Reflection

In this unit of quadratics, I managed to grasp a lot of knowledge about quadratics, its different forms and how it’s used in real life. At a first glance, I thought that the quadratics unit would be difficult and I wouldn’t be able to understand concepts that came with it. However, as I slowly learned quadratics, its formulas, how each form can change from one to another, and how quickly you can transition from one concept to the next, I started to like it and even appreciate it. This unit changed my perspective on how I see the world, now a McDonalds’ sign, a bridge, or the path of a ball kicked into the air are no longer just regular things, they are all parabolas.

This unit was a very interesting and difficult journey, and there were a few things that I liked and a few things that I disliked. Somethings that I really liked were the quadratic formula and the transformations a quadratic relation can go through. This is because both of these were very simple concepts and lessons to learn, it involved no guesswork, room for mistakes, and everything was sure to be accurate. The transformations were like a pattern, the only difference were the a, h, and k values, while everything else was the same. Wherefore in the quadratic formula, you didn’t have to spend a lot of time on a single problem you could use the formula and have the question solved in no time. However, in this unit I did not like some concepts, like factoring trinomials, because it involved a lot of trial and error, and it was really time consuming. As a person who likes solving problems quickly and accurately it was troublesome that I had to spend a lot of time on a single problem just figuring out what two factors multiplied together to equal the sum but also when added together equaled the product. But overall it was great experience, and one of the most exciting and educational units I had ever done.

In this unit we had a lot of assessments, and gratefully I did really well on most of them. But today I would to showcase an assessment that I didn’t particularly do very well on. As humans we are all prone to mistakes, and after getting a hundred on the vertex form unit test it was really discouraging to get in the low 90’s on the unit test for factoring. Although I had worked hard on this test, unfortunately I didn’t manage my time efficiently during the test, and spent so long on one question that it didn’t give me enough time to apply myself fully on the communication questions. However, I did manage to come back strong and I was able to work hard and get a better mark on my standard form unit test. This experience taught me that during a test if I am ever faced with a hard or difficult question I should skip it and leave it till the end, and not waste time on it and jeopardize my marks for the other questions. I also learned that I should practice a few communication questions before a test so that I may have an idea of what may come so I am able to answer it correctly.