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No problem then. In which case I suggest keep doing past papers of all stripes (2U, Ext 1, Ext 2 HSC and about 290 trial 4u papers on Derek Buchanan's website). Which textbook are you using for Extension 2 by the way? Best Regards OldMathsGuy

Props on directing yourself with the Ext 2 coursework by the way. It takes some dedication to do that. Not wanting to pry too much but where are you at with your 2U and Ext1 work? If you are still finding your feet with this coursework and you really want to get ahead of the game, then the...

What text are you using? Also have you got a specific harder question in mind? The key to these questions is having a good graphical picture of what's going on. When you subtract a vector, you are adding its additive inverse. For example if you wish to add 3 - i to z, then that is exactly what...

My understanding is that as long as there is evidence that the positive or negative nature of an expression has been considered by the candidate (such as the factorized expressions you mention to the side of the grid: +ve x -ve x -ve = +ve), then the mark will be awarded. However if there is no...

I think there's an interesting proviso here for a lot of 2U students. Cambridge is without doubt the best textbook there is covering the 2U and 3U syllabi, and easily the best for preparing good Ext1 Y11 students for the Ext2 course in Y12. For the average 2U student though, I have found that...

The problem is they are out of print. Get your teacher to check their staffroom to see if someone has a copy lying around - unfortunately, Maths staffrooms aren't as full of actual Maths teachers as once upon a time and so quality resources like these are becoming rarer and rarer. The graphs...

Get your hand on the light green book Graphs (without calculus) by Komaromi - ask your teacher if there is an old copy lying around in the staffroom or something. That book is an excellent treatment of graphing for the Ext 1/Ext 2 syllabi. It goes through all the variations of different things...

I don't have the data on the 2009 exam so I won't even take a guess of a mark but I'm pretty sure that will get you an E4. However, compared to some Ext 1 papers from the early 2000's I think there has been a slight shift up in difficulty in more recent years. The tipping point was the 2006 Ext...

I can guarantee that the answer is 15.125m. Can you outline your solution? There's most likely a good learning opportunity with this question. Best Regards OldMathsGuy

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. To get through the first 5 questions by about the hour mark though requires excellent proficiency at the basics. Practice just the first five questions from the last decade's worth of papers and see how long they take you. All these questions will be pretty...

This is excellent advice! If you are wanting to excel in 4u, your best way of doing this effectively is to get ahead in 3U. If you can cover 2U/3U Calculus and Trig early, that is going to give you a heap of time next year to consolidate and refine that knowledge as well as importantly give...

Per Essay (Remember this is advanced not standard too). In the booklets you have 26 lines, most student's seem to do about 6 words per line so you're talking about 150 words per page, therefore between 1000 and 1300 words for model answers. Some responses were over the top (up to 13 pages)...

My understanding is that if you can hit about 1200 words and answer the question with good support, then you should get in the top mark range (17-20) for your essay. It is a case of quality AND quantity. If you are not writing enough, then you are not supporting your thesis as well as other...

Most likely 3 out of 4 as you have attacked the meat of the question correctly and only made a single error. Best Regards OldMathsGuy

Ignore the initial amount and focus on the $1000 a year. She makes 10 payments but the first payment in 2006 only gets nine years worth of compound interest. Therefore your series looks something like: 1000 x (1.06)^9 + 1000 x (1.06)^8 + ... + 1000 Reverse it around and factorise (take the...

It was the max/min pulley and rope question. While the question did guide you through (as it should in a 2U paper), the algebra involved was more like what you would expect to see on a 4U paper rather than a 2U paper. Algebraically demonstrating that the result was a minimum would have been...

Your School will tell you what assessments are assessable and what % of your mark they make up. Get yourself Cambridge 3U Y11 and Y12. Best textbooks you can get. Once you can, start doing past papers under exam conditions. Question after question after question; paper after paper after paper...

My understanding is that you cannot just quote that equation. Either it will be given to you and you will be told not to prove it, or you will be asked to derive it formally, or through the natural process of the question. Best Regards OldMathsGuy

Last year's question was as much good application of counting techniques as anything else. The 2001 question was a little more standard (although it sounded from the report like most candidates didn't even attempt the last part). I would suggest the Schaum book on the basis that prods at quite a...

Yes. You need to find an expression for W [think limiting sum of an infinite series]. Then you need to use that expression for W and show that p + W(q^n) equates to W. Addition: You do a very similar thing for part 2) in that you find an expression for Wm [think sum of a geometric series], then...