Zhen's Mathematical Methods Exam 2 Guide
I had some reservations personally about writing up an exam 2 guide. I was a bit reluctant to write one cause I’m pretty sure I lost all my marks in exam 2 and I went out of exam 2 feeling really bad. Also, unlike in my exam 1 guide, I probably won’t be able to go through common questions, cause the questions vary quite a bit in exam 2. Anyway, here’s my attempt at writing up an exam 2 guide. Before I start, you can check up my tips for exam 1
here. All of the recommendations for what to do during reading time, writing time and after finishing the exam are applicable to exam 2. So, I’m not going to repeat that stuff and you should just check that stuff out in the link.
What should I do for my bound reference?This is a really common question that gets asked a lot throughout the forums. Honestly, I’m not the best person to ask. My bound reference for methods was about 10 pages long and my bound reference for specialist maths was about 3 pages long. But, not doing a proper bound reference is one of my regrets, cause listing out difficult questions and putting them into my bound reference throughout the year could have helped me out. Just a heads up, expect to never use your bound reference during you exam, cause you’ll be too pressed for time. However, making one is still a good form of revision. Ok, a few tips about writing a bound reference from me. If you’re going to make a really long bound reference, make sure it’s organised well and you have a contents page so you can easily find what you’re looking for. So, if you do end up using you bound reference, you won’t be wasting too much time trying to find things. Also, I’d recommend filling your bound reference up with short summaries of topics and a lot of hard questions. This is so you essentially use your bound reference as a way to understand and list out all the difficult questions you encounter. Also, this may be a personal preference, but I recommend leaving the first page for the stuff you think you’ll use during the exam. Personally my first page was filled with formulas I thought I might need to use during the actual exam. So, fill the first page up with that stuff so it’s easily accessible during your exam. Again, I’m just warning you guys that I’m no bound reference expert cause I didn’t spend enough time making one personally.
How do I prepare for this exam?Personally for maths subjects, I feel like doing heaps of practice questions and practice exam generally is still the best way to improve your marks. However, for the first few practice exams, I’d treat them like a worksheet and go through the questions one by one, checking the worked solutions right afterwards. This would allow me to fully understand how to approach certain questions and helped me to know how to approach the basic questions. In my opinion, this is a good way to start off, cause I feel like correcting an exam an hour after you do it isn’t as effective as correcting as you go, as it’s still fresh in your mind. However, you still want to quickly transition into doing timed practice exams after doing a few exams like this to emulate the exam conditions. I just feel like the above was personally a good way to improve my ability in the starting stages of my revision.
How do I effectively use my CAS for exam 2?Before I start, most of the advice here is from the perspective of a Ti-nspire person, so may not be applicable to people with other calculators. So, I wasn’t one of those amazing people who defined various functions in their CAS. I had a friend who made something that could easily determine stationary points and their nature. Even though I wasn’t a CAS expert, I still knew a decent amount about using my CAS. I recommend memorising all the commonly used functions on the CAS. For example, I memorised that Menu 3-1 is solve, Menu 3-2 is factorise, Menu 3-3 is expand, Menu 3-7-1 is simultaneous equations, Menu 4-1 is differentiate, Menu 4-3 is integrate. I also knew the approximate area of all the buttons on the CAS that I frequently used, which is helpful for typing a bit faster and not wasting as much time when typing in equations. Furthermore, another tip I have is to define functions your equations. This is so that when they ask you to do various things to the equation such as solve for x-intercepts or differentiate it, you can eaily do these things without typing out the entire question all over again.
What do I do if I come across a question I can’t do?The first thing I recommend doing is to look at the previous part of the question and see if they give a clue as to how you solve the question you’re stuck on. Personally, I feel like VCAA generally tries to lead you on the right path with every part and sometimes we need to use the previous part to solve the current one. If you still can’t solve the question, you have two options. You can continue trying to solve it or skip it and move to the next question. I honestly feel like the latter is a better option. Personally, I would put some working out down so I might get a few marks and move on. But afterwards I’d make sure I come back to the question and do it afterwards. Don’t make the mistake of forgetting to redo a question you skipped. I personally made this mistake in one of my SACs. I personally feel like when I approach the question for a second time after I’ve skipped it, I’ll be much more likely to solve it cause my brain goes through it at the back of my mind.
How do I minimise those silly mistakes?Ok, so before we start going through the stuff to do in the exam, I’d recommend writing out all your mistakes throughout the year. Have a massive list of mistakes to refer to so that you can prevent them from happening. Alright now to get onto stuff to do during the exam. Like in exam 1, it’s good to cover your work and check it all over again, but in exam 2 I don’t think people have enough time to actually do that. I recommend using your CAS for just about everything. It’s much easier to make a mistake from doing it youself than with a CAS. The only thing you need to watch out for with a CAS is typing in the equation correctly. Your CAS doesn’t make silly mistakes so use that to your advantage. Personally, I found it harder to make silly mistakes for technology active exams cause I could do it by hand (when the question allowed me to) and check it on the CAS. The ability to easily check equations and answers on the CAS is really beneficial to minimising these mistakes.
How do I approach those difficult application questionsIn my opinion, there no set way to approach these sorts of questions. Personally, I’d just do as many practice questions as I could, so that whatever question I get, I could apply my knowledge from past questions to approach the question right in front of me. However, there are going to be questions thrown at you that you’ve never seen before. If you get these questions, the worst thing you can do is panic. There are some questions that appear to look difficult, but can be easily solved if you don’t panic and approach it systematically. Personally, I would instinctually think about the different concepts that applied to each question and what formulas I’d use. For example, if they asked for me to find the maximum, I’d think about the end points and differentiating. If you can isolate the different concepts and formulas that apply to a question, it becomes much easier to do.
Ok, I’m stuck not knowing what to add onto this right now. So, if you have any requests for things to add, leave it below and I’ll edit this post. Also, feel free to ask any relevant questions below.