VCE General & Further Maths Question Thread!

[Zealous]

I hoped that it didnt come to this, but i just am attempting to do practice exams on the modules i did at the start of the year matrices and networks, im all good with graphs and relations because i just completed it last week at school lol, however if i have forgotten around 50% of the module should i go over it again or just attempt practice exams and try and find the example in the textbook? OMFG its annoying when this happens

I would go an try some challenging questions from your textbook related to your module, a refresher to the module, and then reinforce that revision with practice exams (which I personally think is good for trying different types of questions). If you do go and just attempt practice exams you may just end not learning as effectively if your foundation of the module isn't too strong, that's just what I think, find out what works best and stick with it and you'll remember the modules in no time =p

[tcstudent]

Haha cheers mate, i am trying that now for matrices, it really helps doing questions, but then i go into my trial exam booklet i got from tsfx and its like WHY DO YOU MAKE THE EXAMS SO HARD LOL

[vashappenin]

I've probably asked this question before somewhere, but now that I've finished the further course and it's the holidays, I might as well ask again. Do you think it's stupid to self-learn a module? I did business maths, and while it wasn't the worst module, I definitely struggled trying to identify what some questions were asking me, leading to confusion and marks lost. I've always wanted to study matrices, and I'm willing to spend some time these holidays on teaching myself matrices. I'm already familiar with basic concepts, with transition matrices being the main thing I need to properly learn. I'm also thinking of going to connect education for further, so if I do decide to study matrices instead I'll be going for matrices instead of business maths and using those notes to help me. Do you guys think this is a good idea? I just don't wanna risk majorly screwing up on the actual VCAA exam, which I feel will happen if I do business maths (because I've lost quite a number of marks in this module while doing past VCAA exams, and I can't afford for that to actually happen in the exam!)

Thanks

[Zealous]

I've probably asked this question before somewhere, but now that I've finished the further course and it's the holidays, I might as well ask again. Do you think it's stupid to self-learn a module? I did business maths, and while it wasn't the worst module, I definitely struggled trying to identify what some questions were asking me, leading to confusion and marks lost. I've always wanted to study matrices, and I'm willing to spend some time these holidays on teaching myself matrices. I'm already familiar with basic concepts, with transition matrices being the main thing I need to properly learn. I'm also thinking of going to connect education for further, so if I do decide to study matrices instead I'll be going for matrices instead of business maths and using those notes to help me. Do you guys think this is a good idea? I just don't wanna risk majorly screwing up on the actual VCAA exam, which I feel will happen if I do business maths (because I've lost quite a number of marks in this module while doing past VCAA exams, and I can't afford for that to actually happen in the exam!)

Thanks

Haha, it always seems to be matrices that people want to switch into. =p

Here's my opinion (my personal thoughts on changing module). It almost seems like you've answered your own question - you yourself seem to be sure that you can do better in matrices than in business math and if that's the case then go for it. If you decide to learn another module - be fully committed and get heaps of practice in.

But (there's a but!) there's things you have to take into consideration:
- Getting help from teachers: if you pick matrices, there's a very good chance that teachers won't know anything about it. Of course there's AN here, but it may be more inconvenient.
- The amount of time you spend learning this module could be far less than what you spent learning business maths - you may not have enough time to go through a module as in depth as you could with the limited time available before exam's now, you had many weeks in class - now you have to cram it over a shorter amount of time. You've probably had a SAC for business math and tests for business math.
- There are always going to be tough questions in every module, there has to be in order to separate students, so even though you may have issues with some business math questions there's a good chance you'll have issues with some matrices questions as well. The start of the module always looks simple, then it builds and it's only until you get started on a question when you see how hard it may be.

Anyway that's my opinion, other's may have different feelings towards this.
All the best!

[BLACKCATT]

Can someone please help me with this question?

[Patches]

I've probably asked this question before somewhere, but now that I've finished the further course and it's the holidays, I might as well ask again. Do you think it's stupid to self-learn a module? I did business maths, and while it wasn't the worst module, I definitely struggled trying to identify what some questions were asking me, leading to confusion and marks lost. I've always wanted to study matrices, and I'm willing to spend some time these holidays on teaching myself matrices. I'm already familiar with basic concepts, with transition matrices being the main thing I need to properly learn. I'm also thinking of going to connect education for further, so if I do decide to study matrices instead I'll be going for matrices instead of business maths and using those notes to help me. Do you guys think this is a good idea? I just don't wanna risk majorly screwing up on the actual VCAA exam, which I feel will happen if I do business maths (because I've lost quite a number of marks in this module while doing past VCAA exams, and I can't afford for that to actually happen in the exam!)

Thanks

Matrices is very very easy, if you do methods it's pretty much just basic multiplication and simplified Markov chains.

[robo_1337]

Can someone please help me with this question?

I would say answer A.

We can see the median is roughly 22, and we know that about 68% of all variables lie within +/- 1 standard deviation. You can immediately cross out answers C-E as they are too far away from the median. Then out of A and B, A seemed the most likely.

[Kuchiki]

I would say answer A.

We can see the median is roughly 22, and we know that about 68% of all variables lie within +/- 1 standard deviation. You can immediately cross out answers C-E as they are too far away from the median. Then out of A and B, A seemed the most likely.

Yeah, I agree with answer A.

It's because most of the values in a normal distribution lie within 3 standard deviations of the mean, and since the values in this case seem to end at 20 and 24, and the mean appears to be 22, we can approximate 3 standard deviations to be equal to 2 (22-20 = 24-22 = 2). Therefore, one standard deviation is equal to 2/3 (roughly 0.67). And then, since 68% lies within one standard deviation of the mean, subtract the standard deviation from the mean to get the lower boundary (22-0.67 = 21.33) and add it to the mean to get the upper boundary (22+0.67 = 22.67), so you get 21.33 to 22.67.

[vashappenin]

A lot of the questions I've been doing for matrices ask me to 'evaluate' the matrix. This is in the essentials text book thus far in ch26. Is this something that'll be asked in the VCAA exam as well or just something the book wants us to do for the sake of it?

[jeanweasley]

Hi if someone can help me to understand the answers and how to get there for the following questions from the VCAA exam, I'd be extremely grateful. The worked solutions are on Itute by the way. I know I'm going to look like an idiot since I've got a long list of what I don't understand but I think it's better to ask than just keep quiet so no judging. hahah. (I'm an arts kid so anything maths related is not my forte.)

VCAA 2010 Exam 1

Geo & Trig
Question 6 I got the first part 7.106 but I don't get how  they got the value for TM.
Question 7 I didn't know how to solve this. I think it was because I was looking for another measurement. Can someone explain how they got 38.8 degrees?
Question 9 Why is the volume of water in the cylinder equal to the volume of water in the cone?

Question 8 in graphs in relations I forgot how to do this. Can someone refresh my mind?

VCAA 2011 Exam 1

Geo & Trig

Question 7 Why is QC double PB? Is there any other method of solving this? Would similar triangles work?
Question 8 Why is x/0.8? I know the addition part but I don't know how they got 0.5818.
Question 9 Again I thought that I needed another measurement. Didn't think it was similar triangles. How did they conclude that?

Question 9 in graphs and relations Why is it 5x-5y? Why does it have to be the same gradient as AB? How do you work the gradient for this?

Finally if you have any suggestions on how I can understand questions better, feel free to shoot them at me. (:

[BLACKCATT]

Yeah, I agree with answer A.

It's because most of the values in a normal distribution lie within 3 standard deviations of the mean, and since the values in this case seem to end at 20 and 24, and the mean appears to be 22, we can approximate 3 standard deviations to be equal to 2 (22-20 = 24-22 = 2). Therefore, one standard deviation is equal to 2/3 (roughly 0.67). And then, since 68% lies within one standard deviation of the mean, subtract the standard deviation from the mean to get the lower boundary (22-0.67 = 21.33) and add it to the mean to get the upper boundary (22+0.67 = 22.67), so you get 21.33 to 22.67.

Thanks for the help, but just to clarify something, don't all values lie within 4 standard deviations of the mean? so why approximate 3?
And there's a formula for predicting the standard deviation in the essentials textbook; Sx=Range/4, in this case it equals 1.
Are we meant to use this formula? o_o

[abcdqdxD]

99.7% of the data lie within 3 standard deviations of the mean, we approximate 3 because it accounts for almost all of the values

[Kuchiki]

Thanks for the help, but just to clarify something, don't all values lie within 4 standard deviations of the mean? so why approximate 3?
And there's a formula for predicting the standard deviation in the essentials textbook; Sx=Range/4, in this case it equals 1.
Are we meant to use this formula? o_o

I dunno, I've never heard of that formula before (I used the Maths Quest textbook).

Regarding the standard deviation, I don't think there's a specific number of standard deviations where all values lie within (correct me if I'm wrong), but yeah, as abcdqdxD said, 99.7% lies within 3, and that's pretty close to 100%. Since the question says "About 68%...", using this approximation should be fine.

[jimmy22]

In Core,
If you are asked to describe the shape, would you say for example: positively skewed with a possible outlier    -   if you know it isn't an outlier, do you still say 'possible', and likewise if you know it is an outlier?

thanks

[BLACKCATT]

Is the answer to this B or A?