44th unsw maths comp... how did you go? (1 Viewer)

[who_loves_maths]

hey ppl, we just had the annual unsw comp. today at school. how did all you ppl out there go in that? any thoughts about any of the questions?

i'm curious cause i didn't do very well in it... ran out of time...

 

[HayleeKate]

Ran out of time? I left after an hour, wont say i successful finished all questions, but just got over going around in circles with the ones I didnt get. I dont know how you can sit there for 3 hours and just go over and over the same questions, I could do 3 hours of maths if it was moving onto new stuff and doing lots of work, but after a certain time I just get over the question, and cant think anymore.
I answered about 4 from the 6 questions in the first half hour, then proved half of my answers to be wrong. lol, UNLUCKY.
Think I got the alleyway-ladder one, after 2 pages of quartic polynomials and trig functions. There must have been an easier way, it was intense.
Was it just me, or did anyone find that SO much easier than last years? Maybe it's jsut have an extra year of HSC maths under my belt, but I thought that was far easier than last year.

 

[shafqat]

It couldn't have been that much easier than last year's. Last year's was pretty damn doable. Even I managed a prize

 

[Trev]

Does anyone have the booklet with the questions to look over?

 

[haboozin]

is this the one with just 5 questions or so...

shafqat ofcourse u would've managed a prize mate, cos ur fucking good.

PS do Q4 from my conics thead!

 

[who_loves_maths]

I answered about 4 from the 6 questions in the first half hour

that's amazing... i don't think Ivan Guo last year could even do that many in half an hour.... he took the whole 3 hours in fact (but that just goes to explain why he got 100%).

Think I got the alleyway-ladder one, after 2 pages of quartic polynomials and trig functions. There must have been an easier way, it was intense.

lol, that's the one i couldn't get and am angry over. i should've got it, just couldn't see a simple way to solve an equation of such high degrees. (a friend of mine performed trial and error and to my, and his, suprise he got the right answer on the first trial.) maybe i should do some trial and error in the future too.
although, for that particular question, i later found that you don't need to form and solve for the equation of degree 4 (or 8, as was in my friends case), there's a simpler purely trigonometric equation you can form in Sin and Cos that (if you can simplify it) will give you the solution quite easily.

most ppl in my school tackle the question using co-ordinate geometry btw. and someone apparently found the "easy" way by only having to solve a quadratic with integer coefficients to obtain angles, etc, in exact form... i still need to ask him exactly how he did it.

 

[who_loves_maths]

Originally Posted by Trev
Does anyone have the booklet with the questions to look over?

nope, not me sorry. teachers collected the question booklet after the comp.

 

[HayleeKate]

Does anyone have the booklet with the questions to look over?

Yeah, I do, but I left it at school, hence dont have it at the moment, but we're allowed to keep them.

 

[HayleeKate]

that's amazing... i don't think Ivan Guo last year could even do that many in half an hour.... he took the whole 3 hours in fact (but that just goes to explain why he got 100%).

I did say i went on to prove half of my answers incorrect, I'm not that awesome. Sacrifices accuracy for speed, had a ext2 assessment straight afterwards, so I left early to prepare for that, so I didnt get slammed with 4 hours of maths test in a row. Out of control.

 

[who_loves_maths]

so I didnt get slammed with 4 hours of maths

good idea!

btw, did you get Question 1 out completely? i know it's the easiest of them all, but for some reason, NO ONE (except for me) in year 12 in my school did it, and believe me there are a lot of ppl in my grade who are really good at maths?! so i'm just a bit surprised.

 

[HayleeKate]

which was q1? the circle quadrants in a box? I think I did it. I wont promise its correct, but I did come up with a few answers. The second half of it was easy as community and family studies [lol sorry to anyone doing that subject!] Just basic finding the area of a quadrant of the unit circle and stuff. The first part had some challenge to it.
I think the question was worded poorly though, just didnt feel there was much clarity about what it meant by the 'least overlap', had to read it twice.

 

[who_loves_maths]

then how many different possible overlap areas did you come up with?

 

[HayleeKate]

Um, vaguely remember about 3 or so? there's quite possibly more than that, I dont know that I got the answer completely correct, or even completely answered.

 

[who_loves_maths]

okay. i think i got 5 different overlaps, but like you i'm unsure of their validity too.

how about the question about the Diophantine equations? the fact that an infinite number of integer solutions exist?

 

[SeDaTeD]

Wow, I remember doing this for 4 years. Would like to see how I'd go with the problems after a semester of uni. Could anyone post the questions? Ta.

 

[quink]

Mmmmhh. The memories.

Distinction and Best in School for 2001, 2002 and 2003. I'm in 2nd year Uni now, doing Maths, and I'd just like to say: Stay as far away from Matrices as possible.

 

[who_loves_maths]

I'm in 2nd year Uni now

hehe... you're certainly good at maths getting distincitons n' all, but the rest of us aren't that hopeless (yet). 2005 - 2003[under your nick] = 2nd year uni indeed