ATAR Notes: Forum

VCE Stuff => VCE Mathematics => VCE Mathematics/Science/Technology => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE Specialist Mathematics => Topic started by: Lycan on August 25, 2008, 09:02:59 pm

Title: Trial exams
Post by: Lycan on August 25, 2008, 09:02:59 pm
How many trial exams have you been given? Just curious (finished the course today by the way, anyone else done?)

Official (marked): 3

Unofficial: 29  :o
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: xox.happy1.xox on August 25, 2008, 09:12:42 pm
Wow... You have already finished the course! We haven't even gone through Mechanics or Vector Calculus yet! I feel like I am going to fail the exams in an outrageous fashion.

To answer your question, I haven't gone through any trial exams, I guess all I do is go through the Checkpoints (half of which I don't understand... Maybe more?). That should get me my 20. :P

Well, good on you for finishing the course in such record time! ;D
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: AppleXY on August 25, 2008, 09:19:15 pm
lol. I finished the course in Mid-April.

I'm just touching up with Mechanics (statics), I should really do a timed exam (i do exams, but to test my knowledge, not timed or anything).
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: shinny on August 25, 2008, 09:20:05 pm
Haven't formally finished the course at school yet (that'll take until the end of the first week of term 4 supposedly) but I've already finished the course at tutor, and I'm basically using my school's exam pack to learn the course rather than doing exercises now. Reason for that is we've been given 41 spesh exams (82 if you count exam 1+2) soooooo that'll last me a while. Oh, and another 39 (78 for the same reason) if you count methods, but I doubt I'll be doing many of them.
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: Lycan on August 25, 2008, 09:30:51 pm
Yeah? I finished the course with my tutor a couple of weeks back as well, but my school's done pretty well too. As a side note, what areas are you having the most trouble with?

Myself, well not any really, but the one I forsee the most danger is complex numbers and possibly kinematics (double pulleys for the lose).
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: mark_alec on August 25, 2008, 09:57:16 pm
We were given about 70 past exams last year, probably did around 6 at school.
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: /0 on August 25, 2008, 10:00:40 pm
We were given about 70 past exams last year, probably did around 6 at school.

OMFG 70 PAST EXAMS WTF


...

Where does your school get all these exams?
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: shinny on August 25, 2008, 10:02:33 pm
It's not actually that hard considering how long spesh has been running for without the course considerably changing. I mean, every year theres like 8 companies which release papers at least, so it really doesnt take that long for a school to stockpile them.
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: Glockmeister on August 25, 2008, 10:36:10 pm
We've got cupboards full of them, I think dating back to before VCAA was formed.
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: perfectscore on August 25, 2008, 10:43:36 pm
anybody upload some exams?
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: mark_alec on August 25, 2008, 10:56:07 pm
Where does your school get all these exams?
Two exams per year, from about five or six companies, from the past six years.
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: rowshan on August 28, 2008, 06:27:13 pm
does everyone finish the course this early?
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: Matt The Rat on August 28, 2008, 06:42:24 pm
Finished the course at the start of the week with school.
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: ganges on August 28, 2008, 10:24:26 pm
I dont see the point of doing 70 papers.
You are better of doing like 40 (20 each or something) and going over it critically to find out all your errors and plan for the exam.
Besides u wud be neglecting your other subs if you do that many.

Thats just my view.
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: Collin Li on August 28, 2008, 11:15:22 pm
My trial exam count for Specialist Maths definitely did not exceed say... 10 (I'm thinking more like 4-5, but I'll be safe here). I wouldn't recommend this because now you have much better resources. In my year it was the first year of the new format, so I didn't really see the point of practicing with the old style exams much.

There are diminishing marginal returns when doing more and more exam papers.
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: mark_alec on August 31, 2008, 09:42:55 pm
Besides u wud be neglecting your other subs if you do that many.
What makes you think I neglected my other subjects? I didn't have enough exams to occupy me fully, so I had to limit the number I would do per day per subject.

But sure, there are diminishing returns from doing so many papers, but it was something to do rather than watch TV.
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: xox.happy1.xox on September 01, 2008, 09:12:21 pm
But sure, there are diminishing returns from doing so many papers, but it was something to do rather than watch TV.

Yes... Watching T.V. had diverted me away from the more important things in life... Like studying for specialist!
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: rowshan on September 01, 2008, 10:54:07 pm
So you don't think its smart to do a lot of exam papers?
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: shinny on September 01, 2008, 11:06:57 pm
I'd say its like alot of things in VCE, the benefits become increasingly marginal, but if you want to do well, you'd do everything within your control to improve your study score yes? I mean, even if it is marginal, VCE often comes down to just those 1 or 2 marks, and since you only have one shot at this, then why not? Practice can only result in improvement.
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: Collin Li on September 01, 2008, 11:48:12 pm
Nicely said. It just means that it's important to juggle things around, because once you've done too many Specialist Maths papers, you're more likely to maximise your ENTER by now doing another subject's papers. That is, the returns of doing a paper from another subject haven't diminished to the same extent as it has for Specialist, so doing that now becomes your next best use of time.
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: shadezofemerald on September 03, 2008, 04:29:35 pm
lol, my school finished the course 3 weeks ago n have been doing past papers for quite some time, i've been complaining all yuear my teacher has been teaching it too fast n now i kinda feel like i learned not much throughout the year but i think revison has helped me understand it more, coz before hand i thought it was impossible!!   the parts i have trouble with most is stuff to do with rates of change, inflow and outfolw stuff! i just don't get that! other parts of the course are not toooo bad i guess. ^_-
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: Collin Li on September 03, 2008, 05:17:15 pm
Yeah, I tend to start with past exams before even having learnt the whole course. I did this with great success with Chemistry - although that's not really an option if it's a new course.
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: rowshan on September 20, 2008, 11:46:26 pm
Coblin you only did 4-5 exams and you got a 45!!! Seriously, what did you do for revision?
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: Collin Li on September 20, 2008, 11:51:08 pm
Coblin you only did 4-5 exams and you got a 45!!! Seriously, what did you do for revision?

Do more than me if you need to. I retain information quicker than some people, it seems, so doing more past exams doesn't help me.

Also, my learning style is still a mystery (as is everyone's), but I've noticed that I do learn some things "overnight" through a random process where I make logical connections in my subconscious.
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: dusty_girl1144 on September 21, 2008, 12:35:41 am
ehhhhhh i finished the course on the LAST day of school... my brain was absolutly friend that day....

i got like 6 or 7 exams :)
 
got some for methods.... legal and chem are a bit neglected :S

checkpoints and A+ notes for ALL subs...

got nothing really for english... OOOPSYYYYYYYYYYY
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: Mao on September 21, 2008, 12:53:46 am
dusty: this thread? http://vcenotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,5508.0.html
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: dusty_girl1144 on September 21, 2008, 01:04:59 am
i was on about spesh mao lol

i finished the course this week. on the last day.

and i printed off like quite a few spesh trial exams. from like MAV and ehhhh heffinan group or something.... the booklets are HUGH!
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: NE2000 on September 22, 2008, 11:32:22 am
but I've noticed that I do learn some things "overnight" through a random process where I make logical connections in my subconscious.

lol, that's happened to me sometimes as well, although I can't say I've just woken up and all of a sudden I get an idea. But say there's a math problem where I just can't seem to work out how to do it, just in the moments before sleep the solution can pop up, only thing is half the time I can't remember the precise details in the morning, the other half the time's pretty awesome tho.
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: midas_touch on September 22, 2008, 08:29:32 pm
I didn't do too many exams for spesh, basically the ones that you can download off the link below, and a few others. Imo, once you have done more than a dozen or so, then the time you have committed in doing those extra exams far outweighs the benefit you will receive from doing them. Anyway, enjoy :).

http://rapidshare.com/files/147376437/Spesh.rar.html
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: polky on September 22, 2008, 09:01:12 pm
but I've noticed that I do learn some things "overnight" through a random process where I make logical connections in my subconscious.

lol, that's happened to me sometimes as well, although I can't say I've just woken up and all of a sudden I get an idea. But say there's a math problem where I just can't seem to work out how to do it, just in the moments before sleep the solution can pop up, only thing is half the time I can't remember the precise details in the morning, the other half the time's pretty awesome tho.

I can go to sleep thinking about a question, then wake up and the answer is formulated perfectly in my brain :P

For spec I have a quite massive booklet of past exams, spanning from 2006-1999. I doubt I'm going to finish much of it at all, I'm going to focus on 2006 - 2008 commerical papers and also past VCAA papers.  Scary :(
Title: Re: Trial exams
Post by: anonymous12 on September 28, 2008, 01:21:26 pm
I didn't do too many exams for spesh, basically the ones that you can download off the link below, and a few others. Imo, once you have done more than a dozen or so, then the time you have committed in doing those extra exams far outweighs the benefit you will receive from doing them. Anyway, enjoy :).
I didn't do too many exams for spesh, basically the ones that you can download off the link below, and a few others. Imo, once you have done more than a dozen or so, then the time you have committed in doing those extra exams far outweighs the benefit you will receive from doing them. Anyway, enjoy :).

http://rapidshare.com/files/147376437/Spesh.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/147376437/Spesh.rar.html

Thanks for the exams  midastouch, but would you have the solutions to the MAV Exam (2) you provided?