Scholarship Calculus

Scholarship Calculus offers students the opportunity to demonstrate high-level critical thinking, abstraction and generalisation, and to integrate and apply knowledge, skills, understanding, and ideas to complex situations.  Questions will be set in the areas of:

• patterns and relationships
• equations and expressions
• Calculus at level 7 and level 8.

The questions could be taken from any Level 8 Mathematics achievement objectives of the New Zealand Curriculum.  Individual questions may cover the content of more than one area. Questions may be set in both mathematical and real-life contexts. Questions involving unfamiliar situations may be set, but necessary information will be supplied in the question.

In the 3 hour scholarship exam, it is expected that students attempt all four questions and show all relevant working, give answers in exact form. Part-questions may require written responses. This may be comparison or discussion of mathematical models, procedures, or techniques – heir uses, benefits, and / or limitations.

At scholarship level students can provide innovative and insightful solutions to problems, are in command of the foundational principles of Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus and can apply their knowledge and skills in complex problems and problems in unfamiliar context.

Outstanding scholarship students can demonstrate a high level of abstract thinking and a thorough understanding of the NZ Mathematics curriculum and are able to apply multiple strands of the curriculum. They are also expected to show clear communicational skills by setting out the problems logically.