How I did on my maths methods exam
Tags: Australia, Schools, Mathematics, Maths Methods, Exam

For those who don’t live in Australia, methods is a year 11/12 subject that is taken for VCE. There are 3 different maths courses available. General maths, maths methods and specialist maths (in order of least difficult to most difficult.)

Due to the corona virus, parts of the study design were taken out from each subjetc so that there would be less content for the students to learn. Many students were thankful for this, including myself, especially after the difficult year that many of us have faced. As a year 11, going into year 12 I was qite stressed about my methods exam, knowing that it would have an impact on my final ATAR. The VCE system (Victorian certificate of education) is quite difficult to explain, but the ATAR is the final score that is used to determine which courses you get into. I truly hate that 12 years of schooling is condensed into a single number. Anyways, as a year 11 student I was stressed about my one subject that mattered that year, so I can’t imagine how the year 12s must’ve felt.

Now, I spent a fair chunk of time preparing for this exam. I stayed back after school for a few hours every day for a month and a bit. I went through practice exams and past exams and still, I didn't feel as confident as I wanted to on the day. I know I could’ve studied more, I definitely should’ve but towards the end I had almost just accept that there was little I could do, and I could only juts do my best.

The methods exam is broken into two sections. The non-calculator section goes for one hour and the calculator section goes for 2. The first exam was a lot harder than I had expected. All the past-exams and practice exams were much easier. I was quiet distressed after my first exam but so were many other students. But the second exam was much worse. I got to the 6th multiple choice (which is very very early in the exam) and realised that I couldn't solve it. I immediately panicked because the multiple choice section was supposed to be a breeze.

Throughout the extended response section I found that I wasn’t able to solve a fair few of them. Maybe about 6 of them, which is quite a substantial percentage of marks.

I walked out the exam room with teary eyes, luckily many couldn't see much of my expression because we all had masks on. But I later found that many other students felt that they had done horribly after the exam. Many of my friends also weren’t able to answer many of the questions. Because the VCE exams are ranking and comparisons between the students this should’ve made me feel better. But it really didn’t. I was frustrated with myself for not working harder prior to the exam when I could’ve. What stopped me from studying more? I do get distracted easily, but I knew this exam was important so why didn’t I work harder? These thoughts spun around in my head for hours after the exam.

So, cut to now, it’s the 21st of December and I get my “study score” results on the 30th. The study score determines your overall score for the subject which is also a ranking. It’s a normal distribution with a mean of 30. So if I got a study score of 30 it would mean that I’m ranked right in the middle of the cohort of students who did methods as a subject. Then the study score from all the subject you did, make your ATAR. Btw, I did this exam on the 17th and 18th of November so it;s been quite a while and since then I’ve definitely become less negative about it.

There’s literally nothing I can do about it now, so I just have to accept whatever I got and run with it. If I did badly for this subject it’ll just mean that I have to work harder for my other subjects in year 12.

So i’ll write again here after I get my study score :) Fingers crossed it’s good :)