***2015 LC Maths Paper 1 - Higher Level - June 5th***

Kremin

Guys after talking to other people who did OL, I can see where they're coming from... one question asked them to find g(x) and it presented like 2x-3g(x)=x^2+x+6.... obviously it wanted them to divide the quadratic by the linear function but a lot of them didn't catch that because the terminology was too difficult and unseen before at OL...

I don't think it's fair to say the HL paper was too easy though? It's such a risk for some people doing HL and someone in my exam centre was almost pulling out his hair during that exam and couldnt even attempt the last 3 questions....

The marking schemes for BOTH papers will be adjusted so the stats are in line with previous years... they aren't going to jump from a 1% fail rate to 50%. end of rant.

You have to consider some HL students who dropped may have found that OL paper a breeze, but the people who struggle with maths, and yes there are some of them, would have found the terminology confusing and unnecessarily complicated.

skippy1977

I'd sum it up like this. Of course the Higher Level Paper was more difficult than the Ordinary and if people found the Ordinary hard they would have definitely struggled with the Higher Level Paper.

The Higher wasn't simple and the Ordinary wasn't impossible BUT the Higher Level Paper was below the standard it should have been. This is to ensure that the 1/3 of extra people who are doing the subject (and who realistically aren't able) get through. The Financial Maths question was ridiculously easy and of ordinary level standard (if not in content). As was a number of other parts but it was also quite tricky in places). It will be marked accordingly and a similar amount of people will get A's, B's and C's etc as always.
The Ordinary Level Paper was a good bit above the standard it should have been. There is no doubt about that. It's easy for a Higher Level student to look at the Paper and say 'well where is the hard parts??' but that's why you are in higher level. Remember that the majority of students who are taking the Ordinary Level struggle with Maths, at the very least in the higher order thinking sections. They had some very quiet simple stuff also but alot of the paper was presented in a way unfamiliar to them. Again the marking scheme will be adjusted and the same amount of people will get A's, B's and C's. Don't be a bit surprised to see a marking scheme that gives 15 marks for 7(a), 15 marks for 7(b) 10 for 7(c), 10 for 7 (d)...all doable...and 20 marks for the (f-h).

So at it's level the Ordinary Paper was much trickier...but obviously an easier Paper overall. My advice to everyone is to nail your Paper 2 whatever the level. You are all competing on the curve and it's not how easy or difficult it is....it's how easy or difficult it is relative to other students in the hall!

Luke Armstrong

How were you suppose to do the last part of Q9? I integrated between 184 and 0, and divided by 184 but I heard some people saying there's a formula?

student625

Can someone please post a link to solutions for pp1? thank you

MmmPancakes

Luke Armstrong wrote: »

How were you suppose to do the last part of Q9? I integrated between 184 and 0, and divided by 184 but I heard some people saying there's a formula?

Average value formula: 1/(b-a) x (integral of f(x) with the boundaries a -> b)

Kremin

Luke Armstrong wrote: »

How were you suppose to do the last part of Q9? I integrated between 184 and 0, and divided by 184 but I heard some people saying there's a formula?

Well you integrate and multiply by 1/b-a, which is just 1/184.

YouKnowNothing

Luke Armstrong wrote: »

How were you suppose to do the last part of Q9? I integrated between 184 and 0, and divided by 184 but I heard some people saying there's a formula?

That is the formula! Average value

Kremin

YouKnowNothing wrote: »

That is the formula! Average value

yeah either divide by difference in upper and lower limit or multiple by 1/difference.

MmmPancakes

Jijsaw wrote: »

Don't roll your eyes, various people find different levels of maths hard.
If you'd read my post on the previous page, you would have known that the structure and wording of the questions was completely changed than previous years and trigonometry which was only previously examined on Paper 2 was included in Paper 1. Not to mention the other differences I previously wrote out.
Just because you have been doing HL maths for the past 2 years you think you can roll your eyes at a paper that is obvious the majority of ordinary level students found challenging. For a lot of people who were D and weak C students, this paper completely threw them, I know people who could only do the first 2 questions because they find maths difficult and it was extremely unfair of the SEC to alter the paper so dramatically this year especially on an Ordinary Level paper, where many of the partakers obviously struggle with maths.

my bad, feeling a bit bitter/skeptical towards people in the OL thread saying we had it easy and that they would have passed higher but failed ordinary.

Luke Armstrong

I think that the last 3 questions were of a similar standard to previous years but the first 6 were way too easy, that Q2 how could anyone not have been able to do that??

aaronlalorf

Anyone else scared of the Maths boys at the top throwing HL an awful enough paper 2 after this controversy?

Kremin

MmmPancakes wrote: »

my bad, feeling a bit bitter/skeptical towards people in the OL thread saying we had it easy and that they would have passed higher but failed ordinary.

Just understand people's emotions are running a bit high right now, a lot of them think they just failed and have to repeat the year.. understandably they're angry.

student625

Magnate wrote: »

Goddamnit...

That's it I think I shall bid farewell to this thread, that was probably the question I was most confident about.

Are you sure it wasn't 8?

ya! I got 8 too! also, for longest day of year in Q9, anyone else go with June 21st and work from there? the question did say solve "hence OR otherwise"???

Kremin

aaronlalorf wrote: »

Anyone else scared of the Maths boys at the top throwing HL an awful enough paper 2 after this controversy?

Well, the paper is already made... I don't see why they'd change higher level at this stage, they MAY use a different OL paper to ease some peoples anger though? But hey.. some peoples difficult could be anothers easy... someones going to be angry inevitably


Honestly they will probably just adjust marking scheme according to performance of students, again.. they will not fail everybody.

MmmPancakes

Kremin wrote: »

Just understand people's emotions are running a bit high right now, a lot of them think they just failed and have to repeat the year.. understandably they're angry.

They're going to be delighted with how front-loaded their marking scheme will be, so

wooitslucy

Anyone remember what ye did for the first two parts of the financial maths question?

Kremin

wooitslucy wrote: »

Anyone remember what ye did for the first two parts of the financial maths question?

1+i=(1+i)^12... just use the appropriate one to convert to apr or monthly rates...

also note, the i's are actually different values... I usually dont write two and initially put the percentage they give you.

MmmPancakes

wooitslucy wrote: »

Anyone remember what ye did for the first two parts of the financial maths question?

http://prntscr.com/7dm0cl this was the first part iirc, the answer is like 4.something%. Second part is the same except you have to solve for the other i

Kremin

Also the financial maths question may have been easy if you knew hwat you were doing but I'm willing to bet quite a lot of people 1.) forgot to convert the 10 years to months when using a monthly rate. 2.) Used the wrong type of interest 3.) Calculated the annual repayment and not the monthly 4.) Used 119 months instead of 120...

theyre only minor errors of course...

Maybe they should have asked to verify with a geometric series to show a wide understanding of the course.

student625

Kremin wrote: »

Also the financial maths question may have been easy if you knew hwat you were doing but I'm willing to bet quite a lot of people 1.) forgot to convert the 10 years to months when using a monthly rate. 2.) Used the wrong type of interest 3.) Calculated the annual repayment and not the monthly 4.) Used 119 months instead of 120...

theyre only minor errors of course...

Maybe they should have asked to verify with a geometric series to show a wide understanding of the course.

I wasn't sure if to use 119 or 120 months so I did out both solutions. will I still get full marks for the right answer even though I chanced my arm and gave two solutions?

Peregrine

MmmPancakes wrote: »

my bad, feeling a bit bitter/skeptical towards people in the OL thread saying we had it easy and that they would have passed higher but failed ordinary.

As Kremin said, emotions are running high and they're understandably upset. I had a look at the paper and it was completely different to what they were used to. I have no doubt that if it was the HL paper that was different and difficult, most of this thread would be up in arms about it! :P

Magnate

student625 wrote: »

ya! I got 8 too! also, for longest day of year in Q9, anyone else go with June 21st and work from there? the question did say solve "hence OR otherwise"???

Nah it was definitely 14, we didn't include the balls bouncing up as well as down. There was a good explanation a page or two after that. We should still get a good few attempt marks anyway.

As for the longest day of the year, yep I went straight for the summer solstice then subbed in the day before it and the day after to verify that it was the longest.

Kremin

student625 wrote: »

I wasn't sure if to use 119 or 120 months so I did out both solutions. will I still get full marks for the right answer even though I chanced my arm and gave two solutions?

I think you actually might? Someone posted yesterday saying never tippex work as often, students who put lines through incorrect work actually get more marks for that work than their "correct" solution

dazzadazza

Will I get any attempt marks for the longest day if I attempted to differentiate the function and let it equal to 0, to find maximum day length?

MmmPancakes

dazzadazza wrote: »

Will I get any attempt marks for the longest day if I attempted to differentiate the function and let it equal to 0, to find maximum day length?

that is actually how you find the longest day, let it equal to zero, solve for x, sub x back into the original equation

randylonghorn

username 2212 wrote: »

Still trying to find the hard question on the OL paper....

MmmPancakes wrote: »

Same :rolleyes:

Stop and actually think ...

If you were finding even an unduly tough OL paper hard, you would hardly be doing HL, would you?

Even teachers generally seem to feel it was a tough paper for the level.

MmmPancakes wrote: »

my bad, feeling a bit bitter/skeptical towards people in the OL thread saying we had it easy and that they would have passed higher but failed ordinary.

Yeah, that's silly, but so is getting annoyed by people getting het up after an exam.

No point in the world the OL and HL people bitching at one another tbh.

dazzadazza

MmmPancakes wrote: »

that is actually how you find the longest day, let it equal to zero, solve for x, sub x back into the original equation

But t turned out to be 0 because it was just a big fraction.

eclipsechaser

I just did Section A there in case people want to check their answers. I'm a bit tired for Section B. Might do it out tomorrow if people want.

MmmPancakes

dazzadazza wrote: »

But t turned out to be 0 because it was just a big fraction.

Maybe you made a mistake, anyways, if you let dy/dx = 0 you will get marks for it I'd say

eclipsechaser

Remainder of Section A.

yoyojc

If for a question

You wrote a solution which was incorrect
then beside it retried the q and it was correct

How is that marked? Is it ok to have different attempts? Do they correct the correct part?

I'd appreciate if anyone knows this

sdio

eclipsechaser wrote: »

I just did Section A there in case people want to check their answers. I'm a bit tired for Section B. Might do it out tomorrow if people want.

Thanks, I've two questions:

4 b) Why did you need to rearrange the series? Can't you just put a=1 and r=w immediately?

5 a) Why is -2 crossed out?

theRB

eclipsechaser wrote: »

I just did Section A there in case people want to check their answers. I'm a bit tired for Section B. Might do it out tomorrow if people want.

I didn't get the second part of Q5, but for part 3, i made up an f'(x) and let it equal 0 to show I knew what to do and also said the answer was -5.75 because i did it on the calculator. What sort of attempt marks do you think I would get?

eclipsechaser

sdio wrote: »

Thanks, I've two questions:

4 b) Why did you need to rearrange the series? Can't you just put a=1 and r=w immediately?

5 a) Why is -2 crossed out?

4b) Both work. A=1 and R=w also leads to the same answer. Your way is quicker!

5a) I hate to tell people but -2 is an incorrect solution. When you square both sides, it creates an extra solution. If you check both solutions you'll see that -2 doesn't equal root 4. (Technically root of a natural number is always positive). See LC 2002 P1 Q1a for the same type of question. If you got this wrong, don't worry; so did practically everyone else.

theRB wrote: »

I didn't get the second part of Q5, but for part 3, i made up an f'(x) and let it equal 0 to show I knew what to do and also said the answer was -5.75 because i did it on the calculator. What sort of attempt marks do you think I would get?

Writing down f'(x)=0 is likely to get you around 4/10 on its own. However if you got -5.75 and the corresponding y value - despite doing it on a calculator - then you should get full marks if you showed some workings. So long as it doesn't specify a method - and it didn't - you can use trial and error if you show some calculations. That's good hustle considering you got the B part wrong.

sdio

eclipsechaser wrote: »

5a) I hate to tell people but -2 is an incorrect solution. When you square both sides, it creates an extra solution. If you check both solutions you'll see that -2 doesn't equal root 4. (Technically root of a natural number is always positive). See LC 2002 P1 Q1a for the same type of question. If you got this wrong, don't worry; so did practically everyone else.

Thanks, that was a rather sneaky question then.

ParalysedBeaver

eclipsechaser wrote: »

I just did Section A there in case people want to check their answers. I'm a bit tired for Section B. Might do it out tomorrow if people want.

In 4a, in the second to last line, did you forget to put it all over 26? It seems that's what both numbers above where divided by.

eclipsechaser

ParalysedBeaver wrote: »

In 4a, in the second to last line, did you forget to put it all over 26? It seems that's what both numbers above where divided by.

Yeah, 2nd last line is over 26. (130+26i/26). My final line is the correct answer (5+i). Felt like there might have been a quicker way to solve it but that one works well enough I guess.

dazzadazza

eclipsechaser wrote: »

I just did Section A there in case people want to check their answers. I'm a bit tired for Section B. Might do it out tomorrow if people want.

Thank you so much you've put my mind at ease I'm confident I got at least 90% in that paper. I now have the necessary motivation to work for p2. Would you mind doing section B when you get a bit of time? Thanks

Cr4pSnip3r

eclipsechaser wrote: »

I just did Section A there in case people want to check their answers. I'm a bit tired for Section B. Might do it out tomorrow if people want.

I was uncertain about how badly I likely failed before reading that. *sigh*

DarraghF197

eclipsechaser wrote: »

I just did Section A there in case people want to check their answers. I'm a bit tired for Section B. Might do it out tomorrow if people want.

When finding the derivative of the surd in question 5, did you have to put it in its simplest form ie, where the surd is above the line? Made my third part messier than it needed and got me another answer which I crossed out anyways.

And for that root four, because it's an even number, you only have the nonnegative solution? That's annoying, especially since theyre likely to have strict marking schemes after that exam!

Other than that, as expected. So zero is the unofficial official answer! I wrote that answer down, but then did it a different way. Hopefully they'll give me the marks!

Just that surd hiccup and the image for the plane I lost marks for I think/hope.

m.xvii

I'm just after realising that I forgot to add in the make and model of my calculator, which is obviously my own fault but the invigilator never mentioned it at the end when he reminded us to put our exam number and center stamp.

DarraghF197

m.xvii wrote: »

I'm just after realising that I forgot to add in the make and model of my calculator, which is obviously my own fault but the invigilator never mentioned it at the end when he reminded us to put our exam number and center stamp.

Ummm, what's a centre stamp?!

Nim said earlier that it doesn't matter, just don't forget to do it in paper two.

cainteach96

m.xvii wrote: »

I'm just after realising that I forgot to add in the make and model of my calculator, which is obviously my own fault but the invigilator never mentioned it at the end when he reminded us to put our exam number and center stamp.

I just realised last night too! Yeah I think we should've been told too! Glad I'm not the only one !

Bah_Humbug

For Q4,I understand now how the answer's 0, but can someone explain why its incorrect so say a=1 r=w n=n-1 and then work it out to be -1/w. I know it's wrong but I don't understand why, and would I get any marks at all d'you think?

Daire234

Bah_Humbug wrote: »

For Q4,I understand now how the answer's 0, but can someone explain why its incorrect so say a=1 r=w n=n-1 and then work it out to be -1/w. I know it's wrong but I don't understand why, and would I get any marks at all d'you think?

Because 1 is at the start of the sequence so n=n instead of n=n-1, so it would be 1(1-w^n) which equals 0

sdio

Bah_Humbug wrote: »

For Q4,I understand now how the answer's 0, but can someone explain why its incorrect so say a=1 r=w n=n-1 and then work it out to be -1/w. I know it's wrong but I don't understand why, and would I get any marks at all d'you think?

It's because there are n terms, including 1 at the beginning.

Dingle123

Has anyone done out answers for the final 3 questions?

Kremin

Dingle123 wrote: »

Has anyone done out answers for the final 3 questions?

I'd do them if my printer was working, but alas, it is not.

ThePadds

Just wondering if anyone can help me out...On I think it was Q8 or Q9 of the HL Maths P1 (The Question about the longest days of the year in regards March) it never stated how you had to do the Questions it said "hence or otherwise" I just subbed in answers Untill I found the longest day of the year which was nearly 17 hours (16.9999) of sunlight and it worked out as the 20th or 21st of June I can't remember which! Anyway I'm just wondering will I get the marks even though I didn't really use the right methods I just used trial and error? Thanks

sdio

ThePadds wrote: »

Just wondering if anyone can help me out...On I think it was Q8 or Q9 of the HL Maths P1 (The Question about the longest days of the year in regards March) it never stated how you had to do the Questions it said "hence or otherwise" I just subbed in answers Untill I found the longest day of the year which was nearly 17 hours (16.9999) of sunlight and it worked out as the 20th or 21st of June I can't remember which! Anyway I'm just wondering will I get the marks even though I didn't really use the right methods I just used trial and error? Thanks

I think you should get the marks, if you got the right answer in the end!