Overall I thought that the exam felt fine and no errors seem to be glaringly obvious (super subjective and my knowledge is limited). The last question was kind of interesting and was obviously a ‘separator question’.
Hi, also just sat the exam. Thought it was a fair exam, it was easy to tell that the last two questions of the paper would be the challenging ones, the rest of the questions seemed fair. Overall, this exam felt good, noticeably there weren’t any made up scenarios etc, the exam just stuck to the math side of things.
General comment – a good exam. Well done VCAA (and Monash).
Some standouts – Q4 – nicely done to bring quadratics into discrete probability. Q9bii – good way to finish the paper; some thinking required there (there may well be a short-cut, I didn’t see it).
Minor nit-pick (and very minor) – use of the lower-case in Q6a. Most papers/books/study design seem to write , this paper had .
Update to my previous comment – I just found a short-cut to Q9bii (I was convinced there had to be one):
If we accept that and must be two solutions, you can reduce to a quadratic. We then want this quadratic to have exactly one solution (technically a repeated solution, but I see that as not an issue) so set and… done! The two values of drop out nicely.
(Marty, please delete this if you think it is too soon to be discussing specific answers)
I got one solution (w=1) and I’m not even that confident that I used a reasonable method of working to get that! I’d love to see your working steps there sometime.
I noticed the var(X) as well, then checked the formula sheet (notated lowercase as well). Methods study doesn’t use the notation either way, but Specialist does and has it capitalised. So, it might be a miscommunication between the subjects.
Having flicked through but not attempted the paper, it seems pretty low-level for the most part, with a large spike in difficulty on the “separator” question 9, which I would argue is more difficult than the final question last year (though admittedly I was probably much more attuned to methods 12 months ago).
Hi Marty and everyone – it did seem like a reasonable exam. It started off with some very textbook exercise type questions and developed from there. I’m not sure if it was difficult enough to separate the top end. Some of the arithmetic was a little annoying. Here are my solutions in Mathcha
The label points on a supplied graph question was unusual (but easy)
Very nice. I like your graphical approach to 9b. I didn’t find this an “obvious” connection as such and suspect a lot of students will come at it with algebra – still gets the same result but doesn’t look as elegant as yours.
Hmmm… I prefer your solution actually. Mostly because I can see more students being able to think of this on their own. The solution in the video is nice (inspired actually) but I cannot see too many Methods students, especially at the end of the sprint that is a Paper 1 exam, being able to reason this way.
Positive ones END UP in positive infinity, negative in negative infinity.
Start from there and drive the curve through x-ints with appropriate features.
I remember it from my y9 almost a century ago, no calcs.
As x tends to +infinity, y diverges to positive infinity.
So, start drawing from top-right , going down to rightmost x-int, the curve behaving like an ordinary crossing if non-repeating factor, like tp for even-times repeating, like PoInfl if odd-repeating factor, then going to the next x-int.. until all x-ints are exhausted.
At the end, one xan use y-int to verify the shape (unless the curve passes through x=0)
Thanks, Simon, and everyone. Q9 is very nice (except for the tone deaf choice of w as the parameter). My guess is students will do badly on it, but it is a good question. The rest of the exam was *way* too easy.
Gosh, the exam-1 is too easy. My good year 10 students can do the last question. VCAA should at least write one or two hard questions on the paper. It is a joke!
Question 8a is an example of very good assessment item that allows students to demonstrate at least four possible methods.
Method 1: direct integration set to 9/16, getting a quadratic equation in terms of k, solving for k and eliminate 7/3 to keep 1/3.
Method 2: use 1 – Pr(0<=X<=k) = 9/16, in a similar spirit above.
Method 3: the triangle method, eventually getting the same equation, and then k=1/3.
Method 4: notice that there are two similar triangles (larger area = 1 and smaller area = 9/16), and thus the scale factor is sqrt(9/16) = 3/4. Then, you can set an equation: which leads to .
I’m hearing reports that the blank page after Q8 has led to a not insignificant portion of students not seeing Q9 and missing out on at least 7 marks. Obviously, this in on the students themselves, VCAA do literally put “end of examination questions” at the end of the exam to avoid exactly this happening. But if this has happened to several students (who I can attest would otherwise be high performers), I think that there may be a flaw in the formatting.
In a high-stress situation (such as an exam), using the traditional ‘This page left blank’ page right before another question is pretty poor form, especially considering no other exam seems to have this same set-up. Additionally, Methods (and all the maths exams) have a habit of not having enough time allocated for all students to have a fair go at all the questions, so I imagine many students were already stressing about time left at that point
While I would definitely say it is the fault of the students (hell, I did something similar multiples times in high school), I at least hope VCAA mentions it in their examiners report as a potential reason for lower-than-expected marks for Question 9, as well as taking it into consideration for future exams
must have a different version to me, a single blank page with examination continues on next page.
Please don’t comment anonymously. A fake name is fine, but please include a name.
Hi, current student here
Overall I thought that the exam felt fine and no errors seem to be glaringly obvious (super subjective and my knowledge is limited). The last question was kind of interesting and was obviously a ‘separator question’.
I read in Secret General Exam 2 Discussion that marty didn’t object to posting for the exam, so here it is (feel free to delete)
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/vce/comments/1oonnhc/methods_exam_1/
Thanks, Leo, and, yes, I don’t mind links such as the one you provided.
Separator questions are good and necessary, as long as they are fair. (I haven’t looked at the paper yet.)
Hi, also just sat the exam. Thought it was a fair exam, it was easy to tell that the last two questions of the paper would be the challenging ones, the rest of the questions seemed fair. Overall, this exam felt good, noticeably there weren’t any made up scenarios etc, the exam just stuck to the math side of things.
Geez. A maths exam on the maths. What a concept.
General comment – a good exam. Well done VCAA (and Monash).
Some standouts – Q4 – nicely done to bring quadratics into discrete probability. Q9bii – good way to finish the paper; some thinking required there (there may well be a short-cut, I didn’t see it).
Minor nit-pick (and very minor) – use of the lower-case in Q6a. Most papers/books/study design seem to write
, this paper had 
.
Update to my previous comment – I just found a short-cut to Q9bii (I was convinced there had to be one):
If we accept that
and 
must be two solutions, you can reduce 
to a quadratic. We then want this quadratic to have exactly one solution (technically a repeated solution, but I see that as not an issue) so set 
and… done! The two values of 
drop out nicely.
(Marty, please delete this if you think it is too soon to be discussing specific answers)
I got one solution (w=1) and I’m not even that confident that I used a reasonable method of working to get that! I’d love to see your working steps there sometime.
I noticed the var(X) as well, then checked the formula sheet (notated lowercase as well). Methods study doesn’t use the notation either way, but Specialist does and has it capitalised. So, it might be a miscommunication between the subjects.
Var(X) or var(X) .. lets not nitpick
Having flicked through but not attempted the paper, it seems pretty low-level for the most part, with a large spike in difficulty on the “separator” question 9, which I would argue is more difficult than the final question last year (though admittedly I was probably much more attuned to methods 12 months ago).
Hi Marty and everyone – it did seem like a reasonable exam. It started off with some very textbook exercise type questions and developed from there. I’m not sure if it was difficult enough to separate the top end. Some of the arithmetic was a little annoying. Here are my solutions in Mathcha
The label points on a supplied graph question was unusual (but easy)
Very nice. I like your graphical approach to 9b. I didn’t find this an “obvious” connection as such and suspect a lot of students will come at it with algebra – still gets the same result but doesn’t look as elegant as yours.
Thanks!
I kind of prefer the approach to Q9b that was used in these solutions
But I think I’ll not bother rewriting!
Hmmm… I prefer your solution actually. Mostly because I can see more students being able to think of this on their own. The solution in the video is nice (inspired actually) but I cannot see too many Methods students, especially at the end of the sprint that is a Paper 1 exam, being able to reason this way.
Some, sure. Most, doubtful.
There is a case for drawing polly- nomials (in factor form) right to left
What, exactly, do you mean?
If possible, an example would help…
Positive ones END UP in positive infinity, negative in negative infinity.
Start from there and drive the curve through x-ints with appropriate features.
Please write more clearly.
I remember it from my y9 almost a century ago, no calcs.
As x tends to +infinity, y diverges to positive infinity.
So, start drawing from top-right , going down to rightmost x-int, the curve behaving like an ordinary crossing if non-repeating factor, like tp for even-times repeating, like PoInfl if odd-repeating factor, then going to the next x-int.. until all x-ints are exhausted.
At the end, one xan use y-int to verify the shape (unless the curve passes through x=0)
Ugh! Polly, you’re comments are intrinsically good, but don’t write in Morse code. Compose your comments.
Thanks, Simon, and everyone. Q9 is very nice (except for the tone deaf choice of w as the parameter). My guess is students will do badly on it, but it is a good question. The rest of the exam was *way* too easy.
Gosh, the exam-1 is too easy. My good year 10 students can do the last question. VCAA should at least write one or two hard questions on the paper. It is a joke!
Thanks, everyone, for your comments. I haven’t looked closely, but looking not closely, the exam seems ridiculously easy.
In Q7 Horner’s method is a winner. And time-saver. How many birds with one stone?
And y10 level sketching of polynomials skill in matric exam?
Question 8a is an example of very good assessment item that allows students to demonstrate at least four possible methods.
Method 1: direct integration set to 9/16, getting a quadratic equation in terms of k, solving for k and eliminate 7/3 to keep 1/3.
which leads to 
.
Method 2: use 1 – Pr(0<=X<=k) = 9/16, in a similar spirit above.
Method 3: the triangle method, eventually getting the same equation, and then k=1/3.
Method 4: notice that there are two similar triangles (larger area = 1 and smaller area = 9/16), and thus the scale factor is sqrt(9/16) = 3/4. Then, you can set an equation:
I think it makes for a decent class exercise, but I’m not sure the many possible methods add much to what is still fundamentally an easy problem.
Have only had a flick through but it does seem quite easy? Our students felt good about it. Will have more to comment when I’ve completed the paper.
Students should not feel good about that paper.
That is what worries me, especially the majority saying so.
But why are students being that dumb? Don’t they understand the nature of the game?
I’m hearing reports that the blank page after Q8 has led to a not insignificant portion of students not seeing Q9 and missing out on at least 7 marks. Obviously, this in on the students themselves, VCAA do literally put “end of examination questions” at the end of the exam to avoid exactly this happening. But if this has happened to several students (who I can attest would otherwise be high performers), I think that there may be a flaw in the formatting.
In a high-stress situation (such as an exam), using the traditional ‘This page left blank’ page right before another question is pretty poor form, especially considering no other exam seems to have this same set-up. Additionally, Methods (and all the maths exams) have a habit of not having enough time allocated for all students to have a fair go at all the questions, so I imagine many students were already stressing about time left at that point
While I would definitely say it is the fault of the students (hell, I did something similar multiples times in high school), I at least hope VCAA mentions it in their examiners report as a potential reason for lower-than-expected marks for Question 9, as well as taking it into consideration for future exams
I’m not sure I get the problem here. Haven’t the students seen like a million past papers with “End of Examination” written on it?
I’ve also seen a lot of joke comments online about not seeing “Question 10” after the last blank page – so you may have seen a bit of that too!!
Q4: At this level, probability is supposed to be a practical subject. I do not regard this question as practical.
Q6: In light of the formula sheet, I would write “Consider the binomial random variable
with 
and 
” (if this is what is meant).
Absolutely.
Assessment guides are now published on VCAA website.
Thanks, Jack. I’ve added links to the error posts.