2023 Methods FIA2 Collective Feedback:

Please read through and consider all of these points, not just the ones your teacher flagged for
you personally. Please note that your feedback is not an exhaustive list of deficits; simply
addressing them may not be sufficient for getting a 20/20

1. Introduction: Make clear in the introduction what the report is about and what you are
trying to achieve. A person 100 years from now should be able to pick up this paper with no
context and understand what it’s about. This isn’t a full summary of everything you do in the
paper and its conclusions (you’re thinking of an Abstract), it is just an introduction to the
problem that is going to be solved.

2. Assumptions: Please make sure this is something where you are assuming some things to
allow you to create or extrapolate your model. This should have some basis in reality, but
doesn’t have to be absolutely true (all assumptions are approximations to smooth over
reality, and so they are often at least a little bit wrong.)

a. Appropriate assumption: your assumption needs to be suitable for the

context/task

b. Make sure you are listing those assumptions that you need to make to be able to
solve and find your model

c. You can check the appropriateness of your assumption by considering how your
solution would possibly change if you don’t have that assumption

3. Observations: List things that you notice about the data or the scenario at the outset which
will affect your analysis. These are things you are including in your analysis.

4. Documenting Assumptions and Observations: To get those documentation marks, please

ensure that you not only make clear why they are relevant to the model, but that you can
provide some evidence backing them up, whether using something you have in the report
itself or with an external citation. To get full marks in Formulate you must have
documented three appropriate assumptions and accurately documented three relevant
observations. Doing this is an easy way to get marks, so please don’t neglect these!

5. Procedures: Lay out the mathematical tools you are going to use in this task. Any technique
used here which is beyond grade 9 maths should be briefly explained: make it clear what it
does and how it’s used to a person who is unfamiliar. This does not mean you need to give a
full explanation to teach a novice how to do it; this isn’t a textbook chapter. This is not
where you lay out the full details of how you are going to solve the problem, that description
belongs in the calculations section, besides the calculations themselves.

a. Here you also might like to add the formulas you will use in the task.

6. Calculations: show your process for how you got the equations describing the path of your
rollercoaster. Check the accuracy of your calculations. You do not need to show every step
of your calculations (especially if the process is repetitive), the details can be put in the
 appendix. Be sure your approach isn’t just trial and error, make sure you are using a
systematic approach to finding an appropriate solution (i.e. solving for the unique equation
which satisfies some series of conditions you have set.)

a. If you used a simpler process to get your model (e.g. using only quadratics) you’ll
want to make sure you are putting in the calculations to verify that your model
satisfies every condition you’d wish it to.

7. Make sure to label all graphs and tables (e.g. Figure 1, Table 4, etc.) and a title explaining
what it is showing.

8. Make sure every mathematical procedure used is appropriate and contributes to the final
solution. Justify your use of these equations in the paper e.g. why did you use a quartic
rather than a cubic or quadratic? Why 4 quadratics rather than 3? What advantage does a
quintic have for your purposes? etc.

a. If your final model is a piecewise function, make sure that this is clearly stated.

9. Evaluation: Take a step back and talk about the reasonableness of your favoured model. Do
the assumptions you made hold up? What implications might it have if they weren’t totally
true? Refer to ISMG.

10. Evaluation: What strengths and weaknesses does model/process for deriving the model
have? What does it accomplish and what does it fail to accomplish? What is and isn’t
accounted for?

11. Conclusion: Briefly summarise the findings of the report.