Review of VCE Mathematics
Summary of changes from the 2014 consultation
draft to the revised and re-accredited study design
for implementation in 2016
Foundation Mathematics Units 1 and 2
There have been minor edits and refinements throughout, however no significant changes have
been made to the areas of study and topics, or to the outcomes and key knowledge and key skills
from the consultation draft to the final revised study.
General Mathematics Units 1 and 2
There have been minor edits and refinements throughout. In addition:

effective interest rates and asset depreciation have been removed from the topic Financial
arithmetic
Mathematical Methods Units 1 and 2
There have been minor edits and refinements throughout. In addition:



the law of total probability has been moved to Unit 1 from Unit 2 so that all of the rules and
relations for events occur in one unit.
the relationship sin( x)  x for small values of x has been included in the ‘Functions and
graphs’ area of study for Unit 2
logarithmic scales has been removed from the ‘Functions and graphs’ area of study for
Unit 2
Specialist Mathematics Units 1 and 2
There have been minor edits and refinements throughout. In addition:

Gaussian integers and primes have been removed from the topic Number systems and
recursion

truth trees have been removed from the topic Logic and algebra
© VCAA March 2015
Review of VCE <Study>
Further Mathematics Units 3 and 4
There have been minor edits and refinements throughout. In addition:

the General Mathematics topic Computation and practical arithmetic has replaced the topic
Financial arithmetic with respect to coverage of assumed knowledge and skills for the Core
area of study in Further Mathematics

for Recursion and financial modelling students are expected to be able to apply recurrence
relations from first principles for n  5
The module Geometry and measurement has been revised to:

remove the use of Simpson’s rule for estimating the surface area of irregular shapes

remove the interpretation and use of contour maps

remove the area of lune and lens and applications

remove determination of the great circle distance between any two points on the surface of
the earth using s  r central
Mathematical Methods Units 3 and 4
There have been minor edits and refinements throughout, however no significant changes have
been made to the areas of study and topics, or to the outcomes and key knowledge and key skills
from the consultation draft to the final revised study.
Specialist Mathematics Units 3 and 4
There have been minor edits and refinements throughout, in addition:





graphs of regions in the complex plane have been removed
the application of integration to problems involving the exponential distribution has been
removed
limiting equilibrium when a body is at rest has been removed
linear combinations of random variables have been included
hypothesis testing for a population mean has been included
For School-based assessment the requirement for Unit 4 that one of the modeling or problemsolving tasks is to be related to the ‘Probability and statistics’ area of study has been modified to
the requirement that one of the modelling or problem-solving tasks is to be related to the
‘Mechanics’ or ‘Probability and statistics’ area of study.
© VCAA March 2015
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