well where to begin..Possibly I should set the scene and let you know what paper 1 has reduced me to. I’m sitting in my comfiest clothes( a hoody that’s the size of an average sleeping bag and my jammies) , the insolent junior cert(my dear little brother) Has gone to microwave us some popcorn and dig up some oreos and I plan on watching many many Disney movies tonight. This is where paper 1 has kicked my ass to, sad, eh?
I had actually been sort of looking forward to paper 1 as I’d expected it to be manageable compared to the nonsensical psychobabble that is trigonometry, but that went out the window about two seconds into the exam. First thing I did was flick through and assess the proof/theorem status only to discover,to my absolute HORROR, that there wasn’t even ONE MEESLY proof!! After I had to refrain from tearing my hair out in the process of learning them all as my maths teacher had warned that the lack of proofs last year would more then likely result in this years paper being loaded with them. Sadly he couldn’t have been more wrong,but since i’m the only one who seems to be aggravated by that I shall move on to the rest of the absolute train wreck of a paper..
Q.1..This was deceptively easy,I thought, it lulled me into a false sense of security, I actually began thinking that everything might be alright. The part (c) was a bit weird, did anyone else get b=-3 c=0 d=5..?? They didn’t make sense as an arithmetic progression so i checked over it a few times but i couldn’t find any mistakes,someone please tell me i at least got that right??
Q.2…Here is where things started to go down hill. (a) was fine, (b) was do-able but (c)..well that was just bleugh! I have a very very vague recollection of looking that up in a book before but NEVER and I mean NEVER had either I or my maths teacher attempted a sum like that. I just about managed to craft a plausible answer for part (i) but part (ii) was a total abtract attempt. I think I tried putting in 1 for a and 2 for b or something along those lines. That however was only after I had abandoned the question for an hour and a half hoping to find solace in what was my very favourite question…
Q.3….Why De Moivre?? why oh why? why now and why me??? so question three was a NIGHTMARE!!! (a) was fine but (b),oh my….. could someone please explain to me wtf arg means???? I assumed it had something to do with the Argand diagram and so began plotting and inventing triangles and things along those lines, I never did arrive at a value for t but I suppose it was better then nothing, not much better though.. Part (c) had been the part which I had most looked forward to as after a year and a half of refusing to allow De Moivre into my life he and I had finally found common ground and I knew his four uses backwards forwards and inside out. Or at least I thought I did…then this question came along and I did as I thought I was supposed to and when I was getting the roots I put everything to the power of a fifth,only to encounter some unfamiliar and downright scary decimals, so then I tried 5 instead and all seemed well until I came to (c) (ii) and There was something about a root which WASN’t 1…ALL MY ROOTS WERE 111!!!! post morteming has led me to believe that Everyone encountered this problem..did that happen everywhere in the country or was youghal just having a particularly bad day?
Q.6 + Q.7….ahh..differentiation,the back bone to any paper 1. Question 6 was ok,a bit abstract but fine nonetheless. Q.7 was however overly abstract in that it was downright FUCKED UP. for (ii) of (b) I was so close to the answer after a page and a half of working out that i cut my losses and just skipped to the answer even though my method was probabley wrong. PArt (c) had me working our reams and reams of stuff for two full pages only to forget what the question was asking me and end up answering part (ii) and ignoring (i).Not my finest moment,but with only minutes left till I had to stop writing (thanks to that mofo of an integration question!)I just said ‘fuck this’,sealed my paper and walked out with three minutes to go.
Q.8…This question was so allover the place! (a) and (b) were oddly easy,particularly the area one which was fantastisch though why that question was part (b) I really do not know. (c) was a total curve ball though… I used substitution for the first two parts and all seemed well until I attempted to surmount the almighty ass kicking that was part (iii). Another few A4s of tedious workings and I was so close to an answer I could almost taste it when the examiner started collecting the log tables for some reason(??) and then I rembered I had abandoned part (c) of question 7 so I don’t really know how that was meant to end up. I had loads of sins and coss anyway…only two of them were after simplifying down to sin(a+b) thogh so I really did not see what I was gonna be able to do with it anyway..
And that was that,I was out and a mixture of upset and frustrated after doing so much study on what We’d been taught only to open the paper and find stuff that I’d never even seen! In the last few days I have gone through and been able to do virtually every question from the paper 1s in my exam papers and then this happens! This SHould really be a lesson to the ministry for education in just how messed up our maths course is,and we haven’t even seen paper 2 yet.. I know i’m gonna be having nightmares…
Anyway that’s enough moaning from me for now,i’m off to watch children’s movies and sulk. Enjoy studying for whatever collection of subjects you all have next week. Irish,Maths,History,French and Biology for me…woo….
Hopefully I’ll be slightly less whiney on monday!
oh and I know it was probabley highly unnecessary to go through every question like that but I was hoping to find some glimmer of hope amongst the awful brainchildren of some evil exam paper setter, no luck there though.
TIll monday..
Oh god, I feel your pain!
I was never the best at Honours maths, but I too had been through all the past papers in the last month and they had gone so well I was cautiously optimistic! Now I worry that I won’t even pass the stupid thing, it gave me such a shock to see the questions! Why, integration???? I was so sure I’d ace that question at least… 🙁
Haha, same subjects as you next week! And then Economics later on the following week. Actually quite depressed, the last three exams really didn’t give me any hope for success next week…. 🙁
in response to q3, arg is the argument of z. i know.. i didnt get it either.
Annnnnd it’s my birthday today *sobs louder*
oh my….poor Evie…= [ On the bright side you have the weekend to celebrate being..18..? I have chemistry the week after, so at least we have a few days to study for them! Dont be stressing! and HAPPY BIRTHDAY! = ] <3
Hey there,
Just did the higher paper aswell today I didn’t find it that hard. Here is a summary of the questions I did(same as yours).
Q1. (a) was pretty easy (b) use the quadratic formula (c) part iii was the hardest had no idea what was going on.
Q2. (a) easy again (b) just let a=a^2 and b=b^2 and solve for a+b and ab
(c) part one you just had to bring ab on the right hand side to the left and factorise and you would get (something)squared>0 which mean it was true.
Part ii you had to get common denominator and multiply across by a^2 x b^2 finally after some algebra you would end up with (a+b)(a-b)^2 > 0 which is true since (any number squared)>0 and a+b>0(which was given in the question).
Q3. (a) Matrices just multiply out and get two simultaneous equations and solve.
(b) part one easy and I understand people found part ii hard. What I did was put Z2(the complex number) on an argand diagram. I let the angle=3pi/4…..From the diagram it’s easy to see that Tan3pi/4=8/t and solve for t from there.
(c) z^5=1+(0)i plot on argand diagram. let the angle be 2n(pi), i really don’t know why but that’s how it’s done. Put it in the form of (cos 2npi + i sin 2npi) ^1/5. Use De Moivre’s theorem and you get (cos 2npi/5 + i sin 2npi/5).
-Now here is the really weird part– for the first root let n=0, for the second root let n=1 and so on…..
Part ii was easy you just used one of the roots that you got from above like (cos 2pi/5 + i sin 2pi/5) and let it equal to W and solve for W^2 + W^3.
Question six was pretty easy …
Q.7 I also fucked up at first on (b) I went back over found that everything cancels out came down to something like -2/1-2cosxsinx ( some thing like that ) and same for part II.
Part (c) you had to change log to ln because in the log tables it is down as ln. Then just use your product rule(look up the log tables for the derivative of ln(x) which would equal to 1/x).
part ii is just d2y/dx2 and sub in if it’s greater than or smaller than 0.
Q8. (a) and (b) very easy.
(c) let u=1+sinx etc……
I really dont know why I just wrote out the whole solution to the paper right now…maybe I needed to get it out. But anyway maybe you would find it useful to find out how you did in paper 1.
All in all good luck on paper 2 everybody.
i got b=-4 c=1 and d=6 whic works as an arithmetic series. Q3 wasn’t nice but luckily Q5 was a beaut considering i went into the exam with no intention of answering it. personally i thought the paper was simple enough once you thought about what you were being asked, it was different to the past papers though and from talking to people i get the opinion it’s a paper that you eiter loved or hated.
nah girl you got 1 wrong anyway, it was b=-54, c=1 and d= 6 i think…easy ehh..:P
tbh i thought it was a very easy paper, definitely easier than last year, qs 3 and 4 were tricky enough but they were more time-consuming than anything else.
And there was a proof on 4 c (ii) i think, and some proof by induction as well in q5..
all in all, i hate to call you a drama queen but……….
wooops, b = -4 obv……
I attempted the 8 questions, had the same problems as you with Q3 it seems and just hadn’t really revised Sequence & Series enough to finish off Q4 properly so it looks as though Q1, 2, 5, 6, 7 and 8 are gonna be counted for me.
Q1 – Grand. Messed up the (c)(iii) as I took consecutive terms to be like 1,2,3… instead of in an arithmetic sequence. I’m a ‘tard. 🙁
Q2 – Yeah, had to work on the abstract one on Part (c), but pretty alright.
Q3 – Horrendous. Word round the street is that ‘arg’ stands for argument and not for ‘Argand’? I took it to mean Argand anyways 🙁 Made a miserable attempt at (c)(i) but gave up on this question pretty quickly.
Q4 – My own fault for not being able do (c) (ii) and (iii)
Q5 – I actually liked this question? Probably my best. Happy out 🙂
Q6 – So-so. (b) (ii) caught me out, I hate theory in maths!
Q7 – Alright, probably spent a lot more time at this question than was allowed!
Q8 – Part (c) (iii), equated my two answers and messed with them until I kind of got something that I could put the a+b = pi/2 into. Kind of worked? Iffy though.
See Annah, post mortems really don’t make you feel any better 😉
Q8 part c (iii)…..as in there was more than one part to c??? in honours maths? i only had on part to c and that was it, no i’s or ii’s or iii’s? im looking at the paper now! please tell me that u wrote that wrong :O
This is last year’s blog nicola.
Aw, I feel crap looking back over that now… it’s like all my mistakes laid out in a blaringly obvious way 🙁
ah Orla don’t be so melancholy = ]
My mistakes are laid out in a much longer and far more obvious blog for the whole world to see. But today is a new day and I am just forgetting about the assorted evils of the last week and attempting to study for the possible fresh evils of the coming week,oh the joys! I advise you just forget it and move on to dreading paper 2 or something,that seems like a more worthwhile use of time..: /
Oh and apologies to the world at large for the mucho depressing nature of my long waffly blog! I was just in a mucho depressed and waffly mood yesterday!
There is a total split on this paper some people are shocked at how easy it was, others are fearing for there very lives!!…or passing grade. I myself represent into the latter, I thought it was a very decieving paper, I only answered 5 and a half questions myself, I had only studied integration, apparently I thought I would be able to answer S&S having not done it before. Overall I think I did quite poor and will only be passing on attempt marks. Difficult (c) parts or maybe I’m just stupid?
@Rory- wth is the argument of z?? I’ve never heard of anything like that…? although it’s probabley a lot more logical then my argand diagram theory…: /
@shamoon- i fully understand you’re writing the full solution and My god have you clarified far too many things! Now more then yesterday I think i made a total bags of it but sher there’s always p.2. I never would have used n=0 in q.3, Although I actually have something like that in my notes so I probabley should have thought of that. oh well..at least you got it!
@shan- You’re answer does make WAY more sense then mine…Oopsie…well that’s another few marks lost, when I added up what I thought I had right I had about 160/300..so much for that = [
…and lastly @ micheal- Of course i’m being dramatic,i’m terrible at maths and hoped to rectify that by getting grinds and giving up hours of my life to studying it only to be completely slapped across the face by the paper and consequently begin to think that my chances of getting my first choice are pretty slim. so SORREEE if i’m not jumping with joy at a paper kicking my mathematically challenged ass. Although I will agree that last years paper was possibly more of a bitch then ours,but compared to this new ‘project maths’ it’s still ridiculous…
@biscuit- Don’t say you’re stupid! that’ll just make it harder to study for p.2 and I totally agree with you,that paper was a deceptive little blighter! I only barely managed my 6 questions and as the blog says I couldn’t even do most of those six so worry not,I too shall be relying heavily on attempt marks to scrape a pass
Lol that is releiving to hear Annah, just nice to know someone else understands.
I must say kudos on the Disney films and oreos, my personal poison was Big Brother, a full coffee cake, a can of whipped cream and half a litre of hot chocolate. At this stage I propose a leaving cert weigh in, my binging gets worse with each day. At least it helps me forget.
😀
Wow,you far out do my meager feast of oreos and popcorn! Sadly I have had to shy away from the scales for awhile now, the leaving cert has done awful things to my poor waist. and with the grads but a few weeks away….!!
Lidl tortillas. The salted ones. 🙂 Heehee….
And it’s very, very nice to have the few days extra to study! I wished we had that kind of time to do history too….a lot to revise there…..
Please God paper 2 will be all right…..I’m doing the Project Maths paper, so hopefully it will be reasonably predictable-no past exam papers to practice on, they could throw up anything! Hopefully they’ll stick fairly rigidly to the two sample papers we did… 😮