ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => VCE Mathematics => VCE Mathematics/Science/Technology => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE Mathematical Methods CAS => Topic started by: wildareal on September 14, 2010, 01:47:42 am
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Hi,
Could someone please give me the lowdown on the types of exams there are and their levels of difficulty?
Cheers.
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Kilbaha>NEAP>MAV>VCAA
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Insight is pretty hard..
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,i found insight pretty straight forward as are A+ publishing.
Hardest by a far if you can get your hands on them are IARTV (CSE) past studdents have given me hardcopies there harder then all those companies.
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Kilbaha is insanely hard, to the point where doing them will do far more damage in terms if de-motivation than it has productive benefit.
That's my experience of them anyway.
As for good ones, I like Heffernan.
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,i found insight pretty straight forward as are A+ publishing.
Agreed.
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Obviously the best = VCAA but the companies which come close are:
im not basing my judgement on solely of difficulty, but on similarity and balance of difficulty which will emulate that of a normal VCAA exam.
1st MAV = most relevant to VCAA style
2nd NEAP = good all round
3rd Heffernan = has its good days and bad
Kilbaha and CSE = insanely hard but sometimes unrealistic
Insight = straight forward(easy at times)
There are other companies like TSSM and TSFX but they are terrible overall
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Martoman how may exams did you do to get your 50?
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Well I personally think the most difficult is iTute. However some things, though in the scope of the course, are beyond the scope of VCAA.
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Obviously the best = VCAA but the companies which come close are:
im not basing my judgement on solely of difficulty, but on similarity and balance of difficulty which will emulate that of a normal VCAA exam.
1st MAV = most relevant to VCAA style
2nd NEAP = good all round
3rd Heffernan = has its good days and bad
Kilbaha and CSE = insanely hard but sometimes unrealistic
Insight = straight forward(easy at times)
There are other companies like TSSM and TSFX but they are terrible overall
This is probably about right, along with taiga's comment that iTute is probably the hardest. I think there's merit in doing the really hard ones though, in that if you can easily do well on them, then the VCE ones should be a joke.
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A 'hard' exam that follows the requirements of the study design identifies the points that are easily overlooked by you.
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Ah crap I printed out an iTute exam, panicked as I couldn't even answer the first question...
Do TSSM and TSFX go beyond the course?
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Ah crap I printed out an iTute exam, panicked as I couldn't even answer the first question...
Do TSSM and TSFX go beyond the course?
TSFX exams contain a lot irrelevant material - I encountered some questions in a Methods TSFX exam that wasn't even on the Spec (let alone methods) course - it's not that it was difficult, it was just plainly extraneous (i.e. having to sketch and solve equations containing hyperbolic functions like cosh and sinh). Unless you have no exams left to do, I wouldn't recommend attempting their exams. The study notes are decent though.
TSSM is challenging at Spec level, but I found it great for methods with a desirable difficulty level.
btw, some companies (neap, iartv, itute) purposely make the exams harder, so don't become daunted if you're finding it difficult. Chances are that everyone else is too :)
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Ah crap I printed out an iTute exam, panicked as I couldn't even answer the first question...
Do TSSM and TSFX go beyond the course?
Was the first question irrelevant/outside the study design/too tricky/what?
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I personally find itute to be the hardest, kilbaha aren't too bad, they have their moments tho (=
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From memory:
Insight and TSSM are straight-forward and quite easy.
Neap and itute are hard, though still very relevant.
TSFX is just ...
And VCAA is alongside TSSM and insight.
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Martoman how may exams did you do to get your 50?
Quite a few I had lots of spare time doing year 10 and all :S I got through 19 exam 1's and 23 exam 2's exactly. (Grizzly) Bear in mind average times on exam 1 was 15-20 mins and 45-1hour on exam 2's. Thats how I got so many done.
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you must be really fast, i've done 4 exam 1's so far and they each take me 45 minutes.
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where can i find these i-tute exams
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i just did the tsfx exam 1 2006, I found all the exam relevant to the course, I ended up gettin 37, but it took me the full hour, which is unusual, but i recommend you do it cuz it is completely relevant just a bit harder than other exam 1's
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i don't understand how it's possible to finish exam 1 in less then 20minutes.. thats ridiculous haha. how do you guys even do that??
i think i may give up on methods, the most i can probably get is 42 with heaps of work, but i can get a further equivalent of ~47 with less work and more time to focus on my weakness. so i dont think methods is going to help me too much even if i do well as englang is wayyy more important.
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where can i find these i-tute exams
www.itute.com
they are free, so are their notes.
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cheers
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Even though the whole state is doing CAS now, it's still useful to do the normal ones right?
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Is there even that much of a difference apart from matrices chapter? and possibly more complicated questions requiring algorithms in the CAS calculators
I would say that normal ones are definitely useful
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Personally, for methods, I think MAV and Heffernan were best
Edit: Apart from VCAA of course
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i don't understand how it's possible to finish exam 1 in less then 20minutes.. thats ridiculous haha. how do you guys even do that??
i think i may give up on methods, the most i can probably get is 42 with heaps of work, but i can get a further equivalent of ~47 with less work and more time to focus on my weakness. so i dont think methods is going to help me too much even if i do well as englang is wayyy more important.
Right I didn't mean to scare anyone. Remember, the exam 1 is an hour long. Its made that long because that is how long it should take.