A Level H2 Maths question spotting thoughts for AY 2016
2016 marks the final (official) year where students get to offer the 9740 H2 Maths examination format; come 2017 things will transition to a watered down 9758 syllabus, where parts of the standing curriculum are removed and migrated to the newly reinstated 9649 Further Maths variant. Which naturally means the odds of examination questions this year (Papers 1 and Paper 2 fall on 10 and 14 November respectively) testing those sections currently poised for deletion are well...... greater than great. And this will be the main thrust of my theorizing what would actually be laid bare out on the dance floor.
Recurrence Relations
Definitely the stuff of nightmares for too many a student, might this show up for one final act? To which I say, why wouldn't it happen? Ensure you are well versed in computing the value of convergence for a given series, and on top of that, be able to retrieve the exact description for the nth term if you are presented with the recurrence relation itself. Give the following problem a try, in particular part (i):
Complex Numbers (Loci)
In 2017 these will be completely wiped clean from existing lesson plans (jealous of your juniors I reckon? Then again life's never fair), so bring along your compass, protractor and ruler, 'cause you will probably be called upon to sketch a geometrical construct or two (circle, perpendicular bisector or half-line) in an Argand diagram, and subsequently discern meaningful calculations based on the interactions between whatever it is you have thus drawn (eg points of intersection, max/min value of |z-a| and/or max/min value of arg(z-a) where a is a specified fixed point etc). Probably routine work which shouldn't cause any jitters, however never let your guard down. Adhere strictly to the "be absolutely meticulous cum careful" policy here, and I can't emphasize this enough, because I have witnessed some cartoon characters who actually misread things right from the beginning and created circles in wrong quadrants, totally misplaced perpendicular bisectors so on and so forth.
Poisson Distribution
Truth be told, I am unsure why this super minuscule segment in statistics is also being done away with, but because it shall never be encountered again come next year, get ready to jam with it for one last time. In particular, know how to solve for the range of values of an unknown Poisson parameter λ by hand when posed with the inequality P(X≥1)=k (underlying distribution being phrased as X~Po(λ) ), where a constant value will be explicitly assigned to k in the problem itself. And of course, hone your ability to tackle supply and demand related questions. Examine the following question, see if you can get it properly sorted out:
Correlation And Regression
What here exactly vanishes in 2017 and beyond? That lesser known equation r^2 =b*d, where r denotes the product moment correlation coefficient and b, d are in reference to the separate gradient values of the regression lines of both y on x as well as x on y. This typically becomes highly necessary for use when one isn't presented with data tables, and yet is still required to do the math sans the graphic calculator. If you are somewhat unclear about what I just articulated, examine part (ii) of the problem presented below to see what I am getting at:
In honesty nothing gets axed here, though I'd like to share a personal hunch that has been eating at me in the past 2 months. Can you discover an unknown function g(x) from, say, a given known function f(x) and composite function fg(x)? Well, if you don't, spend some time mulling over this short write-up I produced HERE (locate full document under "supplementary material" section )
That pretty much sums up my forecasts, which are mostly no-brainers this time round. Whoever gets elected as POTUS, life goes on, and so will every other major examination on the planet thereafter. While you are burning the midnight oil during this season, get an abundance of nutrition within your system and keep a lid on them stress levels. Stay calm, and remember there is much celebration to look forward to after the As.
Good luck kids. Peace.