maths abbreviations (1 Viewer)

bettina44

Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2007
Messages
396
Location
in rehab
Gender
Female
HSC
2009
my maths teacher had a look at the maths syllabus and the abbreviations she found that only these abbreviation were acceptable: parrallel, perpendicular, congruent, similar, therefore and beacuse
i'm just wondering do you think that will would be marked down for other common abreviations like traingle,angle,alt,corrs,ext etc.
my maths teacher says that they don't tend to mark us down but we should write whole words if they happen to do a blitz but its such a hassle to write everything out.
 

lyounamu

Reborn
Joined
Oct 28, 2007
Messages
9,998
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
bettina44 said:
my maths teacher had a look at the maths syllabus and the abbreviations she found that only these abbreviation were acceptable: parrallel, perpendicular, congruent, similar, therefore and beacuse
i'm just wondering do you think that will would be marked down for other common abreviations like traingle,angle,alt,corrs,ext etc.
my maths teacher says that they don't tend to mark us down but we should write whole words if they happen to do a blitz but its such a hassle to write everything out.
Do you mean symbols as in abbreviations? You can potentially get marked down for making unnecessary appreviations. ll is apparently an unacceptable abbreviation as well because it can confuse people because that symbol both means "similar" and "parallel".

It is always better to write in full wording. It only takes few extra seconds.
 

bettina44

Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2007
Messages
396
Location
in rehab
Gender
Female
HSC
2009
lyounamu said:
Do you mean symbols as in abbreviations? You can potentially get marked down for making unnecessary appreviations. ll is apparently an unacceptable abbreviation as well because it can confuse people because that symbol both means "similar" and "parallel".

It is always better to write in full wording. It only takes few extra seconds.
actually ll is parallel and lll is similar
 

lyounamu

Reborn
Joined
Oct 28, 2007
Messages
9,998
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
bettina44 said:
actually ll is parallel and lll is similar
Sorry, I should have said discriminant symbol is confusing.
 

lolokay

Active Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2008
Messages
1,015
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
2009
isn't similar |||?

I reckon if a certain abbreviation isn't going to come up much just write the whole word, and if it is then putting a key might be acceptable, like "|| means parallel"
 

kaz1

et tu
Joined
Mar 6, 2007
Messages
6,960
Location
Vespucci Beach
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
2009
Uni Grad
2018
It depends on your teacher. If you use abbreviations in a test and the teacher marks you down don't use them again.
 

Scinery

Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2007
Messages
279
Gender
Male
HSC
2009
The teachers at my school argue about this daily in the staffroom, and every textbook says something different.

i dont think the triangle, L, Alt., ||, ||| and congruency signs are UNacceptable though...because everyone uses them. well i dont think you would get marked down. maybe when it comes down to working out you wouldnt get the mark for it.

my teacher just says that as long as we make ourselves clear it should be fine. i.e write the whole word.
 

bored of sc

Active Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2007
Messages
2,314
Gender
Male
HSC
2009
Definitely use symbols and shorter ways. Mathematicians have been creating increasingly shorter ways of writing their mathematical ideas. As long as your symbol is easily recognisable (don't go create and whole lot of symbols only you can understand :p ).

For example:
d = distance
m = gradient
M = midpoint
sin = sine
cos = cosine
tan = tangent
< = angle
ab = a x b
a = 1a

I'd say simplifying/shortening ideas is acutally a part of mathematics. So never feel afraid to do so (provided you know what you're doing).
 

dood09

Frontier Psychiatrist ☻
Joined
Apr 11, 2008
Messages
291
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
bored of sc said:
Definitely use symbols and shorter ways. Mathematicians have been creating increasingly shorter ways of writing their mathematical ideas. As long as your symbol is easily recognisable (don't go create and whole lot of symbols only you can understand :p ).

For example:
d = distance
m = gradient
M = midpoint
sin = sine
cos = cosine
tan = tangent
< = angle
ab = a x b
a = 1a

I'd say simplifying/shortening ideas is acutally a part of mathematics. So never feel afraid to do so (provided you know what you're doing).
lol at faggotry in sig
 

Aplus

Active Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2007
Messages
2,384
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
Yeah, I'm the person who usually ends up writing this type of thing:
"Corr. sides ||| [insert triangle symbol]"
I don't see what's inappropriate about that. Pretty simple to work out.
 

bored of sc

Active Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2007
Messages
2,314
Gender
Male
HSC
2009
dood09 said:
lol at faggotry in sig
:confused: You don't have to have irrational prejudices against other people just because you don't agree with their ideas and opinions. You may want to save those kind of posts for a more appropriate forum. Thanks.
 
Last edited:

Continuum

I'm squishy
Joined
Sep 13, 2007
Messages
1,102
Gender
Male
HSC
2009
Umm... using symbols and abbreviations outside the syllabus should be fine as long as it's common and the teacher recognises what you're doing...

I really wouldn't think about it too much though.
 

Iruka

Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2006
Messages
544
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Commonly used abbreviations are perfectly acceptable. Don't go around trying to make up your own, that's all.

If you scroll down towards the bottom of this MANSW webpage you see the entry from the HSC markers concerning geometry abbreviations

http://www.mansw.nsw.edu.au/whatsnew/index.html
 

Aplus

Active Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2007
Messages
2,384
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
Darnie said:
I have been taught that || is parallel and/or similar, and ||| is congruent (as in identical) when doing triangles
I think you will find that similar is three vertical lines and congruent is three horizontal lines.
 

Continuum

I'm squishy
Joined
Sep 13, 2007
Messages
1,102
Gender
Male
HSC
2009
Darnie said:
I have been taught that || is parallel and/or similar, and ||| is congruent (as in identical) when doing triangles
Umm... what Aplus said is right. :uhhuh:

I'm not sure why you were taught it like that...
 

Finx

Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2008
Messages
375
Gender
Male
HSC
2009
Aplus said:
I think you will find that similar is three vertical lines and congruent is three horizontal lines.
Aplus is right, make sure you don't get these mixed up. Parallel and similar are both two very different concepts.

I was told by my maths teacher that we shouldn't use;

alt.
supp.
comp.
corresp.
co-int.
<'s (angles)

Instead, he told us to write out the full words, just so we don't risk anything in the exams. Each shortened term only saves you ~1 second anyway. In a whole proof that might save you 15 seconds all up, but that's not worth marks in my opinion.

The parallel, similar, congruent and approximately equal to can be safely used. I still used as much shortened terminology as I can when I'm doing my homework because I'm lazy =P
 

hollyy.

stop looking at me swan.
Joined
Apr 26, 2008
Messages
1,148
Location
cadbury world.
Gender
Female
HSC
2008
lyounamu said:
Sorry, I should have said discriminant symbol is confusing.
but its not like in a geometry question they're gonna think your talking about the discriminant.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top