*****trials + Half Yearly Exam Papers Needed 4 Extension 2 Mathematics (3 Viewers)

[undalay]

its like. you go an ellipse.
and it asks you what does PS + PS' = ?

Then you go about using the distance formula etc etc.
and after about 50 lines of working
you get that it equals 2a.

are you still "correct" ?

edit: my point is, if you are teaching yourself, solutions are essential.

 

[me121]

its like. you go an ellipse.
and it asks you what does PS + PS' = ?

Then you go about using the distance formula etc etc.
and after about 50 lines of working
you get that it equals 2a.

are you still "correct" ?

edit: my point is, if you are teaching yourself, solutions are essential.

[rant]

Hmm well i'm not sure. Because, sure, solutions can come in really handy. But they are not essential. Because if you have the answers, you know if you got the correct answer or not. If you got an incorrect answer, more often than not, you can correct your mistake by looking at your solution again.

If you still are having problems you can always ask you teacher. You see, I don't really like solutions because they don't really explain what is going on. They just list the steps, but often it can be hard to understand why certain steps were taken, and knowing this is essential.

What I don't like about the HSC is they tend to not have many large complex problem solving questions that require many steps and many different of areas of maths to solve the problem. Because in the real world you never really get a question that says solve this integral. You have to analyse the problem and create a mathematical model. And there is no answer. You must be able to think of ways to get to the answer without looking up somebody else's answer.

If people become too accustom to looking up others solutions, how are people meant to solve unsolved problems.

[/rant]

 

[YannY]

Why are we arguing this? - arguing this does not provide solutions to the tests.

 

[michaelnashid]

lol..

 

[buchanan]

There's a lot more to maths than exams.

"Perhaps I could best describe my experience of doing mathematics in terms of entering a dark mansion. One goes into the first room, and it's dark, completely dark. One stumbles around bumping into the furniture, and gradually, you learn where each piece of furniture is, and finally, after six months or so, you find the light switch. You turn it on, and suddenly, it's all illuminated. You can see exactly where you were."

-- Andrew Wiles

 

[YannY]

why are you telling us this? we're not doing uni maths. Our goal is to hammer the tests and not to be fluent in the art of maths etc.

 

[buchanan]

I guess the availability of hundreds of exams on the net seems like a challenge.

But I'd like to challenge you in a different way. I'd like you to spend several hours on each question in only 1 exam (one of your choosing but preferably one for which you don't have somebody else's solutions for) - take as many hours (or days or months, etc.) as you want - until you are CONVINCED that your solution is not only correct, but is also THE BEST SOLUTION IN THE UNIVERSE - so convinced that you are ready to fight anyone to the death that that is in fact the case.

Do you accept my challenge?

 

[YannY]

Alrighty i'll accept it! and if i come accross something that utterly stuns me you will help me with it right?

 

[YannY]

but i dont want to fight - as you can see i am some fat guy and fighting will puff me out =>

 

[me121]

why are you telling us this? we're not doing uni maths. Our goal is to hammer the tests and not to be fluent in the art of maths etc.

yes, you are doing the hsc. and one can do very well at the hsc, simply by doing lots of past papers and knowing how to do the questions by repetition. as the questions are almost exactly the same, when you get to the hsc you would have done a question very similar if not exactly the same to the one at hand. as you have practiced you can do it and you end up with a high maths mark.

this is how i got 96 (actually i forgot my mark) for 2u and 47/50 for 3u. simply by doing tonnes of past papers and learning that way.

and yes it works for the hsc, which is a shame.

but what happens when you are released into the real world, into the world where you stumble on questions that you have never seen before? questions with no pre-published solutions.

and it is a terrible shame that many people's goal is to "hammer tests". you should do maths, to learn maths, become good at maths, be able to solve new problems that you have never seen before, and derive theories and equations that are new to the world, and also to teach maths.

i know last year i was always thinking up maths problems and trying to solve them, that would never have been asked in the hsc. you study maths to do this, not to pass some exam.

EDIT: don't take this too seriously. i tried to write this in a hysterical tone, but it didn't really work.

 

[undalay]

How is a textbook with solutions different from your MX2 teacher.

 

[michaelnashid]

Hey by the way is der such proof as "terry lees method" ???????? can it be used in the hsc????????

 

[conics2008]

shouldn't we try to prove De Moivers Therome false.

Instead of talking about 50 lines of working out and getting 2a at the end.

The answer is always PI/2 = 90

 

[Trebla]

Hey by the way is der such proof as "terry lees method" ???????? can it be used in the hsc????????

Hell No!!! There's no such thing! Firstly, the so called "Terry Lee's Method" is nothing more than just thinking logically towards the answer (by which Terry Lee arrogantly claims as his own) and secondly, the "Terry Lee's Method" is NEVER mentioned in the syllabus so you shouldn't quote it one bit!!! All the names in the methods and theorems you learnt, are from legendary mathematicians (e.g. Newton's method, De Moivre's theorem, Pythagoras' Theorem etc), Terry Lee is NOT one of them!!! lol

 

[kony]

Rolle's theorem

 

[michaelnashid]

You can upload your solutions if you want. I've got solutions to all the papers, but generally choose not to upload them for reasons I alluded to earlier. Some other websites also have solutions. I'll only upload solutions if they raise more questions than they answer.

Hey by the way wat reasons do u have for not uploading all solutions..????
Also u said that other websites also have solutions..can u tell me them????
i personally think not uploading solutions to exams is quite selfish...but hey dats my personal opinion..until now i dont know wat ur reasons are so im basing my judgement on wat i can c..

 

[midifile]

but what happens when you are released into the real world, into the world where you stumble on questions that you have never seen before? questions with no pre-published solutions.

and it is a terrible shame that many people's goal is to "hammer tests". you should do maths, to learn maths, become good at maths, be able to solve new problems that you have never seen before, and derive theories and equations that are new to the world, and also to teach maths.

See. i just think that is all bullshit. In the real world you will never have to do things like find integrate things using substitution, carry out inductions, use imaginary numbers and crap like that unless you do advanced maths in uni or engineering (in which case you go to university for 4 years).

People do not do 4 unit maths to be able to funciton in society, they do general maths to do so. The reason people do 4 unit is because they enjoy it (by enjoy I mean that they do not completely hate it) or feel challanged by it and do well at it, with the few exceptions of the people who are actually going to use it in their jobs, but as i said before they would have to learn it in university anyway.

And I do agree that worked solutions are important. Like when i was learning conics and a question asked to prove that AP was equal to BP I would try and work out the distances of each and end up with these long points and shit, and then when i looked at the worked answers I realised that you could do it with the midpoint formula. I get that it is important to try and work out the answer to a question by yourself, but in 4unit you could be doing the question the complete wrong way (and even if you get the right answer in the end) in a 4 unit test you are pushed for time and dont want to waste any of it writing out a kabillion lines of working.

 

[buchanan]

In the HSC you won't have access to solutions - otherwise you'll be accused of cheating and get 0.

You have to get used to doing papers without access to solutions. So practicing past papers under exam conditions includes not having access to solutions.

7 years ago when I started the websites I did not allow any solutions at all to be uploaded for this reason. But since then their size has grown and so I (and others) have released some of the solutions to the net. I think that with such a large number of papers that are now online, it's OK to have some solutions online. But it's not necessary nor appropriate that all the solutions be uploaded.

I have this same argument every year with both students and teachers.

Unless somebody else uploads them however, at the end of the day, each year since 2001, my way has prevailed and will continue to prevail.

So if you want to change the way things are on the net in a way that is outside my control, you'll have to upload them yourself.

 

[me121]

See. i just think that is all bullshit. In the real world you will never have to do things like find integrate things using substitution, carry out inductions, use imaginary numbers and crap like that unless you do advanced maths in uni or engineering (in which case you go to university for 4 years).

Well, I guess I was talking from my point of view, (I'm doing engineering/science at uni). The course is there to prepare you for the real world and its problems, if you are doing the course, but don't think you will ever need it then the course should not change for you.

[offtopic]
I think that we learn maths at school to facilitate other studies. For example in my year 12 IT major project I needed (or moreso wanted) to know a method of describing a number of points on a sphere, where each point is the same distance from neibouring points on the sphere. Now they never taught me this, but hopefully they can teach students the skills needed to solve new problems such as this one, that they have never encountered before.

HSC maths, should be about teaching students how to solve new problems that they have never seen before, not problems that they have seen before. (then again, I guess they are doing this, as calculus and the other topics are the basics of so many other parts of maths.)
[/offtopic]

And I do agree that worked solutions are important. Like when i was learning conics and a question asked to prove that AP was equal to BP I would try and work out the distances of each and end up with these long points and shit, and then when i looked at the worked answers I realised that you could do it with the midpoint formula. I get that it is important to try and work out the answer to a question by yourself, but in 4unit you could be doing the question the complete wrong way (and even if you get the right answer in the end) in a 4 unit test you are pushed for time and dont want to waste any of it writing out a kabillion lines of working.

In that particular case, you would be better of having had a go yourself first, and learn't my having a go first, then realizing other methods(though to be honest I have no idea what you are talking about, i dropped out of 4u before I got to conics.). I can see though how the solutions would be handy, (they allow you to see a "better method" of solution, so long as you only resort to them after you have had a go.)

Let me revert to an old proverb I borrowed from someone,

"At first babies are spoon fed. But they grow out of it!"​

So I guess a little spoon feeding of the solutions when you are still learning is needed. But the earlier you can feed yourself, the better, as you can't be spoon fed forever.

 

[buchanan]

I really appreciate me121's posts on this issue. I think we are of the same heart and mind on this issue.

The view that all solutions should be online is probably a majority view. About 99% of students and teachers expressing a view on the issue have supported that one. So if I were a politician, I'd be a dismal failure. But it's maths we're talking about, not politics. So it's the 1% that are actually correct on this issue.