2005 HSC Examiners day (1 Viewer)

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buchanan

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Would you like to know how the 2005 HSC exams were marked?

HSC and SC 2005: Feedback and Advice

Saturday 25th February, 2006
Macquarie University – Mason Theatre
Free for MANSW members
$20 for non-members
Program

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>8:45am </TD><TD>Registration </TD></TR><TR><TD>9:00am</TD><TD>School Certificate examination report </TD></TR><TR><TD>9:30am</TD><TD>General Mathematics report </TD></TR><TR><TD>10:45am</TD><TD>Morning tea</TD></TR><TR><TD>11:15am</TD><TD>News from MANSW
President of MANSW: Holly Gyton
</TD></TR><TR><TD>11:30am</TD><TD>Mathematics (2 unit) report </TD></TR><TR><TD>12:45pm</TD><TD>Lunch</TD></TR><TR><TD>1:30pm</TD><TD>Mathematics Extension 1 report </TD></TR><TR><TD>2:40pm</TD><TD>Mathematics Extension 2 report </TD></TR><TR><TD>3:45pm</TD><TD>Evaluation

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
http://www.mansw.nsw.edu.au/pd/hsc-and-sc-2005-feedback-and-advice.htm

If you don't want to go but are still interested, the Board of Studies have put the HSC Marking Guidelines on their website at http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/hsc_exams/hsc2005exams/index.html

The SC one is at
http://www.mansw.nsw.edu.au/pd/ppt/2006-School-Certificate-Power-Point.ppt

But I still think it's good to go to the Examiners' day, so I went.
 
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buchanan

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First I went to Macquarie Centre for breakfast and to buy lunch and a newspaper. Unfortunately facilities at Macquarie uni are not good on weekends.

Then I walked to the uni, registered and met some teachers I had worked with in various capacities in the past. I was given copies of the HSC and SC exams and the MANSW solutions.

Greg Murty convened the reports and gave out wine glasses to the reporters. Rod Yager helped out with the technology. It was a huge improvement on last year. This time Rod was able to get all the computers working perfectly, whereas last year it was a total disaster! (Nevertheless, to the credit of all presenters last year, they were all able to get through their presentations without computers.)

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Nikky Vanderhout gave the SC report. The multiple choice answers are available at http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/schoolcertificate/sc2005/pdf_doc/sc_maths_answers_05.pdf . I also got an email from Nikky Vanderhout inviting me to be on the Solutions Committee for 2006. I don't know if I'll go on it this year. It'll depend on the papers themselves and I'll only accept the invitation once I've seen the papers.

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Then there was the General maths:

Anne Hastings (MC)
Toni Katri (23)
John Adlard (24)
Maria Leiva (25)
Peter Molloy (26)
Tony Bush (27)
Holly Gyton (28)

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Then I went outside for a quick cup of tea and checked the MANSW solutions, comparing the Extension 2 ones to mine which I took with me. But I also noticed MANSW included the induction mantra in their Extension 1 solution, but omitted it in the Extension 2. That omission was my decision, but I would have preferred it to be omitted also from the Extension 1. Others had decided to include it here (..... so don't blame me! .....)

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Holly Gyton got up and said the next MANSW conference will be at Brighton on 8-10 September 2006.

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Next was the 2 unit report. We all thought we'd miss out on the report for question 5 because Milan Pahor couldn't do the report this year. They didn't say why he couldn't. But thankfully he left some material and Patricia Rapp showed us Milan's comments on Question 5.

Dianne Fardell (1)
David Keannan-Brown (2)
Greg Powers (3)
Patricia Rapp (4, 5 for Milan Pahor, 8)
David Russell (6)
Fiona Hay (7)
Andrew Mitchell (9)
Edward Lai (10)

For question 4(b)(ii) I was especially pleased to hear Patricia Rapp recommend the use of the second derivative test to classify a stationary point. I had previously been criticised on boredofstudies.org for advocating it's use on the grounds that it is sufficient but not necessary. Now I have official sanction from the Board of Studies in advocating its use despite this.

Edward Lai said that by Question 10, the students were rushing and didn't finish and they would have got more marks if they had more time to do the paper.

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Then I had the lunch I bought earlier at Macquarie Centre and another cup of tea.

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Catherine Whalan did the Extension 1 report. There was a long silence after she finished the bit on the induction. There was no mention of the mantra. As she started to go onto the next question, I interrupted her and asked "I presume again that there were no marks awarded for the mantra at the end of the induction. Is this correct?" She said that this is correct and no marks were awarded for it.

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Ian Woodhouse did the Extension 2 report. He was very supportive of the idea that the mantra should not be done, which I was pleased about. He also pointed out the interesting conundrum I discovered earlier about the MANSW solutions having the mantra in the Extension 1 solution, but not in the Extension 2.

But then in relation to another question he pushed his famous line "If it's not in the syllabus, it should be proved first, or else not be used". I wasn't happy at all about this part and I have always had this disagreement with Ian. So nothing has changed in this regard.

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The reports are at
http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/hsc_exams/hsc2005exams/index.html
 
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buchanan

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An induction mantra is, for example:

"It's true for n=1 &there4; it's true for n=2 &there4; true for n=3, etc., i.e., by induction it's true for all n&ge;1"

The exam committee would prefer just:

"&there4; by induction it's true for all n&ge;1"
 
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buchanan

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It has also become common in the induction hypothesis for MANSW to say "Assume it is true for n=k". I've reworded it as "If it is true for n=k" in the 2005 solutions.

Also, it can be argued that this induction hypothesis is not a step in the induction, but rather part of the induction step: "If it is true for n=k then it is true for n=k+1" - with some justification, algebraic or otherwise.
 
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