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Reference sheet...pls help (1 Viewer)

johnncenaa

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One thing that is bothering our whole class and which none of us are sure about is the way in which exams may change due to the reference sheet. Will exams become harder, or questions asked differently, or will they stay exactly the same as before?

Thanks to whoever can clarify this!!

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Ambility

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My teacher said they won't really change the exams that much at all. I don't think it is anything to fear to worry about.
 

leehuan

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It's likely only wordiness will be altered, not question difficulty


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mrstripedshades

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According to my teacher she thinks the marks will be mainly for solving the question now, so maybe writing/subbing in the formula itself will not give you any marks? I have no idea how much of this is true
 

leehuan

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According to my teacher she thinks the marks will be mainly for solving the question now, so maybe writing/subbing in the formula itself will not give you any marks? I have no idea how much of this is true
Writing it wouldn't. I'm going to leave subbing values in as ambiguous though, because who knows how the questions will be worded.
 

Carrotsticks

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I do not think the difficulty will change for a few reasons.

Firstly, recall that students pre-2015 have a table of standard integrals. However, this did not stop the board from asking stock standard "Evaluate X integral" straight from the formula sheet. In actual fact, in 2010 HSC Q1 (a), they explicitly said "Use the table of standard integrals to find X". If the theory that has been going around (there will be no more calculation questions because they're too easy now), then the aforementioned type of questions would not exist.

Secondly, observe that no context was provided for the formulas. In other words, the variables were not defined. Without the definition of the variables being provided, the formulas are of little use to somebody who has not learned/forgotten the theory. How can a person use the trapezoidal rule if they don't even know what 'h' is? Sure you allow a few rote learners to gain some free marks perhaps, but the benefits outweigh this.

Thirdly, these formula sheets were designed specifically to target students who misquote or are unable to recall the formula explicitly, but understand what the variables are and how they are to be used. So when students lose marks, it is because they deserve to lose them (ie: not knowing how to use the variables, not knowing what they are etc) as opposed to losing them simply because they misquoted formulas. This is the purpose of an exam after all.
 

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