Difficulty Levels of Practice Exams

[b^3]

Ok so I want to get everyones opinion on the difficulty level of practice exams. I have done 6 or 7 Exam 1's for spesh and from what I've found is that NEAP and Insight are easier than VCAA? For Neap I was getting 92.5-95% and got 100% for one of the insight exams where as for VCAA I was getting mid 80's. Is everyone else feeling the same way or is it just me? Maybe because VCAA seem to have more complex numbers questions than NEAP and Insight, I might be getting lower as I am not as strong in that area. Anyway thoughts, opinions?

[tony3272]

Generally Insight are piss easy for any subject. Kilbaha are my favourite (based on their methods exams) and iTute are the hardest from what i've heard.
NEAP exams are pretty good in most subjects.
I've always found TSFX annoying wherever i go (not overly difficult, just long-winded questions)
As for the others, i cant really say for spesh.

[acinod]

2009 TSSM Exam 1 and 2.

That is all.

[b^3]

Thanks guys, I might have to start a couple of Kilbaha exams. Do you think the exams are balanced in terms of areas compared to VCAA?

[xZero]

kilbaha for methods is much better than for spesh, and also

2009 TSSM Exam 1 and 2.

That is all.

if you can finish this in time and get above 80% then you basically have ss of 50 in the bag

[b^3]

kilbaha for methods is much better than for spesh, and also

2009 TSSM Exam 1 and 2.

That is all.

if you can finish this in time and get above 80% then you basically have ss of 50 in the bag

SRSLY?
Is it all TSSM spesh exams that are hard or just the 2009?

[tony3272]

kilbaha for methods is much better than for spesh, and also

2009 TSSM Exam 1 and 2.

That is all.

if you can finish this in time and get above 80% then you basically have ss of 50 in the bag

that sounds scary. probably wont attempt that till the first week of the holidays then.

[luken93]

kilbaha for methods is much better than for spesh, and also

2009 TSSM Exam 1 and 2.

That is all.

if you can finish this in time and get above 80% then you basically have ss of 50 in the bag

So tempted to try this now and get completely owned, but I won't for the fear of crying like a little boy

[paulsterio]

I've done quite a few Spec Maths ones and this is my opinion of them:

VCAA - This is the benchmark - I can finish them in time, their questions are quite hard, but not long-winded, like they trip you up on true difficulty rather than time or nasty tricks

Insight - They're easier than VCAA but they do sometimes have a few good questions - they're not that bad!
MAV - Similar opinion to insight, there are some good questions, but overall, the whole paper is easy

NEAP - A little bit harder, some more long winded questions - some questions that are what you might call "dodgy" - questions not like VCAA ones - but good overall
Heffernan - Probably the best in my opinion, they reflect VCAA quite well and have good questions - good mix of hard and easy questions like VCAA

Kilbaha - They're hard, probably a little bit too hard, their questions aren't so much that you need skills to solve them, but you need to work efficiently
iTute - They are what you call dodgy
TSFX - They are what you call dodgy

TSSM - I've heard them to be hard, but I'm not too sure

[xZero]

i say do 2009 tssm now so you know where you are, i was highly motivated after getting owned by it

[b^3]

Thanks paulsterio. How long is it taking you to finish exam 1's and 2's. I've only done exam 1 for now and for VCAA, NEAP and Insight it takes me about 40 minutes, but there is room for improvement. Is that alright or do I need to pick up the pace a bit?

[paulsterio]

Thanks paulsterio. How long is it taking you to finish exam 1's and 2's. I've only done exam 1 for now and for VCAA, NEAP and Insight it takes me about 40 minutes, but there is room for improvement. Is that alright or do I need to pick up the pace a bit?

If you're getting them done in 40 minutes thats good! you're probably well on track, and either way, you have a lot of time to improve

I'm getting Exam 1's done in around 40 minutes as well, and thats at what I would call "average pace" - which leaves me time to check over the paper
Exam 2 is more of struggle - its actually difficult to maintain that intensity throughout the whole 2 hours - but generally I try to get Multiple Choice done in 15 minutes, most of it can be CAS'ed
Then I try to get the Extended Responses done in around 1hr 15min (which is difficult), which leaves me 30mins to check over

but the thing with specialist maths is that its a lot more difficult then methods or further, so it comes down to your skills much more then how accurate and paedantic you are, if you get me
from your sig you did further last year, so i guess you'd get what i mean by having to be "so careful in further its not funny"

[b^3]

Thanks paulsterio. How long is it taking you to finish exam 1's and 2's. I've only done exam 1 for now and for VCAA, NEAP and Insight it takes me about 40 minutes, but there is room for improvement. Is that alright or do I need to pick up the pace a bit?

If you're getting them done in 40 minutes thats good! you're probably well on track, and either way, you have a lot of time to improve

I'm getting Exam 1's done in around 40 minutes as well, and thats at what I would call "average pace" - which leaves me time to check over the paper
Exam 2 is more of struggle - its actually difficult to maintain that intensity throughout the whole 2 hours - but generally I try to get Multiple Choice done in 15 minutes, most of it can be CAS'ed
Then I try to get the Extended Responses done in around 1hr 15min (which is difficult), which leaves me 30mins to check over

but the thing with specialist maths is that its a lot more difficult then methods or further, so it comes down to your skills much more then how accurate and paedantic you are, if you get me
from your sig you did further last year, so i guess you'd get what i mean by having to be "so careful in further its not funny"

Yeh I know, losing a mark by being out by .01 and not showing the step where you actually square root a number made me hate parts of further.
Like methods, I plan on doing ER then MC for exam 2, is this a good idea or would I be better doing in the order the paper is?

[paulsterio]

Yeh I know, losing a mark by being out by .01 and not showing the step where you actually square root a number made me hate parts of further.
Like methods, I plan on doing ER then MC for exam 2, is this a good idea or would I be better doing in the order the paper is?

Yeahh, like I think that specialists probably won't be so "dodgy"
But i guess with further they have to, otherwise they'd get an overload of 100%'s on the exam

I always do ER before MC - I've done that in all my SACs and basically everything, I'd say I swear by that method

cause
1) If you run out of time, you can guess MC but you can't guess ER (:
2) MC is harder to make stupid mistakes on, so you should leave it to last when you're more likely to be tired

but some people do MC first cause they treat it as a warm up to ER

in the end though, if you're good you'll do well, regardless, I think its out of habit or superstition, theres no real reason why doing any one first is better than the other
MC are admittedly annoying though!