HSC 2012 MX2 Marathon (archive) (2 Viewers)

deswa1

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Re: 2012 HSC MX2 Marathon

Thanks guys. The way I did it was Carrotsticks way but I don't get how that can only be a one mark question...
 

seanieg89

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Re: 2012 HSC MX2 Marathon

It's good to see new methods pop up. I never thought of this. Nice work!

However, It is a wee bit slow. Another problem I can see coming is that you will need to actually show that it is in fact max/min, which can get quite tedious.
It can be made pretty fast...observe that arctan is an increasing function of the positive reals and that with equality attained at x=2.

So

with equality attained for some z.
 
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Carrotsticks

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Re: 2012 HSC MX2 Marathon

Thanks guys. The way I did it was Carrotsticks way but I don't get how that can only be a one mark question...
If it's only a 1 mark question, then a solution by simple inspection will suffice (seanieg89's way).

If it is more, then perhaps a more 'definite' proof may be required.
 

maths lover

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Re: 2012 HSC MX2 Marathon

The method I'm using below can be handy sometimes, because it gives me max AND min argument immediately. Of course there are other ways, but it's really just preference.:











EDIT:

How did you use calculus for this problem?
i am going to rep you for this very intuitive method(me thinks). avoids allot of the tedious trigonometry i usually use for these types of questions.
 

rolpsy

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Re: 2012 HSC MX2 Marathon



 
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SpiralFlex

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Re: 2012 HSC MX2 Marathon

By differentiation.








b)

Let

Solve from there. By using RHS then it will be in the form of LHS.

Laptop stuffing up so I can't type much.

For the last parts.

Use



Substitute and solve.
 
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SpiralFlex

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Re: 2012 HSC MX2 Marathon

Rolpsy, you are really tempting me to not sleep and do questions. (I'll miss Scischool tomorrow. :()





By using the identity of

Taking


But substitute instead,

 
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rolpsy

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Re: 2012 HSC MX2 Marathon

Rolpsy, you are really tempting me to not sleep and do questions. (I'll miss Scischool tomorrow. :()
ok I'll stop lol – until tomorrow


 
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IamBread

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Re: 2012 HSC MX2 Marathon

First time using latex, that took awhile...
 

IamBread

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Re: 2012 HSC MX2 Marathon

cool (although you should probably include limit swap step: )
Yeah I did on paper, but didn't want to write more then was absolutely necessary with latex:cool:
 

IamBread

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Re: 2012 HSC MX2 Marathon

Where do you guys get these questions from?
 

Carrotsticks

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Re: 2012 HSC MX2 Marathon

Many 'difficult' or 'interesting' Extension 2 questions are proofs for cool identities.

These proofs can be found everywhere on the Internet, or any higher-level Maths textbooks.

ie: The question rolpsy just posted was actually a 'proof' (though technically flawed, the idea is correct) of the Taylor Series expansion for the function ln(x+1). It also leads to the fact that the Alternating Harmonic Series converges to ln(2).
 

rolpsy

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Re: 2012 HSC MX2 Marathon

oh.. well anyway:





new question:
 

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