ATAR Notes: Forum

Archived Discussion => 2010 => End-of-year exams => Exam Discussion => Victoria => Physics => Topic started by: jayna on November 10, 2010, 02:22:18 pm

Title: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: jayna on November 10, 2010, 02:22:18 pm
Its weird because during reading time im like "Oh shit. this ones gonna be a killer"
But after doing it i think it was pretty fair. Medium
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: 715761 on November 10, 2010, 02:24:46 pm
Yeah there was a lot of 'explain' crap and potential to lose marks there, but otherwise it wasn't ridiculously hard...
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: mahcann on November 10, 2010, 02:27:01 pm
it looked to be quite difficult at first sight, but after doing it seems overall not too hard. Some ones to think about in there though
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: supernatural on November 10, 2010, 02:27:35 pm
harder than last year
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: gamblor0 on November 10, 2010, 02:33:23 pm
i think EASIEST physics exam ever.
if you had a good understanding on the work it was sooooo easy.
the worded questions may have caught some ppl, but if you knew them it was very simple
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: jayna on November 10, 2010, 02:36:45 pm
i think EASIEST physics exam ever.
if you had a good understanding on the work it was sooooo easy.
the worded questions may have caught some ppl, but if you knew them it was very simple
If you have a good understanding any exam should be easy. Highly doubt easier than last years.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: SixWinged on November 10, 2010, 02:37:06 pm
It was hard in the sense that there were a lot of explain questions, which always throw people off, and it was quite long imo. I know people who struggled to finish in time, which I never thought would be possible based on the 09 exam.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: Chavi on November 10, 2010, 02:54:22 pm
Was expected something super-hard keeping in line with VCAA 2010.
This one was a real dud. Wouldn't be surprised if 30+ get 100%
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: Xavier1234 on November 10, 2010, 03:27:08 pm
It was hard in the sense that there were a lot of explain questions, which always throw people off, and it was quite long imo. I know people who struggled to finish in time, which I never thought would be possible based on the 09 exam.

yeah same! i finished 09 exam in like 40m. this one i almost struggled for time! :p
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: Chavi on November 10, 2010, 03:27:44 pm
It was hard in the sense that there were a lot of explain questions, which always throw people off, and it was quite long imo. I know people who struggled to finish in time, which I never thought would be possible based on the 09 exam.

yeah same! i finished 09 exam in like 40m. this one i almost struggled for time! :p
Exam conditions, mate
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: Xavier1234 on November 10, 2010, 03:29:21 pm
It was hard in the sense that there were a lot of explain questions, which always throw people off, and it was quite long imo. I know people who struggled to finish in time, which I never thought would be possible based on the 09 exam.

yeah same! i finished 09 exam in like 40m. this one i almost struggled for time! :p
Exam conditions, mate

yeah mate. was thinkin the pressure got to me at some stage.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: SixWinged on November 10, 2010, 03:29:47 pm
It was hard in the sense that there were a lot of explain questions, which always throw people off, and it was quite long imo. I know people who struggled to finish in time, which I never thought would be possible based on the 09 exam.

yeah same! i finished 09 exam in like 40m. this one i almost struggled for time! :p
Exam conditions, mate

I'm not convinced, if anything I'd say I perform better under exam conditions because I have adrenaline pumping through. I did 09 while listening to Hamish and Andy and still finished in ~30 mins.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: Stroodle on November 10, 2010, 03:32:28 pm
So far only one person thinks it was hard - that must mean it was really easy.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: m@tty on November 10, 2010, 03:35:32 pm
Take into account though that this is VCENotes, and you ill find that the state no doubt found it at least a category higher on the hard scale than we do.

And I finished all but the X-Ray question in 55 minutes.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: Chavi on November 10, 2010, 03:35:47 pm
So far only one person thinks it was hard - that must mean it was really easy.
Clearly they were trolling. . .
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: coolrunnings on November 10, 2010, 03:39:12 pm
i think its was a medium paper. electric power was some what difficult than most trial papers such as what must the voltage be to equal 4 watts and power loss
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: Stroodle on November 10, 2010, 03:40:41 pm
I hope chem tomorrow is at the same pace as this. This was definitely the most casual exam I've had so far.

Off topic. In our exam the supervisor was going around telling everyone to stop using pencil - turning our pages to the front and getting us to read the instruction. He did it to one guy that had started on the multiple choice questions, and the guy fully cracked it. It was so funny.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: Blakhitman on November 10, 2010, 03:43:18 pm
I hope chem tomorrow is at the same pace as this. This was definitely the most casual exam I've had so far.

Off topic. In our exam the supervisor was going around telling everyone to stop using pencil - turning our pages to the front and getting us to read the instruction. He did it to one guy that had started on the multiple choice questions, and the guy fully cracked it. It was so funny.

hahahahaha.

I used pencil lol

And I agree that this exam was the most kickback out of all my exams ;D
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: m@tty on November 10, 2010, 03:45:38 pm
I used pen again. There weren't any problems. Would've died if one of the explanations were wrong >.< I would've had absolutely no room or the replacement :-X

And it was awesome to finally have an exam without time pressure..
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: taiga on November 10, 2010, 03:52:26 pm
I don't think it was hard as such.

There will most likely be a recurring pattern for marks lost on some of the explain questions, not relating split ring commutators to both generators and motors, perhaps 1 or 2 marks from the power questions, and the X-Ray question. I don't know about multi choice, maybe, maybe not. I think people may just lose marks here or there, but otherwise there isn't alot of reason for the cutoff mark to be particularly high or particularly low. I'm thinking around the 9-11 mark region.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: m@tty on November 10, 2010, 03:53:35 pm
Not the crazy 4.5 mark cutoff last year..
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: kazekage on November 10, 2010, 04:03:38 pm
was expecting another "wtf vcaa?!" moment, but i am happy.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: SixWinged on November 10, 2010, 04:03:44 pm
I used pencil also....
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: kyzoo on November 10, 2010, 04:14:27 pm
I don't think it was hard as such.

There will most likely be a recurring pattern for marks lost on some of the explain questions, not relating split ring commutators to both generators and motors

Hmm, you need to relate the commutator to motors?
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: m@tty on November 10, 2010, 04:15:36 pm
The question asked you to explain what the uses were. I did both generators and motors for both DC and AC. Not sure if you actually HAD to talk about motors though.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: cypriottiger on November 10, 2010, 04:17:17 pm
it was fair in my opinion :)
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: kyzoo on November 10, 2010, 04:17:21 pm
...I guess technically you can talk about slip rings in the context of a motor, it's a bit obscure though.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: taiga on November 10, 2010, 04:18:25 pm
I don't think AC Motors are on the course. But commutator in reference to DC motors and Generators is probably a must.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: m@tty on November 10, 2010, 04:18:58 pm
...I guess technically you can talk about slip rings in the context of a motor, it's a bit obscure though.
Nah, it's when you have AC supply. You use slip rings so theres no wires to get tangled.

EDIT: really it's not on th course? I had no idea.. Well if it's not then obviously there's no need to refer to it.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: kyzoo on November 10, 2010, 04:22:01 pm
...I guess technically you can talk about slip rings in the context of a motor, it's a bit obscure though.
Nah, it's when you have AC supply. You use slip rings so theres no wires to get tangled.

EDIT: really it's not on th course? I had no idea.. Well if it's not then obviously there's no need to refer to it.

I remember an iTute question where they asked for what would happen if you used slip rings isntead of a split-ring commutator for a mtor

I don't think AC Motors are on the course. But commutator in reference to DC motors and Generators is probably a must.

There was this question in 08/09 (can't remember) where it asked for role of commutators. And in the assessor's reprot it said that they onyl wanted the motor function, not the generator function. So I'm not that sure if you had to mention commutator function in a motor seeing as though the queston was in the context of generators.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: m@tty on November 10, 2010, 04:23:19 pm
Ah I don't know.. I just thought that it was asking to outline all uses relevant to the course.

Makes sense though that they would accept only generators though. It was a 3 mark question, not 4 or 5.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: Blakhitman on November 10, 2010, 04:25:51 pm
8th question of 09?

If yes then that's cause they said in the question that it was a DC motor.

This supports taiga's claim that there are two separate things to say, one for generator and one for motor. In today's exam it didn't say what so you would probably have had to mention for both.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: cipherpol on November 10, 2010, 04:27:45 pm
in this year, the question was talking about generators and alternators though >< didn't mention motors
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: kyzoo on November 10, 2010, 04:30:24 pm
Quote
VCAA 2009 Question 8
Explain the purpose of the split-ring commutator.

Doesn't seem to specify there either =X
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: m@tty on November 10, 2010, 04:31:50 pm
8th question of 09?

If yes then that's cause they said in the question that it was a DC motor.

This supports taiga's claim that there are two separate things to say, one for generator and one for motor. In today's exam it didn't say what so you would probably have had to mention for both.

Wait yeah. Probably 1 mark for AC generator and slip rings explanation. Then 1 for DC generator and 1 for DC motor and if you failed to explain the commutator properly you lose a mark. I think.

EDIT: In 2009 the stem said "The following information relates to questions 5-8".

And I'm guessing it said something similar in this year's paper... So I don't know.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: taiga on November 10, 2010, 04:36:13 pm
I would have thought 1 mark for slip ring use (with reference to image, mind you it said to use it for that question at the start), 1 mark for split ring use, and 1 mark for the difference between them, which should be implied in the "uses" bit.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: SixWinged on November 10, 2010, 04:51:51 pm
AC motors would be limited to working at 50Hz (or the frequency of the input) and, from what I can work out, would be useless unless they started spinning at the exact point such that they hit 90 degrees at the same time the emf supply hits 0.
Title: Re: Was it easy or hard?
Post by: waack on November 10, 2010, 05:08:13 pm
the begining of this years paper this question also said this information refers to blah blah i checked, i just wrote commutators are used in dc generators and motors (but this questiond refers to generators)... hopefully good enough