Specialist's Specialist Thread

[paulsterio]

I don't understand why these questions are asked - to be honest, just do it properly and write everything out - like pi says, it'd take 5 seconds of your time and you'd be making yourself a lot clearer. Also with regards to writing derivatives in two variables - I wouldn't do it - it's not in the scope of VCE mathematics and, like many things that aren't, it can cause confusion.

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[Jenny_2108]

I don't understand why these questions are asked

Whats wrong with asking questions?

[pi]

It's questions where the answers should be fairly obvious tbh The general rule is to solving a question is to use the most elegant method and show the steps that will allow an examiner to easily and clearly see your flow of logic. The goal isn't to cut corners by making obvious dodgy steps (ie. those that aren't in textbooks or in practice exams).

[Jenny_2108]

It's questions where the answers should be fairly obvious tbh The general rule is to solving a question is to use the most elegant method and show the steps that will allow an examiner to easily and clearly see your flow of logic. The goal isn't to cut corners by making obvious dodgy steps (ie. those that aren't in textbooks or in practice exams).

I did the shortcut in SACs and it was fine, the teacher didnt take any marks off though
Thats why I ask whether I can do like this in exams

Anyway, I apologise for my silly question

[paulsterio]

Like my view is that if you use the argument "but my teacher didn't take off any marks" - then you don't really have an argument when you end up with something like 1.5/2 for an exam question because you took a shortcut. This is because different examiners will have different standards to which they want you to present your work. If you do something that is questionable, sure, there are times where you'll get away with it and there are times where you won't. I just don't understand why you would want to take that risk when doing it properly won't take you any longer. My advice is to be elegant, but don't be rough or vague.

Whats wrong with asking questions?

There's nothing wrong with asking questions, but, like pi, I think the answer is fairly obvious, you want to present your answers as best you can and there are plenty of resources out there including exams and textbooks which will show you how to present an answer.

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[BubbleWrapMan]

It's important for someone else to be able to follow your working, even outside VCE. Even if you don't go on with maths it's pretty much inevitable that you'll have to do some quantitative problem-solving later on, so it's good to practice being clear.

[paulsterio]

It's important for someone else to be able to follow your working, even outside VCE. Even if you don't go on with maths it's pretty much inevitable that you'll have to do some quantitative problem-solving later on, so it's good to practice being clear.

Good advice, and he's right, it's not just to do with Maths but in everything you do, from writing CVs to writing essays and delivering presentations, clarity is key!

[Jenny_2108]

It's important for someone else to be able to follow your working, even outside VCE. Even if you don't go on with maths it's pretty much inevitable that you'll have to do some quantitative problem-solving later on, so it's good to practice being clear.

I was hoping that if I spend less time for easy questions or skip long steps, I can have more time for difficult ones

But yeah, you are correct. Not about Maths but other things as well, I should do carefully

[BubbleWrapMan]

It really shouldn't take that long to write out a few extra lines. Even if it does, practice writing out lots of working when doing questions, then you'll be able to do it faster.

[WhoTookMyUsername]

dy/dx = d/dx(x) * loge(u) + x * d/dx(loge(u))
is this the intermediate step?

wb for methods, what should you do there (can you use pseudo implicit diff?)

[Special At Specialist]

It's not a matter of being too lazy to write the working out, it's knowing what to write. Often I know exactly how to solve a problem, I just don't know how to show the working out and I end up losing marks on such an easy question that it frustrates me.

For example, one question asked me to resolve a vector into two components: one which was parallel to another vector and one which was perpendicular to it. I know that I have to use the vector resolute to find the parallel component and then subtract that from the first vector to find the perpendicular component, but I'm not sure how to show the working out, especially the final answer. Do I just write "parallel component = ... and perpendicular component = ..." ? Or is there another way of writing the answer?

[paulsterio]

It's not a matter of being too lazy to write the working out, it's knowing what to write. Often I know exactly how to solve a problem, I just don't know how to show the working out and I end up losing marks on such an easy question that it frustrates me.

For example, one question asked me to resolve a vector into two components: one which was parallel to another vector and one which was perpendicular to it. I know that I have to use the vector resolute to find the parallel component and then subtract that from the first vector to find the perpendicular component, but I'm not sure how to show the working out, especially the final answer. Do I just write "parallel component = ... and perpendicular component = ..." ? Or is there another way of writing the answer?

My advice is to be clear and logical, as long as you are clear and logical, you should be OK.