VCE General & Further Maths Question Thread!

[McFleurry]

Re: practice exams, where'd the 80+ come from, or do you mean 40 sets of exam 1 and 2? Which companies did you get your exams from, and did you end up repeating any exam more than once because you ran out or?
I'm thinking of doing some practice exams for the CORE and 1st module before school starts, and I'm looking towards VCAA. I'll do them knowing that I'll actually end up doing the same questions again closer to the actual exam, but under proper, timed exam conditions (i.e. once the whole course is finished). Do you think it's okay to repeat the VCAA exams or is it better to just do other company exams now and not expose myself to the VCAA questions until later?

I did the VCAA papers a few times: once in prep for sacs, once before I started to do the prac exams, and once again after I finished all the prac exams.
The prac exams were give to us: your school will most likely give some to you.
Haha...so didn't run out. In the end I stopped halfway through 2006 papers just because the questions were getting kinda repetitive... You'll know what I mean when you do a few sets of exams.
I think VCAA is really leaning towards interpretation and understanding of questions, and not so much of the 'working out' part.
My teacher said that it's best to remind yourself of what VCAA questions are like: the VCAA must cater for all students, and their questions are very well worded in comparison to some companies' papers anyway.

In the end, you are going to be doing two exams set by the VCAA, so I think it's best to do their past ones at least twice.

[Zealous]

I lost count in the end - my teacher just told me 80+ and that's what I've stuck with. Only now can I truly marvel at just how many resources my teacher had. Even when I thought I had run out of practice papers, he managed to find 20 more for me. :S That's not something I know my teachers this year are able to match.

Hey, could you clarify if this was 80 exam 1's and exam 2's (therefore 160 papers), or 40 sets? Just wonderin.

[Stick]

I'm not sure - probably the latter as it seems more reasonable. As I said, it's what my teacher told me. Either way, it's a fair amount. Don't base yourself on what I did though. Our class finished by July and was working through practice exams for a very long time.

EDIT: Alluded to the wrong option. -.- Italicised it to clear up any confusion.

[lolipopper]

i need help with question 16b in chapter 21F. Im getting the answer as $123716.47 but in the back it is $143716.47. is it me thats wrong or is it the back of the book that is wrong?

help me out cuz.

btw its financial maths.

[jimmy22]

The number of GPS for smartphone will not exceed twice the number of GPS for car.

By letting c represent the number of GPS for car and s represent the number of GPS for smartphone, find this constraint.

I am not 100% sure, as i get confused by writing out this type of constraint.
Would it be:  s <(or equal to) 2c  ?

Thanks

[Professor Polonsky]

Yup. s cannot be bigger than 2c. So s is either smaller than or equal to 2c.

[Planck's constant]

i need help with question 16b in chapter 21F. Im getting the answer as $123716.47 but in the back it is $143716.47. is it me thats wrong or is it the back of the book that is wrong?

help me out cuz.

btw its financial maths.

The book answer is correct.

Total repayments = 30 x 12  x 625 = 225000
Loan = selling price - deposit = 101283.53 - 20000 = 81283.53

Interest = 225000 - 81283.53 = 143716.47

[lolipopper]

yup! just figured out i had the exact same working but made a mistake writing it on the calculator a few times i guess
Thank you.

[Zealous]

Ello!

Just 2 small questions, if any of you guys can clarify this with me.
Both from a practice exam I did recently, these are both very "pedantic" sort of marks.

1 [Geometry and Trigonometry] A scale drawing of this green has 5m side lengths represented by a 10cm line.
State the scale used.

random working if anyone is interested...

Spoiler

Ok, so my answer was 50:1, I thought because they mentioned "5cm side lengths represented by a 10cm line", the larger end of the factor would go first.

The answer at the back of the book was 1:50. Am I wrong? Haha I even wrote in my book to specify that the 50 was for the green and the 1 was for the drawing.

2 [Business Maths] Calculate the total amount of interest payed on the loan.
Basically in the previous question, I'd calculated the monthly payment and given a rounded answer (to cents).
For this part, I used the exact value of the monthly payment (non rounded) and ended up being 26 cents off. In their working, they used the rounded figure.

So, technically my answer is more "exact" then theirs...? do you think VCAA allows answers like this?

What do you guys think?

[Stick]

1. Yes, technically you are wrong. The ratio is to be stated with the map value on the left.

2. This is a serious contradictory flaw of the Further Maths study design and it was something I contacted the chief examiner about, because most solutions (even theirs) use rounded answers in this module, despite their consistent reminder to students to not use rounded answers unless specified to do so. -.- As a result, rounding was explained in more depth in the 2012 assessment report. To answer your question, what you did was the right thing.

[Zealous]

1. Yes, technically you are wrong. The ratio is to be stated with the map value on the left.

Thanks for your response Stick

Ok, so just to clarify, the 1, should always be to the left of the ratio? So it should always be presented as 1:x? Just making sure haha, these are the marks I don't want to lose =)

[Stick]

Remember that it might not always be a 1. The rule is that the number that represents the map value goes on the left, unless the question indicates otherwise. 

[jimmy22]

Hi,
Just had a linear sac, and there was a m.c question which i wasn't quite sure about.

Mr Newcomer and Mrs latecomer leave the car park at the same time. If Mr newcomer arrives at the car park at 10:00 am, and Mrs latecomer is charged $24, what is the latest time Mrs latecomer can arrive at the car park?

There was graph in the question, although i can't upload a pic of it as the file is to big, so i will write it out.
- After 0 minutes up until 60 minutes the charge is $10.
- After 60 minutes up until 120 minutes the charge is $24.
- After 120 minutes the charge is $35.

a) 10:01 am
b) 10:59 am
c) 11:01 am
d) 11:59 am
e) the same time as Mr Newcomer

[robo_1337]

answer is d) 11:59

[Smileyyy]

Just had a linear sac, and there was a m.c question which i wasn't quite sure about.

Was that you final sac because we haven't even started that chapter yet, and also because it's our last