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Importance of doing past papers (2 Viewers)

BLIT2014

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Have you tried finding a tutor? (I think it helps especially for english). Preferably someone who can mark your essays and give comprehensive feedback.

Surely that's what your teacher is for? Marking/ giving comprehensive feedback?
 

Fade1233

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Carrotsticks Paper shutting up those who think maths is too easy and the divine judgement of the truth!
Hahah Yeh. I am not sure if they are HSC or first yr uni - the last questions in his paper

Have you tried finding a tutor? (I think it helps especially for english). Preferably someone who can mark your essays and give comprehensive feedback.
Yes. I have had one for sometime now. Didn't help me though cos he didnt mark my essays and didnt give comprehensive feedback when he rarely did.
 

iStudent

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Surely that's what your teacher is for? Marking/ giving comprehensive feedback?
Some teachers (e.g mine) are pretty useless and the feedback they give aren't comprehensive. (since he has 30 other students to attend to)
 

mreditor16

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tbh, Carret, some constructive feedback from me personally - I like how you make BOS trials of appropriate difficulty for high-performing students, but at the same time to give good practice, I think it would be great if you could bring it in line with HSC more, in terms of how questions are structured and laid out. and as well, how much out of the syllabus you go....

that's just my two cents worth.....
 

integral95

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he only made 2 so far

so you can imagine the 2012 guys actually shitting themselves cause they wouldn't anticipate these kind of questions ever.
 

Carrotsticks

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Haha do them. Then come back to them 4 days before HSC and see if you can do them better.



I dont know man.... So it is HSC?
Yes and no. Please see below.

tbh, Carret, some constructive feedback from me personally - I like how you make BOS trials of appropriate difficulty for high-performing students, but at the same time to give good practice, I think it would be great if you could bring it in line with HSC more, in terms of how questions are structured and laid out. and as well, how much out of the syllabus you go....

that's just my two cents worth.....
Can you provide an example? Also, just something to keep in mind, the exams are not meant to be an accurate representation of the HSC. Difficulty wise, certainly not. Style of questions, to some extent no. This is because they are also designed to see how well and deeply you understand the content, something that HSC doesn't really do much of. Rather, it appears that their questions aim to see who has practised the most questions. But to be fair, their papers have been shifting towards the understanding side.
 

mreditor16

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Can you provide an example? Also, just something to keep in mind, the exams are not meant to be an accurate representation of the HSC. Difficulty wise, certainly not. Style of questions, to some extent no. This is because they are also designed to see how well and deeply you understand the content, something that HSC doesn't really do much of. Rather, it appears that their questions aim to see who has practised the most questions. But to be fair, their papers have been shifting towards the understanding side.
To be honest, I can't find a specific example. But I do get what you mean. You intend it to be a true test of ability and as a result, in some ways this results in the exam straying away from HSC-like layout/format/structuring of the questions.

I just thought it would be good if you tried to mirror hsc more in terms of layout/format/structuring , because then it would be more useful for us (already is :D) and definitely would encourage more people to do it. I know quite a few BoSers who aren't going to do it, because they don't think it is the best practice for HSC, when it doesn't strictly follow HSC style per se.

but still you're doing a great job carret and we all appreciate it! :D
 

Carrotsticks

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To be honest, I can't find a specific example. But I do get what you mean. You intend it to be a true test of ability and as a result, in some ways this results in the exam straying away from HSC-like layout/format/structuring of the questions.

I just thought it would be good if you tried to mirror hsc more in terms of layout/format/structuring , because then it would be more useful for us (already is :D) and definitely would encourage more people to do it. I know quite a few BoSers who aren't going to do it, because they don't think it is the best practice for HSC, when it doesn't strictly follow HSC style per se.

but still you're doing a great job carret and we all appreciate it! :D
Will take this feedback on board of course, feedback is valuable.

Thank you =)
 

Fade1233

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Will take this feedback on board of course, feedback is valuable.

Thank you =)
2012 Q 15 (A very good question as a matter of fact) resembles CSSA 2012 last question. Do you make them yourselves? Or do you compile them from other papers when you find the most difficult or do you change them? Also just wondering if we are having something like that this year?
 

Carrotsticks

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2012 Q 15 (A very good question as a matter of fact) resembles CSSA 2012 last question. Do you make them yourselves? Or do you compile them from other papers when you find the most difficult or do you change them? Also just wondering if we are having something like that this year?
The questions are either

1. My own original proofs of a known problem

2. A neat original result that I have proved

3. Well-known proofs within the Mathematical community (I'm guessing you mean the reduction formula from Q15 2012? Or did you mean the demonstration of the Euler-Mascheroni Constant? In either case, both are classics, the former being a glimpse of something called the Gamma Function. )

4. My modification of well-known proofs to make them more HSC accessible (Trebla is especially helpful for this part, he's good at knowing whether something is HSC friendly or not, whereas I tend to get a bit over-excited and expect too much from students)

Funnily enough, it has happened quite a few times that I 'discovered' a neat property, only to realise that it's already been found and already well known by others.

I make every effort not to have any copied questions from other papers or to even change them. You may occasionally find similar (or perhaps in some cases the same!) questions in the odd past paper, but that is most likely because that question falls into category #3 (perhaps like CSSA 2012 as you said, I do not have the paper).

And yes, BOS Trials 2014 is running this year, I am actually working on the 3U one as we speak and just finished making the projectile motion problem.

As soon as the date is confirmed, I will be posting up the notice =)

It will be held at either UNSW, UTS or USYD, to be confirmed.
 
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Fade1233

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The questions are either
1. My own original proofs of a known problem

2. A neat original result that I have proved

3. Well-known proofs within the Mathematical community (I'm guessing you mean the reduction formula from Q15 2012? Or did you mean the demonstration of the Euler-Mascheroni Constant? In either case, both are classics, the former being a glimpse of something called the Gamma Function. )

4. My modification of well-known proofs to make them more HSC accessible (Trebla is especially helpful for this part, he's good at knowing whether something is HSC friendly or not, whereas I tend to get a bit over-excited and expect too much from students)

Funnily enough, it has happened quite a few times that I 'discovered' a neat property, only to realise that it's already been found and already well known by others.

I make every effort not to have any copied questions from other papers or to even change them. You may occasionally find similar (or perhaps in some cases the same!) questions in the odd past paper, but that is most likely because that question falls into category #3 (perhaps like CSSA 2012 as you said, I do not have the paper).

And yes, BOS Trials 2014 is running this year, I am actually working on the 3U one as we speak and just finished making the projectile motion problem.

As soon as the date is confirmed, I will be posting up the notice =)

It will be held at either UNSW, UTS or USYD, to be confirmed.
Got it thanks.
 

BLIT2014

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Some teachers (e.g mine) are pretty useless and the feedback they give aren't comprehensive. (since he has 30 other students to attend to)

Fair enough.. Do you have any other english teachers you are close to who would mind giving you feedback?
 

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