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Rui wants opinions: Why is perms and combs so ****?

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RuiAce:
Hey everyone :)

Okay, so I know that a lot of people hate this topic. And not gonna lie, I once hated it too; ESPECIALLY during the HSC. It was certainly worse in 4U compared to 3U as well. And then first year uni happened and now it's one of my favourite things in maths - I'm probably gonna be researching it soon! Since then, I've pretty much forgotten why I hated this topic so much in high school. So I'm basically asking all of you who do 3U or above (or equivalent):

What makes permutations and combinations so loathsome?

As far as this goes, I'm mainly asking for self interest. I may choose to act on some of the opinions and see if there's a way I can make this topic easier to understand. But if I do, I want to know why it tends to cause students struggle/grievance and why it's so despised. It's actually something so beautiful, but something definitely is not right about it as far as the HSC goes.

Appreciate any input! I would really prefer if I have a mix of responses between ex-HSC students and current HSC students, as well as mods and non-mods!

This thread has been temporarily stickied. The sticky will be removed in due time.

Natasha.97:
Perms and combs... other than binomial theorem, this is probably the hardest topic in 3U.

- It's quite hard to get your head around questions and what they are actually asking you to find
- Questions involving the greatest coefficient are the hardest imo
- Confusion about when to use nPr and when to use nCr

Opengangs:
I think it's because perms and combs, like probability, is vastly different to any of the other topics that are taught at high school level. It requires rigorous thinking with approaching each question, and so there's no 'real way' to really study it. While a lot of the other topics are heavy on algebraic manipulation, perms, combs and probability are heavy on analytical thinking, so this makes the whole topic a lot more difficult compared to others.

Needless to say though, I actually love the permutations and combinations topic. It's actually one of my strongest topics out of the whole 3u course, and the 4u (even if I don't do 4u) questions aren't too bad, to me.

RuiAce:

--- Quote from: 13cheungjn1 on August 29, 2017, 08:26:47 pm ---- Questions involving the greatest coefficient are the hardest imo

--- End quote ---
Ironically, this thing (which IS binomial theorem, not perms/combs) hasn't been examined since 1988 or something :P

Natasha.97:

--- Quote from: RuiAce on August 29, 2017, 08:28:53 pm ---Ironically, this thing (which IS binomial theorem, not perms/combs) hasn't been examined since 1988 or something :P

--- End quote ---

oops, slightly rusty on the particular contents of each topic :3

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