BoS Maths Trials 2017 (3 Viewers)

[Carrotsticks]

Oh god

Hard for Carrotsticks means hong kong olympiad times 1000

Doesn't take much for a question to be difficult for me.

How hard is the 3U paper in your opinion?

I think this year's 3U is much easier and less f***ed up compared to last year, especially in regards to the last question of the paper. We kinda went overboard with Q14 last year and I'm not too proud of that.

This time it is not a 15 mark super-question, but two larger questions. One is worth 6 marks on combinatorics and the other is worth 9 marks.

 

[pikachu975]

I think this year's 3U is much easier and less f***ed up compared to last year, especially in regards to the last question of the paper. We kinda went overboard with Q14 last year and I'm not too proud of that.

This time it is not a 15 mark super-question, but two larger questions. One is worth 6 marks on combinatorics and the other is worth 9 marks.

Haha damn the 15 mark questions are fun, but damn combinatorics sad life

 

[same1111]

Will you put the paper up before the actual hsc exam so we can see it

 

[Carrotsticks]

Will you put the paper up before the actual hsc exam so we can see it

Yes!

 

[seanieg89]

Had to leave Sydney because of a meeting unfortunately, still look forward to seeing the paper .

 

[Carrotsticks]

Had to leave Sydney because of a meeting unfortunately, still look forward to seeing the paper .

Damn, was looking forward to seeing you again dude. Maybe next time mate.

 

[Carrotsticks]

Also I did this just for you guise (4U paper)

 

[pikachu975]

Also I did this just for you guise (4U paper)

Gonna take 3 hours to read the paper

 

[seanieg89]

Someone post/PM the paper plz

 

[seanieg89]

Damn, was looking forward to seeing you again dude. Maybe next time mate.

Ah well, I'll be in Sydney at least a couple more times before I leave Aus.

 

[pikachu975]

When it says use relevant projectile motion equations from the formula sheet but there are none

 

[Paradoxica]

 

[Trebla]

Thank you for all those attended . It was great to see so many people keen on doing the BoS trial papers this year. Hopefully the papers were challenging and interesting for you.

Hopefully the rather unfortunate disruptions we had in the afternoon sessions weren't too much of an issue (if anything, maybe they bought some more thinking time?). We hope you can appreciate the difficult decisions we had to make given the already complex logistical arrangements.

Massive thanks to Carrotsticks, Paradoxica, jjlim7, strawberrye, ml125 and the UNSW Mining Engineering staff for helping to supervise the exams.

The papers are attached below. Please note that they have incorporated some mostly minor feedback (e.g. on wording) so they may differ slightly to the hard copy you have.

 

[Trebla]

Also keen to hear your thoughts on both the papers. Were there any questions you particularly liked? How was the difficulty in general and in comparison to previous years (if you attempted those)?

 

[seanieg89]

Haha good choice of Q16 .

 

[pikachu975]

You mean half the paper left in 5 mins

Also keen to hear your thoughts on both the papers. Were there any questions you particularly liked? How was the difficulty in general and in comparison to previous years (if you attempted those)?

What language was question 16 written in

One person behind me said they only missed 11 marks meanwhile I probably barely got over 11 haha

 

[leehuan]

Lol wow that's new. Proving e is transcendental.

 

[seanieg89]

Also keen to hear your thoughts on both the papers. Were there any questions you particularly liked? How was the difficulty in general and in comparison to previous years (if you attempted those)?

Just a couple of minor comments on Q16 to the examiners:

1. You introduce the notion of a prime, but none of its properties besides its definition. In several steps of the proof, we prove that integers are indivisible by p essentially because they are the product of integers indivisible by p. Whilst this is a pretty basic number theoretic fact (p|xy => p|x or p|y), it isn't a trivial consequence of the provided definition of the prime number. (It is more work to establish than several steps of the proof that were worth marks). Did you expect students to know this already or prove it? Or did you have something else in mind? Given that NT is not strictly syllabus, it is my feeling that this should have been provided as a black-box fact like you did for the mean value theorem.

2. (V. minor) The lack of a visible k-dependence in the notation of \alpha could have been confusing to students. Of course, since you are led through the proof step by step, this does not lead to any illegal math so no biggie.

3. Good work as always giving up your time to organise this for the students, I hope everyone got something out of it!

 

[Raeservoir]

Also keen to hear your thoughts on both the papers. Were there any questions you particularly liked? How was the difficulty in general and in comparison to previous years (if you attempted those)?

Did 4U only - it was challenging as expected (duh!) but I still enjoyed it. q16 looked quite interesting, and while I didn't get to do more than one mark of it, I'm looking forward to trying it at some future point, without time pressure. The rest were, to me, a good mix of doable to borderline impossible, which is fine with me for a paper intended like this.

Cauchy-Schwarz inequality was a nice touch

 

[apinix]

To me, the paper was more difficult than the past papers, but then again it could just be the time pressure under exam conditions that I might not have at home. Overall great paper and very engaging questions!