'Stupid' Exam Questions

[Escobar]

so did we ever find out whether or not we need to include units?

[theshunpo]

so did we ever find out whether or not we need to include units?

Yeah look back on page 1, it's included in EulerFan101's first post

[speedy]

For a bound reference, it says single spine - if you tape a textbook to another book, whilst ensuring spines are lined up, is that okay?

[keltingmeith]

For a bound reference, it says single spine - if you tape a textbook to another book, whilst ensuring spines are lined up, is that okay?

If you do it very well, you should be fine - you're probably better off gluing cover to cover, though. Are the two books the same size? Because it would also help if they are.

[speedy]

If you do it very well, you should be fine - you're probably better off gluing cover to cover, though. Are the two books the same size? Because it would also help if they are.

They're not the same size, tbh idek if I'll do it, kinda seems that it would be more annoying than anything.

[psyxwar]

Thankyou guys

And that is question 2d off Exam 2 2011. They did use it though, just didn't say what W is.

pretty sure W was defined in the question stem for that exam

[Champ101]

When answering probability questions where it's a really long questions like, "what is the probability that that she plays tennis two times in the next week given that she played once already...". Is it necessary to write Pr( she plays tennis two times in the next week given that she played once already)?
Or if not what do you put in place of it?

[GeniDoi]

I'm not too sure about this. Let's consider a question which said "Find the area under the graph correct to 2 decimal places".
Say the correct answer is 3.25 square metres. VCAA will usually specify that they want an answer in square metres (the question will usually read: find the area correct to 2 decimal places in square metres). Because the question itself defines the units, the answer 3.25 is perfectly acceptable. If they didn't specify the units in the question, then I would certainly write the units. Otherwise, you could write something like 0.00 square kilometres and still be correct.

Same goes for worded questions. Sometimes they say things like, if m Litres is the point at which the bucket is full, find the value of m. Since the question specifies that m is in litres, there's no reason to write m=5 litres. m=5 would suffice in this case. But if the question just said "Find the volume which fills the bucket" I would absolutely include the units. It's possible that this explains what your teacher was saying.

I asked my two methods teachers again and they said no matter how the question is worded, unless it explicitly states "After your result, give the units of the answer" or something along those lines, you are not required to provide units. As well, "Give your answer in km/litres/meters per second" does not fall under this category of wording.

[speedy]

pretty sure W was defined in the question stem for that exam

I really don't think it is, unless I'm going blind from tiredness.

Edit: this is the specific question, it starts here though:

Spoiler

[keltingmeith]

When answering probability questions where it's a really long questions like, "what is the probability that that she plays tennis two times in the next week given that she played once already...". Is it necessary to write Pr(what is the probability that that she plays tennis two times in the next week given that she played once already)?
Or if not what do you put in place of it?

Great question! At the very start, just write "let be the event she plays tennis x times on the nth week", then you can just write "= blah" or similar. Doing this at the start of extended response questions sets you up for a lot less writing during the extended response, too!



Also - it has been brought up by a user that in 2012 exam 2, question 4, there's a question where VCAA doesn't EXPLICTLY state to use a previous answer, but you still need to use it. My thoughts on this is that VCAA don't tell you to use it because it's somewhat obvious - in this particular example, h and r can only be related in that way, no matter what other information they give you. So, this is why they expect you to know to use it.

[speedy]

Great question! At the very start, just write "let be the event she plays tennis x times on the nth week", then you can just write "= blah" or similar. Doing this at the start of extended response questions sets you up for a lot less writing during the extended response, too!

Why do you define it as A with the subscript?

Edit: dw, it's because it is a new variable right? x would be the variable they give you...?

[keltingmeith]

Why do you define it as A with the subscript?

Edit: dw, it's because it is a new variable right? x would be the variable they give you...?

This is just so if they use different weeks, I don't have to introduce more variables.

So, that way if the question asked "what's the probability she plays once in week 2 given she played three times in week 1", I can write , instead of having to define entirely different events for week 1 and 2.

[speedy]

This is just so if they use different weeks, I don't have to introduce more variables.

So, that way if the question asked "what's the probability she plays once in week 2 given she played three times in week 1", I can write , instead of having to define entirely different events for week 1 and 2.

This is actually brilliant! Haha thanks

[Escobar]

if there is an asymptote on an axis, how do we show it?
eg do we just write y=0 next to the x axis?

[keltingmeith]

if there is an asymptote on an axis, how do we show it?
eg do we just write y=0 next to the x axis?

Yes, but you should still dot in the asymptote lines just above/to the right of the axes.