Circle Geometry. Plea for help. (1 Viewer)

chingyloke

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Hey guys.

Put simply, i suck at circle geometry. Horrible, hopeless. I dunno, its just something that i thought i had down pat...but when presented with a past question or slip it into an assessment task and i just choke hard. We only had 2 lessons on it in prelim cause the teacher was so far behind and an ass. We have a new teacher now :)

But yeah...do u guys have any tips on how i could improve in the area? Like i'm doing tonnes of practice questions but just not getting it...i always have to peek at the solution. Should i start again from basics again and work up?

Help.
 

hermand

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start again from basics. make sure you know all the rules. the basics are the most important. do some of the easier examples in your book then work up to the harder ones.
 

kaz1

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Yeah start from the basics. You can also do each theorem one at a time.
 

jet

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In 3 unit its generally always always angles. Thats pretty much all ive seen. Just know all the angle theorems, and keep the one about lengths etc. up your sleeve just incase they ask a numerical question early on.
 

Timothy.Siu

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just do textbook questions, fitzpatrick starts pretty basic i think, well maybe all of them are basic but yeah,

just make sure u know all the rules (dont worry about proving them)
and learn the rules so that u actually remember them, and for (hard/exam) questions, dont look too hard, shud be clues on the first things u see, i.e. if theres a tangent to the circle or if theres lines through the centre, all those are clues that can help u,
if u see a tangent, think of all the rules that can apply, same goes for centre of a circle etc..
just practise i'm sure you'll get it eventually,
and also, usually theres only a few marks in the HSC exam so u shud be ok (its usually pretty basic-ish)

if ur still having troubles maybe someone can help u in person? hehe i dunno
 
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chingyloke

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alright. back to exercise 1.1 then....sigh. lol

yeh. some of the past HSC'ers and challenge set just had me completely beat.

is there much of it in 4 unit?
 

jet

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Generally you'll find one or two per paper, as its harder 3u =30-40% of paper. Some of its ridiculous, and i didn't even finish one of them in the paper this year. As a rule, if it took me more than 5 minutes, i left it and only came back to it at the end.
 

annabackwards

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chingyloke said:
alright. back to exercise 1.1 then....sigh. lol

yeh. some of the past HSC'ers and challenge set just had me completely beat.

is there much of it in 4 unit?
Well there's a bit in the graphs bit of 4U, but it's just basic stuff such as the entire semi circle angle = 90 degrees or the angle subtended by a chord/arc at the centre is twice that of the angle subtended on the circle etc etc.

Haven't seen it in complex numbers at all.

Just brush up on a few of the laws/learn as you go along as i did and it'll ll come back to you :D
 

Timothy.Siu

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annabackwards said:
Well there's a bit in the graphs bit of 4U, but it's just basic stuff such as the entire semi circle angle = 90 degrees or the angle subtended by a chord/arc at the centre is twice that of the angle subtended on the circle etc etc.

Haven't seen it in complex numbers at all.

Just brush up on a few of the laws/learn as you go along as i did and it'll ll come back to you :D
there could be though, if u want to solve stuff graphically or something
 

kurt.physics

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Just learn the laws, when looking at problems, identify the key features (words such as cyclic or tangent), then write up what things relate to this eg cyclic quad opp. angles sup or angle in semi-circle right. If the question wants to prove issoseles triangle, or two angles are equal, or a specific angle is something, then 'angle chase'; that is, use the laws to find all the angles you can and make connections.

If the question has to do with sides being squared eg AP2 or whatever, then think pythagoras and semicircles and such.

Also, dont let emotions rule you, dont think "I dont have the aquired knowledge to tackle this problem", and if you are having trouble, re read the question and try again, if that doesnt work, try looking at the problem differently.
 

LordPc

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once you know all the proofs, you will be fine. Thats the hardest part in truth, getting the wording of them down pat.

once you do that, everything else falls in line because you will see the question and then it will link to a theorem you know

Also remember that some theorems are based on distance while others are based on angles. it may help to divide them up like this, because you will usually only be given a question with only one of these (either angles or distance).

and then practice, but knowing those theorems back to front is first step

also remember that when questions have sequential parts, as in part i, part ii, part iii, they 95% follow on from the next. so look to use your previous result in the next question, even if you didnt prove it, you can still use the result if given in the question ;)
 

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