As promised, here are some questions from past HSC papers. I can't take credit for putting this together (I found it on the internet several years ago), nor can I vouch for the reliability of the answers. I am in the process of making some worked solutions, and these should be available shortly.
Saturday, 16 November 2013
Friday, 15 November 2013
Complex Numbers on the Khan Academy
I presume that you have all heard of the Khan Academy; if not, it is a free resource that has screencasts of a myriad of subjects. Although it is from the US, and some of the material discussed may not be in our course, it is still an excellent resource to use.
The complex numbers topics are found here.
Tuesday, 12 November 2013
Regions of the Complex Plane
As we move into the final part of the unit on complex numbers, we need to consider the different regions of the complex plane.
These sort of questions traditionally appear early in the paper - in the old regime, it would have been around question 2, and with the new papers, they seem to be appearing in multiple choice questions. However, you should still know how to work these out from the given complex numbers.
These sort of questions traditionally appear early in the paper - in the old regime, it would have been around question 2, and with the new papers, they seem to be appearing in multiple choice questions. However, you should still know how to work these out from the given complex numbers.
Monday, 11 November 2013
Complex Numbers Multiple Choice Test
Embedded here is a multiple choice test on complex numbers. It may look like an ordinary PDF, but it is interactive - you need to only click on the correct choice and it will give instant feedback. (Another example of the beauty of using $\LaTeX$ for typesetting!)
Let me know if there are any problems or wrong answers!
You will need to use Adobe Reader to run it. I use Sumatra, but this won't activate the interactivity.
Let me know if there are any problems or wrong answers!
You will need to use Adobe Reader to run it. I use Sumatra, but this won't activate the interactivity.
Saturday, 9 November 2013
1997 HSC - Higher Roots of Complex Numbers
Continuing with our study of roots of complex numbers, this particular question asked for the cube roots of a complex number. Although the examiner's comments discuss several of the methods attempted by students to solve this one, personally, I think that using polar form (mod-arg) is by far the easiest and most elegant. However, as I have said on many occasions, don't let my mathematical "prejudices" influence you! If you prefer one of the other methods, and can perform the computations correctly, you are at complete liberty to use it!
Thursday, 7 November 2013
2009 HSC - Square Roots of Complex Numbers
In the 2009 HSC, a question was asked requiring students to find the square roots of a complex number, and to then use this result in solving a quadratic equation.
Remember, for the quadratic, because the coefficients are not real, then the roots do not occur as complex conjugate pairs.
Remember, for the quadratic, because the coefficients are not real, then the roots do not occur as complex conjugate pairs.
Wednesday, 6 November 2013
Roots of Complex Numbers
Being able to find square and higher roots of complex numbers is an important part of the HSC course.
Here are some notes that may help you.
Here are some notes that may help you.
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