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The Bi-Annual Exam Thread!

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Most people are talking about A-levels, especially maths modules, which are taken over two years. (16-17, where you do AS, and 17-18, where you do A2) The previous two years are spent doing GCSEs.

 

The rest of us are doing university exams.

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I've just got grade 9 exams. Not too hard, but they are for some people.

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My project presentation starts in 2 hours and 20 minutes. 10 minutes of me talking crap, then 20 mins of questions, and thats the bit im dreading :shakehead

 

Time to go brush up!

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FUCK!

 

English Higher in 2 days! :o

 

I haven't even learnt half the stuff I need.

 

I know Heart Of Darkness and loads of quotes etc...

 

Tempest I need to revise more, and Franklin's Tale I know shit all of. :(

 

I'm going to fail. I got 2 A*'s at GCSE, but to be honest, that was some kind of miracle.

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I've got three down, one to go. Absolutely no work to hand in now either, I just have to revise, turn up for 2-hours and leave. Then I can get drunk and play Smash Bros. for the next 16 weeks or something.

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Completing the square!

 

x² -10x = -18 ______________________ Take constant to the other side

x² - 10x + 100 = 100-18 ______________Add (coeff of x)² to each side

(x-10)(x-10) = 82 ___________________ Factorise the LHS, resolve the RHS

(x-10)² = 82 _______________________ Convert LHS to (x-a)²

(x-10)² - 82 _________________________ ....

x² - 10x + 18 = (x-10)² - 82 ___________ Profit!

 

I've never seen it done that way in my life, yet that way is quite satisfactory.

 

 

Normally I just half the x coefficient, then minus the square of that, then add the constant, which is confusing to explain but works.

 

Wait a sec, expanding (x-10)^2 - 82 gives you x^2 - 20x + 18.

 

You have to half the x coefficient.

 

I get

 

(x - 5)^2 -25 + 18 = 0

 

Thus (x - 5)^2 -7 = x^2 - 10x + 18

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Fun fact: Try completing the square on a generic quadratic equation, it's how the quadratic equation formula is derived.

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Fun fact: Try completing the square on a generic quadratic equation, it's how the quadratic equation formula is derived.

 

Fun fact: I've said that at least once so far this thread! :heh:

 

I have an AS retake tomorrow, joy!

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I've never seen it done that way in my life, yet that way is quite satisfactory.

 

 

Normally I just half the x coefficient, then minus the square of that, then add the constant, which is confusing to explain but works.

 

Wait a sec, expanding (x-10)^2 - 82 gives you x^2 - 20x + 18.

 

You have to half the x coefficient.

 

I get

 

(x - 5)^2 -25 + 18 = 0

 

Thus (x - 5)^2 -7 = x^2 - 10x + 18

 

Yep you're right.

 

C4 first woo! Doing a past paper now woo! >_>

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Fun fact: I've said that at least once so far this thread! :heh:

 

I have an AS retake tomorrow, joy!

Fun fact: I've been too busy working to read this thread in detail. :heh:

 

Had a fun supervision on human evolution. I think I'm covered for my evolution paper and my maths one, it's biology of cells and to some extent chemistry that I'm worried about.

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Does anyone know an easy way to remember whether you accept the null hypothesis or not in each of the hypothesis tests in Stats 2, because I don't really understand the logic behind it?

 

I mean, sometimes you accept the null if your answer is greater than the critical value (in contingency table tests) and other times you don't, and it's really confusing...

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Any time it is concerning significance level, you want it to be lower than. For other things that are using critical regions (which is usually the bigger numbers for X^2 or PMC etc) you want it to be bigger.

 

Someone else is doing S2 :o sweet. I like it :) Got it on the same day as mechanics which I don't like unfortunately :(

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Any time it is concerning significance level, you want it to be lower than. For other things that are using critical regions (which is usually the bigger numbers for X^2 or PMC etc) you want it to be bigger.

 

What do you mean "you want it to be lower than"?

 

 

Someone else is doing S2 :o sweet. I like it :) Got it on the same day as mechanics which I don't like unfortunately :(

 

Same, I have them on the same day, and they are the only two modules I'm struggling with...

 

 

I got an abysmal mark in the mechanics prelim :shakehead

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Well for things like poisson distribution (I think is a good example) you want the number from the book (or however you obtained it) to be lower than the significance level which is usually 5% or 1%.

 

Such as, 0.03995 <0.05 for a significance level of 5% (hypothetically) means that you should reject the null, because it happens less than 5% of the time which means it isn't just a fluke.

 

Whereas for PMC figures, you are using the critical region which is the point where for example it stops being more than 5% and so you would reject the null then.

 

I'm sorry I'm being so confusing =/

 

I hate mechanics simply because almost everyone else in my class has previously done AS physics which means they've come across most of it before. Whereas, I just stare at the paper thinking WTF. I can do some questions but I'm dreading the exam. S2 however I am not so afraid of, got my results from a mock today and I got an A :)

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FUCK!

 

English Higher in 2 days! :o

 

I haven't even learnt half the stuff I need.

 

I know Heart Of Darkness and loads of quotes etc...

 

Tempest I need to revise more, and Franklin's Tale I know shit all of. :(

 

I'm going to fail. I got 2 A*'s at GCSE, but to be honest, that was some kind of miracle.

 

I don't even know where to start!! Ive learnt like 1 poem, and a non fiction text.. *prays*

 

But seriously. I think english is shit - and shouldn't be compulsory.

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But seriously. I think english is shit - and shouldn't be compulsory.

 

As of this year (ie 08-09) it isn't, :heh:

 

Well it isn't at Higher/Int Levels in Scotland, not too sure about the rest of the UK. And the current 4th years are like lol we don't have to do Maths or English and I'm like lol won't be seeing you at university then.

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As of this year (ie 08-09) it isn't, :heh:

 

Well it isn't at Higher/Int Levels in Scotland, not too sure about the rest of the UK. And the current 4th years are like lol we don't have to do Maths or English and I'm like lol won't be seeing you at university then.

 

The thing is, I probably would have taken it anyway, but I hate how you have no choice in the matter.

 

Higher maths isnt compulsory here :S

 

is it?

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Yeah its not compulsory this year as well.

 

I'm going to do Advanced Higher next year... (save me)

 

Also going to do Advanced Higher Information Systems (I was the only person to do Higher this year, sitting in an exam hall by myself is not going to be fun), and I'm crashing Modern Studies and Physics.

 

Thats if I get my 3 A's and 2 B's this year though i will settle for 2 A's and 3 B's.

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Yeah its not compulsory this year as well.

 

I'm going to do Advanced Higher next year... (save me)

 

Also going to do Advanced Higher Information Systems (I was the only person to do Higher this year, sitting in an exam hall by myself is not going to be fun), and I'm crashing Modern Studies and Physics.

 

Thats if I get my 3 A's and 2 B's this year though i will settle for 2 A's and 3 B's.

 

I'm leaving this year :D

 

Have you done a crash higher this year? I crashed Geography and computing, but its easier than I was expecting.

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I have my first GCSE exam tomorrow: French Listening.

 

Hahahahahaha.

 

EDIT: argh I hate it when I forget words in sentences. By the way it went terribly. As a joke I wrote; 'the boat was over 9000 feet long' for one of the final questions.

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I don't even know where to start!! Ive learnt like 1 poem, and a non fiction text.. *prays*

 

But seriously. I think english is shit - and shouldn't be compulsory.

 

I've only got one poem and one short story learnt. If the questions don't fit, I'm basically screwed. Will just have to roughly fit something to it, no matter how abstract.

 

But I kinda agree that alot of the Higher English stuff is stupid, and the fact it's needed for most university courses is stupid. Why does analysing a poem help me with a Comp Sci course? Yet I must do it to have a hope of getting in.

 

Also English isn't compulsory here, it's strongly advised but not compulsory. And Maths is the same, but more people drop it.

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English felt like the funniest subject to do before I realised I hated it and took further maths instead. I love reading books, but I hate overanalysing them (I mean, Silas Marner was completely ruined when we had to dissect it to find a "moral fable" in it). I don't think my GCSE English teacher liked me that much because I used most of his lessons to catch up on missed sleep.

 

 

I feel I still have a really good vocabularly and grasp of grammar though because I'm doing latin.

 

 

Higher English seems insane though. It's more a memory test than a test of literary skills.

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I'm leaving this year :D

 

Have you done a crash higher this year? I crashed Geography and computing, but its easier than I was expecting.

 

Nah but I did do Geography and Computing this year, Computing is easy but are you actually finding geography easy as well?!?! Well the human stuff is easy but I find the physical stuff really really hard.

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I have a life knowing all possible quotes for Heart Of Darkness, since I actually love that book. So, i'm ok for that...

 

Tempest I know a little about..and Chauser = I'm fucked. :(

 

I might actually learn a poem instead of one of them...

 

EDIT: Calza I agree on Gegoraphy. I keep getting 50% or below, and it's usually cause i'm crap at physical stuff.

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