LETTERS AND NUMBERS: Orange High School students Bradley Rossiter, Adam Griffith and Amanda Allen discuss the mathematics extension two exam. Photo: JUDE KEOGH 1022hsc1
ORANGE High School student Adam Griffith wants to be an aeronautical engineer. Student Amanda Allen’s mum and sister are maths teachers and student Bradley Rossiter wants to be an engineer yet they all thought the mathematics extension two exam was extremely difficult.
They general consensus was that it was far more difficult than the students had prepared for.
Bradley steamed through the multiple choice section yet became unstuck about halfway through.
Amanda said she’d memorised all her formulas the night before but had a mental blank the second she walked into the hall, whereas Adam was prepared for the worst.
“I expected I wouldn’t find it easy,” said Adam.
“I was pretty prepared for how I feel about it.”
Bradley knew he wasn’t in for a cruisy exam when he enrolled in extension two maths but nothing could have prepared him for the shock.
“I felt pretty prepared before I came in but a lot of the ones where you had to prove something were really hard to prove,” he said.
For those who have never done extension two mathematics, the exam looked like a foreign language paper. There were diagrams, graphs, Greek symbols and sentences comprised of incomprehensible lines, dashes, letters, symbols and questions that took up a whole page.
The students joined 55,100 students across the state taking part in at least one HSC maths course.
These courses include: general mathematics, mathematics, mathematics extension one, Mathematics extension two, mathematics life skills and mathematics applied.
Mathematics is the second most popular subject.
