As to the elegance and scopefullness (1 Viewer)

[sif not 99]

If anybody bothered to check the outcomes for the course you may have encountered the phrase "appreciate the elegance and scopefullness of mathematics."

Sure I appreciate the elegance and scopefullness of maths yet somehow I dont think that outcome is going to shine through if I forget how the hell to do time payments. Sure I might not have got the question right but geez look at that working wasnt it elegant and cant u just appreciate its scope! where are my marks! It is outcome based assessment now after all

 

[Lazarus]

Scopefullness isn't even a word!

 

[sif not 99]

it appears the butchering of the english language has spread afar to the halls of the mathematics department at the BoS.

 

[InfiniteQ]

That can be a bit of a worry.

 

[Nelly]

That has to be the worst line in any syllabus I have ever read!!!

 

[ben]

LOL - we got that "outcome" on one of our assessment tasks!! So pathetically funny.

But it's the same with most subjects - all these terms to make the courses sound like the use some "high order thinking skills".


Am i right to say that the New HSC matha exam isn't really very much different to the maths exams prior to 2000?

 

[Minai]

they are basically exactly the same style as previous years
except my teacher said there are a bit more of wats called "component B" type questions, where u need to do stuff like "justify ur answer" and "find the mistakes in this working out"...or something..

 

[ben]

all our maths assessment tasks have been "Component B" (which are really annoying - all that finding mistakes - "applying our understanding to..")

But we've been told our actual exams will be "Component A" only. can anyone confirm this for the HSC exam?

 

[Morgues]

I have been told the syllabus hasn't changed at all........not sure though

 

[sif not 99]

never heard about component A or B but I am assuming B refers to justification of answers like in Calculus and the Physical.... chapter, instead of leaving just the answer you have to write out something like "the initial velocity at time x is equal to y" something like that perhaps.

 

[Nelly]

The Component's in the HSC exam's differ for 2,3, and 4U.

2U Math - 80% Component A, 20% Component B
3U Math - 70% Component A, 30% Component B
4U Math - 60% Component A, 40% Component B.

 

[ben]

2U:

80% Comp. A
20% Comp. B

Ok, thanks, but what exactly will that mean?

20% of our exam will be justification

 

[Lazarus]

Morgues is correct - the syllabuses for 2u, 3u and 4u mathematics have not changed. If you look at the specimen papers for those courses, you will notice that they are exact replicas of the 1999 HSC papers. I'm not sure whether the same goes for general maths, however.

Personally, I thought the 2001 HSC paper for 2u required more of that 'Component B'-type thinking. If you recall that question about an oddly-shaped glass that is being filled at a certain rate (Q8, I think), it required an application of the knowledge of rates of change to a "real life" scenario. You don't usually get too many of those questions.

What it means is that you can't simply memorise a method to find a solution - you need to understand what's going on behind the scenes. You need to grasp the concepts. Knowing that you put the derivative of a curve equal to zero to find stationary points will gain you a limited number of marks, but you won't truly do well unless you understand why that is done.

 

[ben]

Yeah - i remember seeing all those "real-life" questions.

--

I laughed at that "Whoever has a 0.75 chance of connecting to his 'Internet Service Provider'..."

Wow! I never knew Maths was so relevant to my everday life (*cough)

 

[Nelly]

Exactly what Fatmusle said. You need to understand the concept, not just the formula which gets you the answer. You shouldn't learn a specific style of question and repeat it several times, becuase if you get a variation, you'll be completely screwed

 

[Lazarus]

*cough* I said that.

 

[Nelly]

Yeah yeah, don't get a big head, we know ur "GOD", so just take a seat.

 

[Minai]

lol

argh to component B...
we recently had an assessment which was out of 66....i got 48, but all the marks i lost were on the component B
(the examiner actually seperated the test into component A and B

 

[ben]

Originally posted by MinAi
(the examiner actually seperated the test into component A and B

haha! our component b tests just asked us questions like

"Why is the probability of .... only an estimate..?

 

[Nelly]

Our questions are always: What is wrong with Newton's Method, and stuff like that