HSC Extension 1 Mathematics Predictions / Thoughts (3 Viewers)

[Husky]

This exam was so easy, I marked it against NGO and I should get 68/70. What does this scale to?

but when?

 

[harrowed2]

Here are Terry Lee's solutions http://advancedmathematics.com.au/Resources/2020 Ext1.pdf

 

[Eagle Mum]

I wouldnt say it was easy, many people struggled with it so just shh
xanthi said 99 for 68 welldone!

How does that leave enough room to differentiate between candidates who achieve raw scores of 69 vs 70?
My son in Yr 10 finished the paper. He says he was happy with it but could have made silly mistake(s).

 

[idkkdi]

How does that leave enough room to differentiate between candidates who achieve raw scores of 69 vs 70?
My son in Yr 10 finished the paper. He says he was happy with it but could have made silly mistake(s). Last year he scored 98 in Adv Maths - probably silly mistakes as well because he was happy with that paper too.

did your son take AIMO? not sure what the point of extension maths is in yr 10, but that is pretty cool.

as for 69/70 - 70/70 this is state rank territory. For state ranks, papers are sometimes taken to decimal places by how good the answers are, if I remember correctly.
The actual HSC mark does not indicate the raw mark exactly. It is the exact raw mark that differentiates people for state ranks. Note that UAC does actually use raw marks to calculate ATAR rather than the HSC mark they give you, so it does matter perhaps just a tiny bit in ATAR calculations.

 

[Eagle Mum]

did your son take AIMO? not sure what the point of extension maths is in yr 10, but that is pretty cool.

as for 69/70 - 70/70 this is state rank territory. For state ranks, papers are sometimes taken to decimal places by how good the answers are, if I remember correctly.
The actual HSC mark does not indicate the raw mark exactly. It is the exact raw mark that differentiates people for state ranks. Note that UAC does actually use raw marks to calculate ATAR rather than the HSC mark they give you, so it does matter perhaps just a tiny bit in ATAR calculations.

Am I to understand that there are often multiple candidates with a scaled mark of 100 but their raw marks are different?

As to why he’s doing extension maths in Yr 10, the back story is that his older sister attended the school a few years ago at a time when they’d never accelerated students before (the way students at selective & private school often do). So, she ended up with a VERY heavy load in Yr 12 (Adv Eng, Adv Maths, Maths Extn 1 & 2, Physics, Chem, Bio & Econ - she should have dropped a subject but she was good at all of them). When she achieved top bands in all of the subjects, senior staff extended their congratulations, but though we were also pleased, we did politely point out that she might have gotten an even better ATAR if she had been able to do some subjects early. The teachers were very responsive and introduced maths software so students could work at their own pace, which enabled her brother to get through the Yr 7-10 syllabus in the first six months of school (instead of having to do twenty repetitive questions per exercise with textbooks, the interactive software moves to the next module if you answer a couple of questions correctly so a smart student saves 80-90% of their time which is fantastic!) & he’s just been progressing at a similar pace since. He has sat the AIMO every year, Senior AMOC twice & AMO once. He’s also very heavily involved with sports & music, so, like his sister, he gets a bit torn about where he should concentrate his efforts, but I suspect he’d rather explore a wide range of activities than narrowly focus on one thing.

 

[beetree1]

How does that leave enough room to differentiate between candidates who achieve raw scores of 69 vs 70?
My son in Yr 10 finished the paper. He says he was happy with it but could have made silly mistake(s). Last year he scored 98 in Adv Maths - probably silly mistakes as well because he was happy with that paper too.

Yo that is crazy.. doing adv math in year 9 what in the WORLD.. good job ig
I dont think 1 mark would make the greatest of differences in math ex1 but higher 90s would be a different story

 

[Eagle Mum]

Yo that is crazy.. doing adv math in year 9 what in the WORLD.. good job ig
I dont think 1 mark would make the greatest of differences in math ex1 but higher 90s would be a different story

There seems to be a lot of selective & private school students who sit the Senior AMOC & AMO papers during their junior high years, so I would have thought they’d be sitting the lower levels of HSC Maths in Yrs 9 & 10 as well. My kids attend our local school so doing exams early is merely to match their peers at more elite schools.

 

[idkkdi]

There seems to be a lot of selective & private school students who sit the Senior AMOC & AMO papers during their junior high years, so I would have thought they’d be sitting the lower levels of HSC Maths in Yrs 9 & 10 as well. My kids attend our local school so doing exams early is merely to match their peers at more elite schools.

nope. within top 10, only like 2 of the schools accelerate advanced maths or ext 1 maths. Schools ranked 1->4 all take the entire advanced->ext 2 course in y 11/12 although many probably know quite a bit of the advanced course already. However, most people on ext 2 maths only take 10 units in total, or maybe 12.

as for senior AMO papers, it is definitely a very small minority of top students at any school that take the paper. Probably under 3 at any one school in the state, with many top schools having one or none. The amount of people taking it in their junior years should be the minority by far.

Am I to understand that there are often multiple candidates with a scaled mark of 100 but their raw marks are different?

As to why he’s doing extension maths in Yr 10, the back story is that his older sister attended the school a few years ago at a time when they’d never accelerated students before (the way students at selective & private school often do). So, she ended up with a VERY heavy load in Yr 12 (Adv Eng, Adv Maths, Maths Extn 1 & 2, Physics, Chem, Bio & Econ - she should have dropped a subject but she was good at all of them). When she achieved top bands in all of the subjects, senior staff extended their congratulations, but though we were also pleased, we did politely point out that she might have gotten an even better ATAR if she had been able to do some subjects early. The teachers were very responsive and introduced maths software so students could work at their own pace, which enabled her brother to get through the Yr 7-10 syllabus in the first six months of school (instead of having to do twenty repetitive questions per exercise with textbooks, the interactive software moves to the next module if you answer a couple of questions correctly so a smart student saves 80-90% of their time which is fantastic!) & he’s just been progressing at a similar pace since. He has sat the AIMO every year, Senior AMOC twice & AMO once. He’s also very heavily involved with sports & music, so, like his sister, he gets a bit torn about where he should concentrate his efforts, but I suspect he’d rather explore a wide range of activities than narrowly focus on one thing.

Personally disagree with the said opinion about narrowly focusing on one thing.
As long as sports & music involvement has been decent in lower years, what is to be gained afterwards is perhaps much less than what is gainable from going further in the olympiad exams.
One will always regret not having made later stages of the program or possibly, very slimly, the IMO stage. Personally think he should try to have one thorough go at trying to compete with the best and single-mindedly trying to further and prove his abilities. In addition, if you make IMO team, you're basically guaranteed entry into top US universities, which offer full financial aid if needed.
It is worth noting that olympiads are perhaps the last opportunity that one actually has to compete nationally/internationally at a maths level. Afterwards, it's just all research. Sport/music etc, can always be made up.
it's also worth noting that being mediocre/good at a bunch of things is not nearly as memorable or joyful as being exceptional at one.


as for the raw mark question. Yes.

 

[Drdusk]

It is worth noting that olympiads are perhaps the last opportunity that one actually has to compete nationally/internationally at a maths level.

The Putnam would like to know your location

 

[idkkdi]

The Putnam would like to know your location

only in america

 

[Drdusk]

only in america

That’s why you move to America.

 

[idkkdi]

That’s why you move to America.

easier said than done.

 

[Eagle Mum]

Personally disagree with the said opinion about narrowly focusing on one thing.
As long as sports & music involvement has been decent in lower years, what is to be gained afterwards is perhaps much less than what is gainable from going further in the olympiad exams.
One will always regret not having made later stages of the program or possibly, very slimly, the IMO stage. Personally think he should try to have one thorough go at trying to compete with the best and single-mindedly trying to further and prove his abilities. In addition, if you make IMO team, you're basically guaranteed entry into top US universities, which offer full financial aid if needed.
It is worth noting that olympiads are perhaps the last opportunity that one actually has to compete nationally/internationally at a maths level. Afterwards, it's just all research. Sport/music etc, can always be made up.
it's also worth noting that being mediocre/good at a bunch of things is not nearly as memorable or joyful as being exceptional at one.

I don’t disagree with your comment but it really does depend on the individual. Maths & sports competitions aren’t just about how good an individual is, but how good others are. Only the top six in the country get to the IMO and only the top two in each state get to nationals for each athletics event, so if one were to give up everything else to focus on a single activity, it could be very disappointing to miss achieving that one goal after sacrificing everything else.

The alternative, which is my son’s approach, is to do whatever he enjoys and see how far he can grow in each area (he’s the only athlete that competes in both sprint and cross country distances which most elite athletes think is crazy). To be able to keep learning new maths skills, achieving PBs and creatively composing music, as well as a broad range of other interests is a life rich with experiences.

 

[idkkdi]

I don’t disagree with your comment but it really does depend on the individual. Maths & sports competitions aren’t just about how good an individual is, but how good others are. Only the top six in the country get to the IMO and only the top two in each state get to nationals for each event, so if one were to give up everything else to focus on a single activity, it could be very disappointing to miss achieving that one goal after sacrificing everything else.

The alternative, which is my son’s approach, is to do whatever he enjoys and see how far he can grow in each area (he’s the only athlete that competes in both sprint and cross country distances which most elite athletes think is crazy). To be able to keep learning new maths skills, achieving PBs and creatively composing music, as well as a broad range of other interests is a life rich with experiences.

That is fair. The Australian IMO team is ridiculously strong. I would imagine that your son is able to judge whether he's on the level of the top people in terms of intellect from the training camps that he must have been to. However, if he is, he cannot really progress much further unless he puts in the effort that the others are, and I would suppose that most who are reaching the last stage of selection are doing nearly nothing except maths.

 

[Paradoxica]

That’s why you move to America.

*looks at the world*

you're out of your mind

 

[Paradoxica]

I don’t disagree with your comment but it really does depend on the individual. Maths & sports competitions aren’t just about how good an individual is, but how good others are. Only the top six in the country get to the IMO and only the top two in each state get to nationals for each athletics event, so if one were to give up everything else to focus on a single activity, it could be very disappointing to miss achieving that one goal after sacrificing everything else.

The alternative, which is my son’s approach, is to do whatever he enjoys and see how far he can grow in each area (he’s the only athlete that competes in both sprint and cross country distances which most elite athletes think is crazy). To be able to keep learning new maths skills, achieving PBs and creatively composing music, as well as a broad range of other interests is a life rich with experiences.

Not everyone has such generous life opportunities though. Some of us grew up just trying to survive in a hostile home AND school environment, parents who don't care or understand, an unreconcilable communication barrier with parents, and a plethora of neuro/psych impairments. Mathematics was my escape. And it still is.

 

[Eagle Mum]

Not everyone has such generous life opportunities though. Some of us grew up just trying to survive in a hostile home AND school environment, parents who don't care or understand, an unreconcilable communication barrier with parents, and a plethora of neuro/psych impairments. Mathematics was my escape. And it still is.

Wow - I could have written your post. Sounds like you are rising above it, as I mostly did. That’s why I’ve tried to give my children the childhood and opportunities that I wish I could have had. Best wishes!

ETA: No real regrets about my own life though - I’ve got a senior position in a rewarding job though I’ve had to work hard all my life to get here.

 

[Drdusk]

Some of us grew up just trying to survive in a hostile home AND school environment, parents who don't care or understand, an unreconcilable communication barrier with parents.

Yep exact same here mate.