Questions about Further Maths

[bedigursimran]

Hi guys. I am in Year 11 doing Further maths. I am trying to smash out 2 further math exams a day until the exams. I am struggling really badly with exam 2(getting like 42-50 out of 60) whereas exam 1 is a walk in the park. And this is with most of the company exams. Do you guys have any suggestion on how to improve on exam 2 apart from doing a lot of them?

And I am averaging around 93% for my SACs, what SS do you think I can get if I get 90% or above on both exams?

[Peanut Butter]

Hi guys. I am in Year 11 doing Further maths. I am trying to smash out 2 further math exams a day until the exams. I am struggling really badly with exam 2(getting like 42-50 out of 60) whereas exam 1 is a walk in the park. And this is with most of the company exams. Do you guys have any suggestion on how to improve on exam 2 apart from doing a lot of them?

And I am averaging around 93% for my SACs, what SS do you think I can get if I get 90% or above on both exams?

Company papers are the not the best indication of capabilities - try a VCAA exam (in proper exam conditions) to get a feel of what you're getting.

That being said:
- make a note of the type of things you are getting wrong. If your mistakes are similar throughout the exams look for a way to fix it

- add examples (that are annotated) to your bound reference to refer to during the exam

- your calc has many fabulous functions!! Be sure to look out for quicker/more reliable ways to answer questions

I can't give much more advice without knowing what mistakes your making. Are they consistent things? Careless mistakes?

In terms of a study score, (assuming you have a high rank) you're probably looking at around 43

[Swagadaktal]

aye if you're doing two exams a day and you're staying at similar results, I'd suggest cutting down on the exams you do. For instance, instead of doing two exams where you're really tired, just do one where you're fresh. you'll probably see better results like that. If not, try brush over your concepts (in the book), give yourself a day to do that then go back into exams

[bedigursimran]

Company papers are the not the best indication of capabilities - try a VCAA exam (in proper exam conditions) to get a feel of what you're getting.

That being said:
- make a note of the type of things you are getting wrong. If your mistakes are similar throughout the exams look for a way to fix it

- add examples (that are annotated) to your bound reference to refer to during the exam

- your calc has many fabulous functions!! Be sure to look out for quicker/more reliable ways to answer questions

I can't give much more advice without knowing what mistakes your making. Are they consistent things? Careless mistakes?

In terms of a study score, (assuming you have a high rank) you're probably looking at around 43

I am in the top 20 people. So, not that high. I try to do every exam in under 70 minutes including the company exams and VCAA ones. I'll PM you with question that I need help with, if you don't mind

[Peanut Butter]

I am in the top 20 people. So, not that high. I try to do every exam in under 70 minutes including the company exams and VCAA ones. I'll PM you with question that I need help with, if you don't mind

Yeah that's absolutely fine

Also a good idea to ensure you proof-read all questions before marking the exam (because this what you'll do during the exam)

[bedigursimran]

aye if you're doing two exams a day and you're staying at similar results, I'd suggest cutting down on the exams you do. For instance, instead of doing two exams where you're really tired, just do one where you're fresh. you'll probably see better results like that. If not, try brush over your concepts (in the book), give yourself a day to do that then go back into exams

That's true. I am probably stressing out too much. Thanks.

[bedigursimran]

Yeah that's absolutely fine

Also a good idea to ensure you proof-read all questions before marking the exam (because this what you'll do during the exam)

What modules did you do? I am doing Trig, Graphs and Matrices.

[Peanut Butter]

What modules did you do? I am doing Trig, Graphs and Matrices.

Graphs, business and matrices

[MightyBeh]

What modules did you do? I am doing Trig, Graphs and Matrices.

I'm doing the same, if you need any help just let me know.

In terms of increasing your marks, I found that highlighting everything (everything)^{Well, not actually everything} boosted my initial marks (41  ) by around 9-10 because I have a tendency to kind of not read the entire question to save time (whoops? ). Other than that, redoing questions that I messed up instead of immediately reading a worked solution helped me work out where I was going wrong (and was far more interesting than copying out someone else's workings, 10/10 would recommend), keeping graphs (because they look nice when I get high marks; I'm not ashamed of my vanity) and similar statistics (mean score, standard deviation, maximum, minimum, etc.) helped me work out exactly what I needed to review before I started another exam (also a rough estimate of my score). I suppose having to remake my summary book after an unfortunate incident with water also helped me a bit, because I changed my whole system so that all my formulas and common mistakes are now easily accessible at the front of my book.

your calc has many fabulous functions!! Be sure to look out for quicker/more reliable ways to answer questions

Also kind of lumped in with that is you can write your own functions (if anyone don't know how, I'm happy to share ) to cut down on input errors and save some time looking up formulas/typing them out.

[TheMereCat]

Also kind of lumped in with that is you can write your own functions (if anyone don't know how, I'm happy to share ) to cut down on input errors and save some time looking up formulas/typing them out.

Could you please share on how you do this?

[bedigursimran]

I'm doing the same, if you need any help just let me know.

In terms of increasing your marks, I found that highlighting everything (everything)^{Well, not actually everything} boosted my initial marks (41  ) by around 9-10 because I have a tendency to kind of not read the entire question to save time (whoops? ). Other than that, redoing questions that I messed up instead of immediately reading a worked solution helped me work out where I was going wrong (and was far more interesting than copying out someone else's workings, 10/10 would recommend), keeping graphs (because they look nice when I get high marks; I'm not ashamed of my vanity) and similar statistics (mean score, standard deviation, maximum, minimum, etc.) helped me work out exactly what I needed to review before I started another exam (also a rough estimate of my score). I suppose having to remake my summary book after an unfortunate incident with water also helped me a bit, because I changed my whole system so that all my formulas and common mistakes are now easily accessible at the front of my book.

Also kind of lumped in with that is you can write your own functions (if anyone don't know how, I'm happy to share ) to cut down on input errors and save some time looking up formulas/typing them out.

Thanks. I'm going to start highlighting stuff. What exams are you doing to prepare?

[MightyBeh]

Thanks. I'm going to start highlighting stuff. What exams are you doing to prepare?

I started with VCAA 2013 1 and 2 (we did 2014 as a school last week and I was told in advance to to avoid it ) to get a general indication of how I would perform in the actual exam without any practice. I then switched to doing exclusively company exams, mostly Heffernan, Insight, TSSM, as well as a couple stragglers from my school's resources. I intend to do the remaining 7 VCAA sets in the week or so leading up to the actual exam, but I still have a pretty comfortable amount of company exams to do in the mean time.

Could you please share on how you do this?

Assuming the latest OS on TI-CAS, I have no idea with the class pad.

Quick version, let me know if any of it is unclear

Spoiler

In a new document, open a standard calculator page

Doc > 4:Insert > A: Program editor > 1: New

Name: Whatever you want as long as it's under 15(I think?) characters.
Type: Function (Default is program, change that!)
Library Access: LibPub (Show in Catalog) (Default is none, change that too!)

Press OK

You should see something like this:


Inside the brackets next to the name of your function (in mine, function. (very creative, I know)), define which variables you'll be using, separated by commas.

For example, let's say 'function' is actually heron's rule:
Heron's rule has four variables (but really three), like i've written below:
, where

so you can simply copy that expression (not the equation, leave the = out) into the dotted box between Func and EndFunc:


After that, do Menu > 2: Check syntax & store > 1:Check syntax and store
(alternatively, Ctrl + B)

You can test your function on the calculator page. Once you know it works, save your document in your MyLib folder, anywhere else (as far as I've tried, but I haven't tried much ) can cause issues and/or not work at all.

Finally (well, almost finally), press home and and go to your documents (Home > 2:My Documents). In there, press:

Menu > B: Refresh Libraries.

To test your function (and access it in general ) go to any calculator document (scratchpad works too) and open your catalogue (the book button) and then press 6 (or navigate to the books icon in the catalogue window) you should find your function in a folder-style drop down menu that has the name of your document. Usage should be the same as in the original document.

A couple of notes:

* You can store multiple functions in one document
* You should probably have a variable-order convention or a list of usage of each function in your summary because it can get confusing (I'm looking at you, Geo and trig) and the last thing you want is to enter the wrong thing in the wrong place and, would you believe, get the wrong answer.
* You need to refresh your libraries every time you add something to your document


Edit: Lists still don't work? Rip

Hope that helps!

[bedigursimran]

I started with VCAA 2013 1 and 2 (we did 2014 as a school last week and I was told in advance to to avoid it ) to get a general indication of how I would perform in the actual exam without any practice. I then switched to doing exclusively company exams, mostly Heffernan, Insight, TSSM, as well as a couple stragglers from my school's resources. I intend to do the remaining 7 VCAA sets in the week or so leading up to the actual exam, but I still have a pretty comfortable amount of company exams to do in the mean time.

Assuming the latest OS on TI-CAS, I have no idea with the class pad.

Quick version, let me know if any of it is unclear

Spoiler

In a new document, open a standard calculator page

Doc > 4:Insert > A: Program editor > 1: New

Name: Whatever you want as long as it's under 15(I think?) characters.
Type: Function (Default is program, change that!)
Library Access: LibPub (Show in Catalog) (Default is none, change that too!)

Press OK

You should see something like this:


Inside the brackets next to the name of your function (in mine, function. (very creative, I know)), define which variables you'll be using, separated by commas.

For example, let's say 'function' is actually heron's rule:
Heron's rule has four variables (but really three), like i've written below:
, where

so you can simply copy that expression (not the equation, leave the = out) into the dotted box between Func and EndFunc:


After that, do Menu > 2: Check syntax & store > 1:Check syntax and store
(alternatively, Ctrl + B)

You can test your function on the calculator page. Once you know it works, save your document in your MyLib folder, anywhere else (as far as I've tried, but I haven't tried much ) can cause issues and/or not work at all.

Finally (well, almost finally), press home and and go to your documents (Home > 2:My Documents). In there, press:

Menu > B: Refresh Libraries.

To test your function (and access it in general ) go to any calculator document (scratchpad works too) and open your catalogue (the book button) and then press 6 (or navigate to the books icon in the catalogue window) you should find your function in a folder-style drop down menu that has the name of your document. Usage should be the same as in the original document.

A couple of notes:

* You can store multiple functions in one document
* You should probably have a variable-order convention or a list of usage of each function in your summary because it can get confusing (I'm looking at you, Geo and trig) and the last thing you want is to enter the wrong thing in the wrong place and, would you believe, get the wrong answer.
* You need to refresh your libraries every time you add something to your document


Edit: Lists still don't work? Rip

Hope that helps!

I literally just completed VCAA 2013 exam 2. Made a couple of silly mistakes, wasn't as difficult as I thought.

[MightyBeh]

I literally just completed VCAA 2013 exam 2. Made a couple of silly mistakes, wasn't as difficult as I thought.

That's the kind of attitude we like to see!

[TheMereCat]

That's the kind of attitude we like to see!

Btw, Thanks for the tutorial on making your own functions

I literally just completed VCAA 2013 exam 2. Made a couple of silly mistakes, wasn't as difficult as I thought.

Good job man, keep it up. The only difficult thing in further is trying to do as less silly mistakes as possible.