be.
Thing is though, pretty much no one in my class does past papers. In fact I don't think anybody does. Besides there are no past papers that have only stuff that our class has learned because we haven't covered the prelim syllabus yet.
Timothy.Siu
Prophet 9
doesn't mean u shouldn't.
well the problem is just working out why you did so badly, i.e. where you lost the marks.
Maybe you don't understand the concepts and maybe you CAN do the questions in textbooks, but when you see a totally new question, you have no idea how to do it because you have basically been "rote learning" maths which isn't that bad anyway for HSC but obviously isn't working for you.
but if not, then I don't see why you can't do the questions in the exam, if you've covered every topic thoroughly, as you say as covering topics thoroughly means that you can do MOST of the question from that topic, and definitely all the easy to medium difficulty ones. You would only maybe struggle on the harder ones but that doesn't explain your low marks.
ninetypercent
ninety ninety ninety
seems like you're not understanding the material, but rather - you're memorising it. Practice exam style questions from textbook + past papers.
jet
Banned
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2007
- Messages
- 3,148
- Gender
- Male
- HSC
- 2009
Ask your teacher for past papers from the school. I asked for them when I did maths and they gave them to me. THat way, you get used to the format.
As others have said, 3 unit is ridiculous in terms of time allowances. Most people will never finish, and even I had to rush in my HSC for maths, and didn't finish. You need to not check the answer once you have written it down, but know you are correct, and move on straight away without a second thought. Often, our first instincts are always right.
You said you had trouble understanding what the questions are telling you. A tip would be to write out all of the information on the page/in the booklet you are answering in as you read it. So, for example, if it said:
"Find the equation of the tangent to the curve y = x3 - 3x + 1 at the point A(0, 1)."
then you would immediately write in the booklet:
y = x3 -3x + 1
A(0, 1)
and work from there. The only other way to know what each question is telling you is through exposure. That, I'm afraid, only comes from past papers. Good luck.
As others have said, 3 unit is ridiculous in terms of time allowances. Most people will never finish, and even I had to rush in my HSC for maths, and didn't finish. You need to not check the answer once you have written it down, but know you are correct, and move on straight away without a second thought. Often, our first instincts are always right.
You said you had trouble understanding what the questions are telling you. A tip would be to write out all of the information on the page/in the booklet you are answering in as you read it. So, for example, if it said:
"Find the equation of the tangent to the curve y = x3 - 3x + 1 at the point A(0, 1)."
then you would immediately write in the booklet:
y = x3 -3x + 1
A(0, 1)
and work from there. The only other way to know what each question is telling you is through exposure. That, I'm afraid, only comes from past papers. Good luck.
hecheeseman
Member
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2008
- Messages
- 39
- Gender
- Female
- HSC
- 2009
the most important thing for the senior years is listening in class! there are so many people in my mx1 class who rush into the work, don't do their hmework etc. think that they know better than the teacher, but come exam day generally I beat majority of these people even though I don't do past papers very often or any of these other things.. all I do is listen in class, ask questions when I haven't done well in homework and get the basics down pat.
I think if you just in future do 2-3 questions each night on the day's work then it will be such a huge advantage in the exams..
Good luck!
also, there are heaps of textbooks which give you specific examples of hsc questions in that area, try phoenix practice questions by topic for ext 1, its green and its really good cause you can just do the questions that are relevant to what you don't understand..
I think if you just in future do 2-3 questions each night on the day's work then it will be such a huge advantage in the exams..
Good luck!
also, there are heaps of textbooks which give you specific examples of hsc questions in that area, try phoenix practice questions by topic for ext 1, its green and its really good cause you can just do the questions that are relevant to what you don't understand..
Last edited:
Studentleader
Active Member
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2008
- Messages
- 1,136
- Gender
- Undisclosed
- HSC
- N/A
I got 30% in my calculus trials compared to my average of 63% (was 69% after my mid-years). Shit happens, I ended up getting 60 something in my HSC exam for a scaled&moderated mark of 59. Same thing happened in my HSC for physics, chem and applicable maths - I was on 70 average for chem and physics got 45 in the HSC - went from 85 to 75 in maths.
Exams suck.
Exams suck.