What did you think of that exam?

[sk1595]

I for one found VCAA 2013 Exam 1 a whole lot more difficult and time consuming than past papers. Thoughts?

[Chazef]

way harder than previous vcaa papers, I went over the exam and I think I only lost marks on the last question, but i'm not sure how many. I worked out an equation for the line segment ST and went to use a definite integral to work it out and saw the natural log in it and freaked out, forgetting that it was just a constant coefficient of x rather than a function of x, so then I changed to the 'triangle method' and somehow ended up with a negative number Hoping I could get 2/3 for that one

[rhapsody_]

Last question screwed me over, which saddens me because I actually felt confident that I knew what I was doing but it seems I was completely off haha

Everything else was fine especially the first few pages, definitely different from past exams though :S A little worried about what Exam 2 will be like now.

[Damoz.G]

Hmmmm....I found some questions very easy, and other questions very hard.

But as I flick through some of the suggested solutions that some ANers have posted on here, it actually seems quite easy. I think last year's was harder. =/

[abcdqd]

In my opinion it was algebra-heavy, kinda similar to 2010, which had a 36.5 cut-off. I think this years cut-off may be half a mark lower; I found 2012 to be easier than this.

[P0ppinfr3sh]

I reckon in terms of method, the exam was pretty easy. During reading time I pretty easily worked out what you had to do for each question.
 Although I think the exam was hard because of the crappy numbers they made you use which made it really easy to make careless/algebraic mistakes. (I made one on the last question  . Hopefully that was it though).

[laiy]

I reckon the exam was of a pretty okay standard. I know for sure I stuffed up the last question though, it was so time consuming I didn't have time to check over my answers

[Lejn]

Went in, finished reading time, thought about what an easy simple test.

> Goes in
> Makes retarded errors

Conceptually one of the easiest CFs yet I reckon, I think I've got 37/40.

[Epsilon]

Had a really bad headache. Looking on it, don't think I went as well as I should have. If the people lower ranks than me got higher than I did, will my score be increased based on SACs and my GAT? Or is it worth going for a DES and seeing what happens?

[Damoz.G]

Had a really bad headache. Looking on it, don't think I went as well as I should have. If the people lower ranks than me got higher than I did, will my score be increased based on SACs and my GAT? Or is it worth going for a DES and seeing what happens?

thushan has mentioned that you need to get people below you to get a similar score to you. Personally, I wouldn't apply for DES, because there is a lot of paperwork that must be filled out and sent through to VCAA. I say this because you still have Exam 2 to go, which is worth DOUBLE of what Exam 1 was so there is still time to maximise your SS.

[Phy124]

I think the exam was relatively easy. I found that the marks available for some questions were quite odd and generous. In particular, the marks available for each part of question 1 were probably worth 1 mark more than usual. This may in turn lead to a higher A+ cutoff.

Analogously, I feel that most questions on the paper were quite accessible and straightforward and students would also have been familiar with them, had they done past VCAA examinations.

Due to time constraints I imagine that the last question will trip up a few students not necessarily due its difficulty, but due to rushing the question leading to simple arithmetic mistakes when dealing with logarithms and exponents.

The following questions I feel that students may answer particularly poorly; 5b, 6, 7bi (and dependant on consequental marks possibly 7bii, too), 8, 9cii, 10c

[CossieG]

It seems that this year VCAA didn't include one of those questions that only the A+ students will get right. This year, it will be algebra skills that separate the A+ students from the rest.

I personally knew exactly what I had to do for each question during reading time but when the time came to do the questions I just couldn't handle the algebra.

First bump was the average value question. I set up the expression properly and then when I got to actually evaluating the expression it was alright until I realized that there was no way that I could deal with it under the time constraints so I decided to move on. That's when the panic started to set in.

Then came the discrete distributions question, the one that said "show that p =". I managed to get a quadratic equation, looked at it, and thought "fuck its in decimals", so I decided to use the quadratic formula. Instead of using -1 as the value for "b" I used "p" and then couldn't get an answer. This is where I cracked.

When It came to the next question I was so panicked I didn't realize that 140/75 could be simplified into 28/15. From there I was totally fucked. Started dropping silly marks everywhere, making silly errors.

Not good at all. The things stress can do is just phenomenal.

[lArcdeTriomphe]

It seems that this year VCAA didn't include one of those questions that only the A+ students will get right. This year, it will be algebra skills that separate the A+ students from the rest.

That's exactly what I thought of the exam. If you sat the exam with a calculator, it wouldn't have been too difficult, but the numbers that they chose this year were nasty and they forced you to use specific methods to solve questions, e.g. with that probability question, they effectively forced you to use fractions (as 2/3 cannot be expressed as a decimal as an exact value- in a general sense that is); also, to find 'a' in that probability distribution, you had to expand the brackets, otherwise you would not get nice numbers.