Various notes for NCEA/NZ Scholarship
These notes pertain to several NZ NCEA/Scholarship standards. I have split them into folders per subject, and the original
LaTeX code is available for most. Any errata/feedback encouraged either via email or the issue tracker.
Hopefully the folder structure is relatively straightforward.
See this page. Very work-in-progress; please note the disclaimer.
I am not currently tutoring L1, there is not much I have to add in the way of notes as most of the material
is either revision from Y9/10 or simple calculations.
In addition, I have some questions on numeracy and basic skills.
My new Level Two Mathematics notes are available here. The sheets include:
There is also a sheet of diagnostic questions that assess the bare minimum of skills and knowledge required for the transition to L3.
I have almost completed the process of reworking and reorganising my L3/Scholarship maths notes; I have written the following sets of notes, designed
to be used broadly in the given logical order and aligned with the L2 notes above.
I also have a document containing some additional exam practice questions (without solutions). Use
at your own risk.
One should note that the majority of my notes are at a slightly higher level than is strictly required. As such, students should be
guided through skipping or only lightly touching some sections (for example, the functional definition of the trig functions in my
trig notes is only of use to students that are very comfortable with the geometric definition of the functions from L2 or earlier).
The conic sections notes in particular require a significant amount of mathematical sophistication on the part of the student, and
as such I would probably only use them for scholarship students. (With the right mentoring, L3 students could probably profit from
them as well; if anyone does this, I would be intrigued to hear the results.)
For the interested. I am working on a revised version of my calculus notes; this is not complete yet, but what has been
done can be found here. There is a very definite philosophy that I am trying to convey with
these new notes, based somewhat on a mixture of numeric approximations and the treatment of elementary calculus given in
Loomis and Sternberg; my idea of the `correct’ way to understand calculus has changed significantly from when I wrote my
older notes above, and I am no longer happy with them.
If the rewriting goes successfully, I will likely give a similar treatment to the algebra notes, as Solutions is beginning
to bend under the weight of three or four years of constant bolting-on of new pieces of random mathematics.
I have written a set of very terse notes.
In progress: Homeworks (and some other notes) for Alexander, general bibliography. Final plan is to have a full reading course written.