the word I fear most in a math exam

“Find the area of region R bounded by C, the curve y=ln(3x+e^2+3) and the line y=0”

Press a few buttons on your GC and you’re done in about 10 seconds.

“Find the exact area of region R bounded by C, the curve y=ln(3x+e^2+3) and the line y=0″

A few thousand sheets of paper and ten years later, and they’ll be wondering why there’s a bearded weirdo expanding feverishly away with bits of paper stuck to his hair.

6 thoughts on “the word I fear most in a math exam

  1. Lol. But that question was pretty okay because they made you do the calcs beforehand anyway. (I spent damn long trying to SEE the area they were describing though. For some reason I just couldn’t spot it for a good while. Nerves I guess?)

  2. YES ABEL FREAK MAN WHO EVER SAYS Y=O when they can say x-axis! it took me 20 minutes to figure out that the domain was between -1 and 1 and then again i couldnt get the area

    • “WHO EVER SAYS Y=O when they can say x-axis” haha jonny, quite a lot of people. but yeah very confusing especially since it’s so ambiguous on the GC screen.

      for the volume question i misread “reflect in x-axis” as “…y-axis” spent about 20 minutes gaping and lost 3 marks T_T fml

      anyway, the hardest 40 marks i’ve ever encountered…

  3. ikr…I redid that question four times! Kept mixing my x and u up. And realising there was a “ln” in front. And trying to figure out which graph was above which (thank God for ZBox)

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