Matric Maths I

Earlier today, I did my Matric Maths P1 Examination.

My Maths Teachers kept evangelizing to the class that this year’s Maths Exams will be more difficult… to get an A.

We didn’t end up doing the Supplimentary Exams which I was ranting about last time: Click Here to See but rather, we did the Backup papers, the “Revision 1s”.

The DoE has raised the standards of the examinations so as to reduce the number of distinctions (80%+) that were acquired by students of 2008.

Today’s paper was, overall, normal in difficulty, compared to the exemplars and last year’s exam.

However,
The level 3 and level 4 questions were quite hard! Some of them took LONG to understand, but I made sure I answered all of them.

I do think that I didn’t achieve 90% though. If not, I’m sure I got between 80% – 88%, which means, I’ll need to get 100%-92% respectively to get an overall “90% A“

One of the questions that I got wrong (for 3 marks / out of a total of 150) was this questions here: Question Typed into Wolframalpha. – I substituted 10²⁰⁰⁹ as x instead of substituting 2009 as x

-sigh-

I’ve worked out all the questions that I suspect I may have failed to acquire full marks for, and I’ve subtracted them fully (since I cannot guarantee that the rest are 100% correct), and I can get about 85% – IF I’m lucky.

I guess I’d just have to work harder for Paper 2 on Monday.

Difficulty Comparison: 2009 and 2008

Below is a graphical depiction of how I viewed the difficulty of today’s exam in comparison to November 2008.

2008(Red) vs. 2009(Blue)

Here are some facts that I’ve discovered:
Last year’s paper had a total of 42 Questions, this year, 53 Questions.

The length of Questions weren’t shorter and no more time was allocated.

Note: This year’s paper was replaced with Backups due to theft that took place earlier last month.
The backup papers are naturally more difficult, so direct comparison of PAPERS (not years) is not 100% possible.

I really do think those stolen papers were easier.

Oh Well.
Best of Luck to Matrics of 2009!

Love,
Allen

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