The Time Limit (1 Viewer)

gurmies

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Hey guys, i'm in year 12 now (09er) and was scrolling through some of these threads, and I notice that a lot of people say that the time limit jeopardises their possible good marks. Is the time limit really that hard to keep to? I have never had a problem with time limit for 2 and 3 Unit maths exams, and the prospect of perhaps not finishing an exam is killing me. So yeah, hard time limit? Also, any tips on time allocation would be much appreciated.
 

azn-drew

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No offence to anyone, but I don't think its the time limit that jeopardises people, but its more tilted towards bad time management. To overcome this, experience is required and knowing how to handle certain situations definately helps. You probably have heard this hundreds of times over your schooling career, but if you can't do a question, don't stew on it and waste valuable time. The point to take away is that if you can manage your time well in ANY exam, time limit should never be a problem.
P.S, knowing how much time you have to do the exam helps as well. =]
EDIT: time allocation should be a delicate balance between accuracy and speed. You don't want to be too pedantic since you'll waste time on minor details, yet you don't want to rush and make careless mistakes. To find the right balance, do practice tests(eg. past HSC's/trials) and see how well you do. Some people can manage to do a 2 hour test in an hour with little mistakes yet some people may take the whole 2 hours to go through the whole test accurately. Alot of textbooks use a mark/time allocation which i think is really stupid. After all, HSC's are designed to get progressively harder, so the earlier questions will be easier than the later ones. Time allocation is different with people, so try to find your balance. =]
 
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Trebla

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It's not mainly because of the time limit, it's more of the fact that many people cannot penetrate a lot of the questions. When you spend time figuring out how to approach a challenging question, then obviously time would be against you.

Hypothetically, if a student KNOWS how to answer ALL the questions on the paper, then the student will usually finish with a little bit of time to spare. However, for most others, they DO NOT know how to answer all the questions and thus spend extra time trying to figure out these questions they cannot penetrate.

Three hours is adequate, it's a challenge to maintain full concentration for 3 hours straight let alone more...lol
 
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shaon0

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I've been pondering this issue to. I've had a few problems on MX1 tests where i have not finished some questions mainly due to my lack of study. Bu on the other hand, i've been finishing some class tests for 2unit (45 minutes) in about 10 minutes then i'd just sleep the rest of the 35 minutes.
But i'm willing to study for MX2, will i be able to finish the MX2 tests?
 

azn-drew

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if you're willing to put the effort into MX2, then yes.
Mind you, it does require alot of effort. xD
 

gurmies

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Thank you guys! Understood. I have never in my life been able to "leave" a question...I usually sit there until it hits me =( I'm that kind of person.. I know if I leave a question, it will bug me for the entire exam, and thus I will make other careless errors on the questions I DO know how to answer. Trebla, you make perfect sense, if I were to know everything in the exam, it would simply be 3 hours just to answer 8 questions negating any time to"think". That's highly improbable though, for a 4 unit exam, particularly the last questions
 

shaon0

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gurmies said:
Thank you guys! Understood. I have never in my life been able to "leave" a question...I usually sit there until it hits me =( I'm that kind of person.. I know if I leave a question, it will bug me for the entire exam, and thus I will make other careless errors on the questions I DO know how to answer. Trebla, you make perfect sense, if I were to know everything in the exam, it would simply be 3 hours just to answer 8 questions negating any time to"think". That's highly improbable though, for a 4 unit exam, particularly the last questions
Yeah i usually do that for most questions.
 

ekoolish

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shaon0 said:
I've been pondering this issue to. I've had a few problems on MX1 tests where i have not finished some questions mainly due to my lack of study. Bu on the other hand, i've been finishing some class tests for 2unit (45 minutes) in about 10 minutes then i'd just sleep the rest of the 35 minutes.
But i'm willing to study for MX2, will i be able to finish the MX2 tests?
Lol this is true, he did the same for biology and didn't go too bad either.
 

bendha

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NO just watch time for 3U ... 4U you have an okay amount of time.
 

shaon0

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ekoolish said:
Lol this is true, he did the same for biology and didn't go too bad either.
I finished the bio test in 45 minutes but i did crap. And you gunned it the bio and english yearlies.
 

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