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So damn confused (1 Viewer)

The Professor

Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2013
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37
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HSC
2014
I'm on the verge of a mental breakdown.

I worked so DAMN freaking hard on maths, and when I got the paper I blanked out.
I f****** forgot how to integrate and differentiateKLASJFS;LKDFJSL;KDFFJSLDKJF

I answered all the questions in the exam though

this was the first time in my years i tried hard in maths, and this is what happens.

I'm on 12 units.
Should I drop it?
 

buriza

conviction
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Mar 22, 2014
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No. You are going to have negative experiences in your life once in a while and you should take this as a lesson. You should not quit just because your effort was seemingly not rewarded once, especially when you said this is the first time in a long while you have tried hard in mathematics. Sounds pretty irrational to me.

Not to mention it sounds like you do not even know your overall marks yet. At least receive your marks back before you go making a serious decision on dropping the subject. And it seems counter-productive that you so rapidly drop a subject you just started trying in.

Really, it appears that you just had some performance anxiety during the examination, which happens to many people. Once you get to doing the actual HSC examinations you may feel more comfortable and hence less likely to "blank out." In a simple word: persevere. :)
 
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Morgdawg1

New Member
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Australia!
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2014
That's okay, could be like myself and mental blank every exam. I know everything and I understand all my work. But flunk every test due to literally having black outs!


-Morgann
 

Combo

beast
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this was the first time in my years i tried hard in maths, and this is what happens.
kinda expected because you never sat an exam this prepared before. To prevent this next time, replicate exam conditions at home when you're practicing. Pretend the mark you get from sitting a past paper is the mark you are going to get in the exam. Set a time limit, pens down when times up etc. convince yourself that the past paper is the real thing, this will help as you get used to the pressure
 

strawberrye

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Uni Grad
2018
You shouldn't drop a subject because of one bad performance. You should evaluate the reasons for this and improve upon this. Below are some of my tips for acing in maths which hopefully you will find helpful:)

The only way you can study for maths is essentially to understand mathematical concepts, apply your understanding by practice questions of increasing difficulty, and checking your answers and working out with those provided by the textbook or with your teacher/tutor. Before each maths exam, I would also do a summary of all the formulas that I would need and all the tips and tricks for each topic and revise over that before the exam.

One very important tip is to avoid exposing yourself to new, difficult questions the day before the exam-you would often be panicked and this would worsen your exam performance because you are not entering the exam with a calm, clear mind.

One last important tip I can give you is that you need to ask questions the minute you don't understand something-don't leave any maths lessons without understanding everything about the maths concept conveyed-because maths is a sort of accumulative subject where if you don't understand something and don't clarify it, it can have a snowball effect. I have a habit of writing tips on the silly mistakes I've made or tips to do a certain type of question alongside questions I got wrong and I re-do these questions before the exam and remind myself to avoid making these mistakes.

MATHS is a subject that needs to be practiced on a daily basis, you cannot get away with studying it the day before the actual exam. You need to understand the approach to achieve a solution to the problems, not just knowing how to answer a problem, but knowing the different types of problems you can encounter in any topic and the variation in the solution method to achieve them. Essentially, practice, practice, practice is the key to succeed in Maths.
 

rumbleroar

Survivor of the HSC
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What was the weighting for your exam?

I think you need to take a step back and target why you went wrong in the exam. Was it because of pressure in the test?
 

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