Thank you so much everybody for coming! It was a great event and a huge success. It was a great view from my perspective, seeing all these hard-working students labouring over the papers and racking their brains as to what to do next, or how they can use their Mathematical tools.
Once again, I do apologise for the delay with regards to starting the 2U/4U papers later due to printing, this was my fault and something to improve on for next time =) My words cannot express how appreciative I am of all of you coming to attempt the papers, when you've got such little time left until your HSC Examinations.
Seeing the students buzzing right after I said "Pens Down" was something unlike any other event I've experienced (even other BOS Trials!). "How did you do this one?", "Wow.", "Did you get X for Question Y?" were common things said, and I loved hearing students discuss their various methods of proof and calculations. I'm so proud of all of you for having attempted this, despite it being no where near an accurate depiction of the HSC difficulty-wise. Well done everybody!
And although I have already said my thanks in person, I'd like to give them out again. It is the least I can do to express my gratitude.
First, another huge thank you to Trebla, for spending countless hours doing the following:
- Checking solutions
- Verifying correct-ness of the steps
- Checking HSC-friendliness
- Checking syllabus coverage
- Pestering me to churn out the questions
- Driving back and forth from his place to mine to spend many hours discussing the paper
Without his help, the papers would not be what they are now, for all of you.
Secondly, to the University of Sydney for providing us with a venue that can accommodate the volume we had, as well as our lunches (which I actually was not expecting at all). We had access to good exam-conditions (nicely spread out tables, solid tables, non-creaky chairs, as menial as they sound I feel that they have a role to play in terms of your comfort as an examinee) that we would otherwise not have. I hope to further build our relationships between the website and the University.
Thirdly, to the assistants who came on the day. I know it must have been extremely tiring and boring to sit there to supervise the exam when you could do something else much more interesting/productive (such as studying of course!). Thank you for ensuring that the event today ran as smoothly as possible. Without your help, the shenanigan with the printing would not have been resolved in a timely manner, and we may have had to provide students with blank paper instead for their writing booklets!
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Once again, congratulations to all who have successfully completed the paper to the best of your efforts (that's the main part, that it was to the best of your efforts, not your mark necessarily). It was a challenging set of exams, and you all survived!
Take this as a learning experience, and also as an opportunity to appreciate that Mathematics is more than just mindless calculations and boring derivations. Unexpected topics being mixed together (who in their right mind would think that SHM mixed with Projectile Motion would yield such a neat result???) yield unexpected, yet sometimes amazingly pretty results.
There are some neat things that can be proven, using the tools we are provided with at the high school level. It's now just a matter of gaining access to them, which is why I am here to provide such a service.
Good luck all for your HSC, and I hope to see you all leaving high school with a greater appreciation of Mathematics =)
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The solutions will be released some time next week, and I aim to have the results out by around mid-October, but before your HSC Examinations for Maths of course!
I am aware that each of the papers had some mis-prints, which I'll be addressing before uploading a copy of the exam online. Hang tight!