Quoting without proof... (1 Viewer)

[ze-]

I quoted a property of Pascal's Triangle in my exam: The sum of the coefficients in the nth row is always 2^n. I did this without proving it.

The proof was extremely easy (only a 2 mark question) even without the use of this property, not sure why I did it this way.

Would you take off a mark for this?

 

[Drongoski]

Depends on the question. If the question asked you to prove that property, then obviously you should get no marks. But if you used this to establish another bigger result, then, maybe it's ok. Not knowing the circumstances, one just cannot say.

 

[ze-]

Depends on the question. If the question asked you to prove that property, then obviously you should get no marks. But if you used this to establish another bigger result, then, maybe it's ok. Not knowing the circumstances, one just cannot say.

Haha, definitely wasn't just asked to prove that property, it was different. But I done messed up lol

 

[seanieg89]

I would be very wary of quoting results without proof (apart from essential and very basic stuff like the quadratic formula or exact trig ratios etc).

Use your common sense, but I would urge you to err on the side of caution.