[Group 5]What I personally think about the shift of Maths SL

[tutorinseoul]

Hello everyone! I intend to write some informative IB maths related articles. I'd like to help students all around the world to feel better and be better for IB maths! Today, I'd like to start with my opinion of Maths SL's current shift for questions types. Thank you for your time in advance, please share your opinions on comments below.

I think this question sums up very well how the approach of Maths SL will go: http://imgur.com/a/LBrZ6

If you see this question, you can realize prior to 2015 papers, you need TRANSLATION of questions. Before 2015, it was more like apply 'Cosine Law' to get a length of an obtuse triangle, or use Normal distribution to work out probability etc. Not much 'mixed' questions.

I personally think this question fits more for HL section A type question. Let us have look what IB expects from a student to know to attempt this SL question.

Here, the important tactics of translating the question is to understand the 'terms' given.

If you read the question, you realize few terms to pick up: 1) Intersection 2) Exactly One point 3) trigonometric function in terms of 'tanx'

So, to translate intersection, we need to make function f(x)=g(x) And then, when you realize 'the number of solution,' what IB expects you is that you need to realize 'aha, only the chapter that deals with 'number of solutions' was the discriminant part from quadratic equation/function.'

Then you realize you need to covert your initial functions into quadratics, which requires substitution. Then for the given domain of x and the range of k, we can work out the k since 'exactly one solution' deals with discriminant being zero!

I would say this question would've been a typical section A of HL paper. If they asked to find the 'hence, find the solution for x,' this would've been a intermediate section B question.

From my observation, I personally think the difficulty of SL paper will be the worst this year. It was like this all the time; when paper 3 for Caulus (option9) had been so easy (hence the high grade boundary), they give the worst paper for May 2016. (Although I think this was a fair paper and questions weren't that hard) Then after some complaints HUGE moderation was made for November 2016 option 9 paper (incredibly easier than the year before)

My tips for Maths SL Students are 1. Focus on Calculus. I think there will be more questions relating to Calculus based on facts that great portion of 45,000 intakers of SL does study management/business related subjects in college, hence the more emphasis on calculus would do no harms

1. Advanced vector/statistics questions related to 'practical' or 'wordy' questions, such as shortest paths/will the boat collide with reef/normal distribution mixed with binomial distribution.

Thank you for reading and good luck everyone!

[IB`NOT`ez]

44 minutes ago, tutorinseoul said:

Hello everyone! I intend to write some informative IB maths related articles. I'd like to help students all around the world to feel better and be better for IB maths! Today, I'd like to start with my opinion of Maths SL's current shift for questions types. Thank you for your time in advance, please share your opinions on comments below.

I think this question sums up very well how the approach of Maths SL will go: http://imgur.com/a/LBrZ6

If you see this question, you can realize prior to 2015 papers, you need TRANSLATION of questions. Before 2015, it was more like apply 'Cosine Law' to get a length of an obtuse triangle, or use Normal distribution to work out probability etc. Not much 'mixed' questions.

I personally think this question fits more for HL section A type question. Let us have look what IB expects from a student to know to attempt this SL question.

Here, the important tactics of translating the question is to understand the 'terms' given.

If you read the question, you realize few terms to pick up: 1) Intersection 2) Exactly One point 3) trigonometric function in terms of 'tanx'

So, to translate intersection, we need to make function f(x)=g(x) And then, when you realize 'the number of solution,' what IB expects you is that you need to realize 'aha, only the chapter that deals with 'number of solutions' was the discriminant part from quadratic equation/function.'

Then you realize you need to covert your initial functions into quadratics, which requires substitution. Then for the given domain of x and the range of k, we can work out the k since 'exactly one solution' deals with discriminant being zero!

I would say this question would've been a typical section A of HL paper. If they asked to find the 'hence, find the solution for x,' this would've been a intermediate section B question.

From my observation, I personally think the difficulty of SL paper will be the worst this year. It was like this all the time; when paper 3 for Caulus (option9) had been so easy (hence the high grade boundary), they give the worst paper for May 2016. (Although I think this was a fair paper and questions weren't that hard) Then after some complaints HUGE moderation was made for November 2016 option 9 paper (incredibly easier than the year before)

My tips for Maths SL Students are 1. Focus on Calculus. I think there will be more questions relating to Calculus based on facts that great portion of 45,000 intakers of SL does study management/business related subjects in college, hence the more emphasis on calculus would do no harms

1. Advanced vector/statistics questions related to 'practical' or 'wordy' questions, such as shortest paths/will the boat collide with reef/normal distribution mixed with binomial distribution.

Thank you for reading and good luck everyone!

good. no sport otherwise. 

jk for reals tho fml.

I have had my suspicions that this May '17 Maths SL exam session will be the toughest Maths SL will ever be. Have been practicing A-Level Maths & HL Maths (Section A) questions for the past few months in preparation, so hopefully will be able to handle whatever the IB throws at us.

I'm not sure about others but when I attempted that question and discussed it with my Maths teacher, we didn't find it overtly difficult – yet relative to previous Maths SL papers, it was shock. 

Oh and great article! Extremely practical information that should have actually been in IB subject reports, but oh well. Good luck with more future articles – looking forward to them!

Edited March 15, 2017 by IB`ez

[tutorinseoul]

Thank you for your comment :). I will try to upload questions daily by topics. Hope it will help many people out! Will also try to upload SL related questions. Cheers!