wat is the hardest mx2 topic? (3 Viewers)

[hup]

The problem is they are out of print. Get your teacher to check their staffroom to see if someone has a copy lying around - unfortunately, Maths staffrooms aren't as full of actual Maths teachers as once upon a time and so quality resources like these are becoming rarer and rarer. The graphs book is a bit fatter than the other ones in that series (the author was head maths teacher at Ascham I believe back in the day) and is light green in colour. The blue conics book is also a quality resource.

As for "harder 3U topics", this 4U topic is the hardest because the syllabus is basically giving the examiner carte blanche to introduce a whole heap of interesting applications from higher mathematical study. Bill Pender (chief author of the 2U/3U Cambridge books and former head of the Sydney Grammar maths department and general Godfather of HSC mathematics) produced the following (thanks to Derek Buchanan for highlighting this one on his excellent website where you will find literally hundreds of past trial papers):

members.optusnet.com.au/limkw/SGS_harder3U_2002.zip

While it is starting to show it's age, this is an excellent summary of the Harder 3U areas that have been pushed and prodded by the examiners pre-2002. Someone should eventually get around to updating this to encompass more recent papers but as is, it is still a brilliant treatment.

Best Regards
OldMathsGuy

very nice thanks

 

[mirakon]

I don't think there is a harder topic per se, but curve sketching, complex, integration, polynomials and volumes tend to be "easier"

mechanics and conics tend to stump some people but really the questions just have a lot of working, the solutions aren't actually that hard to come up with in terms of thinking.

As for harder 3 unit, it depends how good you are at actually thinking about a situation. Its a lot more problem solving based, so its the nightmare of people who tend to rote-learn formulas, strategies because the questions can really come out of the blue.

You'll tend to find the harder questions usually combine topics.

 

[jonathanrsh]

Personally, the trigonometric applications of complex numbers are the worst for me, closely followed by inequalities and circle geometry in Harder Extension 1. I don't find the induction or probability in Harder Ext. 1 overly hard though...

Volumes, polynomials, curve sketching and integration are probably the easiest, with conics being in the middle.

But Q7-8 of the HSC are hard, regardless of the topic. Last year's question 8 was all primarily integration, one of the easier topics, but that question was a nightmare.

 

[goobi]

It is probably curve sketching for me which was the reason why I dropped Extension 2 last year :/ (and yeah I am accelerated)

 

[apollo1]

It is probably curve sketching for me which was the reason why I dropped Extension 2 last year :/ (and yeah I am accelerated)

that doesnt make any sense. it says you are doing mx2 next year?