How long does the exam take (2 Viewers)

[Giant Lobster]

Realistically I see doing the Ext 1 exam within 1.5 hours possible, leaving 1.5 hrs to check over. But the 4u exam, I think if my life depended on it I can probably do it in 2.5, but in actuality itll prolly take me 2.9, leaving not much but a glance to check over. And thats if nothing tricky that I cant do pops up. p *looks around*) but Im speaking from little experience

Can you pros who've owned 4u already gimme an idea of what I'm up against time wise?

 

[fitz33]

for a start, the ext 1 exam only goes for 2 hours..so you'd only have half an hour to check over it

it should be possible to do the ext 1 exam in a little over an hour (thats how long it takes to write it all out)..but i found it worked better if i just did it slowly to avoid silly mistakes in the first place (still leaving 15mins to check over some stuff at the end)

4U i wouldnt bother aiming to check over stuff..just do it carefully and answer as much as possible. i was left with about 20mins at the end of last years but it all depends on the paper really. there's more value doing more parts of questions then checking over stuff you've already done.

 

[turtle_2468]

Depends. Realistically speaking, most ppl don't finish 4U, hence the scaling factor. If you go really really really fast (I mean, I usually go a few minutes slower per q in exam to make sure I don't make mistakes) and you "know" how to do all the q's so you're just writing down the solns, it'd take around 2 hours 10 minutes. Being slightly more careful, 2 hours 20 minutes. But then, that's if you know how to do all of them...

 

[spice girl]

hmm...if you realistically want to finish the 4u paper then doing the first 4 questions within an hour is usually a good indication...

 

[KeypadSDM]

It all depends on the difficulty of the exam. Spice girl's advice for the first 4 questions is exactly what to aim for, but the next 4 can take anywhere from 1 hour to 2.5 hours.

The 3 unit exam this year wasn't exceptionally difficult, but it was particularly long. Most of my grade didn't finish it, and I had about 10 minutes for checking at the end.

If you want to kill the 3 unit paper, practice getting REALLY fast at the simple stuff, and make sure you use the reading time wisely. I used it to check what questions 5, 6 & 7 were about, and it gave me time to think them over in my head whilst doing other parts of the paper.

 

[Giant Lobster]

I used it to check what questions 5, 6 & 7 were about, and it gave me time to think them over in my head whilst doing other parts of the paper.

parallel processing... is that even possible?

well anyway, about spice girl's advice, that should be achievable. Just a question, how did you pros go in ur 4u exam time wise? Sorry if u have to repeat urself but can you do so in more detail? e.g approx how much time for qu 1, 2 3 (if u can remember roughly ) I guess the time it takes to do each qu progresses exponentially or somefin; question 8 i can imagine may take me 2 hrs alone if i were to do it all! (Assuming I can. Which is a stupid assumption )

 

[spice girl]

it's all about having or not having done similar questions before; question 8 is no different from any other question... it's just questions with 2, 3 or 4 different topics mixed together into a question. having said that, i find that the only reason why most ppl take absurd amounts of time attempting question 8's is because they've never bothered to practice similar questions in the past.

especially for past papers: most ppl don't finish the paper, meaning they never touch question 8. advice here is to aim to finish question 8 without looking at the answer. it may take 2 hours at first, but should progressively become quicker as u do more and more. and as u get quicker doing Q8's, u'll find that u automatically get quicker in easier questions.

my time for Q8? by the HSC stuvac, 30min, max

 

[scandal]

Finishing the 4 unit paper is not the be end or end all

Aim at completinmg 75% - thats enough for a band 6 for sure

Anything after that is a bonus

Dont be disappointed if you dont finish because you expect too - set realistic goals and good luck

 

[KeypadSDM]

Originally posted by spice girl
especially for past papers: most ppl don't finish the paper, meaning they never touch question 8. advice here is to aim to finish question 8 without looking at the answer. it may take 2 hours at first, but should progressively become quicker as u do more and more. and as u get quicker doing Q8's, u'll find that u automatically get quicker in easier questions.

I found that the HSC question 8's are significantly harder than the stuff schools throw at you. Make sure you can do those ones especially by the end of stuvac.

 

[Grey Council]

Ssooo much good advice here.

Any idea how many past papers (appoximately) we should have done by the time the HSC is on us? 40? 80?

 

[Giant Lobster]

3 hours / paper, 30 min for self marking, 30 mins to meditate on why your still imperfect and getting stuff wrong, 24 hours a day... hmmmmm
quite alot i would say

So regarding q8 again, is it really "just like any other question"? I thought of that question as sort of a miscellaneous "not in the syllabus" "we have 2 pages left to fill in the paper so may as well chuck a riemann's hypothesis question or similar in and see how they handle it" type of question.

Well anywho ill try my best to get myself ready for this question; seeing as how so much people simply expect to die in it, perhaps i can use it to my advantage.

 

[KeypadSDM]

Originally posted by GuardiaN
Any idea how many past papers (appoximately) we should have done by the time the HSC is on us? 40? 80?

I did about 500 pages of 4 unit past papers, answering them. But I dunno how many papers that is. If you do 80, you'll be well set tho.

Originally posted by Giant Lobster
30 min for self marking

I stopped doing that after about 2 papers.

I just thought if I wasn't entirely sure if I got it right, then I'll check the answers after I finish the question.

 

[KeypadSDM]

No no, I wrote out 500 pages of answers. It was probably only about 40 papers.
I got them all from my teacher.

 

[ND]

Originally posted by Giant Lobster

So regarding q8 again, is it really "just like any other question"? I thought of that question as sort of a miscellaneous "not in the syllabus" "we have 2 pages left to fill in the paper so may as well chuck a riemann's hypothesis question or similar in and see how they handle it" type of question.

My advice: don't worry about q8 until you've done the rest of the paper. (believe me, i'm talking from experience here)

 

[freaking_out]

Originally posted by ND
My advice: don't worry about q8 until you've done the rest of the paper. (believe me, i'm talking from experience here)

:rofl:

 

[ND]

Not funny...

I'm still so pissed at myself.

 

[Supra]

y wot happened??

 

[ND]

I did the paper backwards; it seemed like a good idea at the time, afterall, i had practiced doing two past papers backwards (like 2 days before the exam), and i did quite well on them.

I got about 3/4 of q8 out and basically all of q7 out, but i wasted so much time on them... I rushed through 6, then realised that i was running really low on time, so i went back to q1 and worked my way forwards. In the end i didn't even get to attempt the projectile questions in q5... For q1 i got 9/15, that's right, 9...
Do not try this!

 

[spice girl]

i thought turtle told u not to do it that way...

 

[ND]

Yeh he advised against it, but i'm quite stubborn and thought that i could pull it off... serves me right for going against the advice of a maths expert.