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Hard questions (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter dumNerd
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Just doing more and more papers for maths honestly. Maths there are so many past papers on websites like THSC online. If you are trying to get better at answering the harder questions then you should do papers from those top schools usually exams from schools like James Ruse, Sydney Grammar etc. tend to be harder than HSC exams so are more useful for that purpose
More papers in general or hard questions within the papers (don't know if you have heard of Kurt but his test have a bunch of hard question, till now i just wait for him to explain it and then learn the approach, should I be spending time grinding these hard questions?)
Personally I did a bit of both. I just did more work all together and in that you come across harder questions as well. Helps with reducing silly mistakes as well if you consistently do all kinds of questions rather than just focusing on the hard ones and exam speed increases if you have done full papers under timed conditions a lot. I would normally try to do like 2 or so papers a week from THSC for maths from those selective or high ranking schools. I think there is some benefit in grinding out the questions as you understand it better if you learnt what works and doesn't but there's a limit to spending too much time on something you can't do
So - far from a maths genius but...
I think it'd be disingenuous to simply say do more challenging questions - because that's common sense. That being said, don't overlook the resources that are at your fingertips; textbooks, past papers - Internals & Externals, etc.
Essentially, how I, and many others I know who excel in mathematics (3U&4U) Is having a passion for each challenging question that comes across your eyes. This means approaching the question from multiple angles - or at least trying to. Don't just grind out a question - and throw it away. Ask yourself, is there another way I can do this?
As you said previously, I always like looking at how my classmates approach questions - because being able to holster different ways to tackle a question is really beneficial in an exam; increasing adaptability.
I think it'd be disingenuous to simply say do more challenging questions - because that's common sense. That being said, don't overlook the resources that are at your fingertips; textbooks, past papers - Internals & Externals, etc.
Essentially, how I, and many others I know who excel in mathematics (3U&4U) Is having a passion for each challenging question that comes across your eyes. This means approaching the question from multiple angles - or at least trying to. Don't just grind out a question - and throw it away. Ask yourself, is there another way I can do this?
As you said previously, I always like looking at how my classmates approach questions - because being able to holster different ways to tackle a question is really beneficial in an exam; increasing adaptability.
I still don't get how doing more challenging questions is supposed to improve problem solving ability
Why?
I literally have nothing to do at the moment finished mod 1 phys and chem so I reckon I'll just spend time grinding out the Kurt tests where I do hard questions until I get them. Will also take your advice and do 1 internals 2U/3U paper every 2nd day in the holidays
What exactly does it do. I get how doing more questions reduces silly mistakes but the chance of getting a hard question similar to the ones being done is minimal
I don't necessarily agree. Idk about 4U, but there are plenty of skills/tricks that overlap for challenging questions (or general Q's) in 3U.
If the whole point if challenging questions is the tricks/methids to do them , then woudlnt it be best to just learn then from your tutor ?
Well that's how i did it. I've never been to tutoring (never will, but that's a whole diff story lmao), so if that suits you best then go for it.
Theres a difference between you personally getting a question out yourself and the tutor doing it for you, or even guiding you. Basically try hard questions all by yourself trying every method or thought that comes to mind until you get the answer. Then think to yourself why that path worked whilst the others failed. IMO you should only go to your tutor if you have exhausted all your options to try and find an alternative perspective.
Exactly what my tutor said, thanks
Yes and you also have to shift your perspective during an exam. Whilst in practice your sole purpose is to answer all the questions not caring too much about time, in an exam you have to be realistic in how you spend your time (you probably already know this). But many people advise you practice past papers in timed conditions, I don't agree with this, I think you should spend as long as you want (even hours) until you get out a question, atleast in the early stages of your prep.
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I think the most important attribute is making sure you understand the concepts in depth (as opposed to having a shallow understanding and just rote learning textbook techniques to solve problems). This is essential particularly in Ext2 as simply memorising ways to solve problems doesn’t get you very far.
You will encounter unfamiliar questions where a “textbook” solution does not exist and you are expected to come up with the solution yourself from scratch. Therefore, you must be very confident in properly understanding your material and knowing which concepts to apply (or not apply) to solve a problem.
You will encounter unfamiliar questions where a “textbook” solution does not exist and you are expected to come up with the solution yourself from scratch. Therefore, you must be very confident in properly understanding your material and knowing which concepts to apply (or not apply) to solve a problem.
Thanks to all the replies, based on your advice iv decided to spent the first half of holidays going for 3U content and doing Kurt tests (will include hard questions)
The second half I'll do internal papers and try new techniques for hard questions which will be marked or something
Basically full revision of year followed by refining techniques (also saves me time to chill)
Fair enough, and I agree nearer to your exam you should definitely do exams in timed conditions. I was mainly talking about when you first start off past papers (atleast for me), if I got the question myself without any outside help I improved much better than looking at the solutions, because I thought of the idea myself. Especially exams like BOS or really difficult exams taking the time to think of each question and trying what works what doesn't was really useful.
It allows you to sort of ‘self discover’ certain properties, methods and develop key insight that may prove relevant to future problems.
For example when solving a really hard Physics problem you’re going to come across many different ‘sub problems’ where you can ask yourself “why does it do this and not this?”, “Why does this produce a result like this?”, “What would happen if I change this part of the problem to this.? These sub problems that you ask yourself help develop intuition and a deep understanding of why certain things behave way they do. This can be applied to a future problem that you’ve never seen before where even if you don’t know fully what to do, you will be able to make reasonable deductions based on the given information because you’ve explored the topic in many different areas by asking yourself sub questions when doing challenging problems.
Soo rather it’s the process of doing challenging problems that helps.