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Who will benefit from the information on the Petran Maths site? Q: Who will benefit from the information on the Petran Maths site? Petran Maths is designed to support the Grade 11 and Grade 12 higher and standard grade maths students and teachers. Q: What does it cost to become a member? The subscription fee is dependant on the number of students a school (or an individual) register. The more students that register the lower the cost per individual. The subscription fees are:
Q: What benefit do I get for my money? Petran Maths consist of a database that contains 1100 + questions and detailed answers with descriptions and reference to principles used. (February 2002) New unique questions are added on a regular bases. All the questions are of test/exam quality. The benefits to the individual are:
We believe these functions will assist the teacher as well as the student, specifically in preparing for final year-end examinations, as well as class work during the year. Q: How does the Exam Centre work? Once you are a member of Petran Mathematics, select the Exam Centre from the Member section. The following web page will be displayed.
 From this page you can:
1 Select to start with a new Exam Start a new exam by selecting your Exam Criteria from the selection boxes in the “Begin a new exam” part of the screen. The options are:
When your selection is complete, select ‘Proceed’. The system will then generate a random exam paper, giving you questions based on your criteria. No two papers selected will have exactly the same questions as each paper’s questions are selected randomly from the question database. Print the Exam paper in ‘Portrait’ format to your printer. The system will always save the last Exam paper selected. This gives you the opportunity to return to the system once you have answered the paper to verify your attempt against a memorandum, 2 Proceed with the previously selected exam This option allows you to retrieve the last Exam paper you created. To retrieve the last Exam paper created select ‘Previous Exam’. Once the questions are displayed on the screen, double click in the question text to display the answer sequence for the question. Follow the instructions on the screen to display all the steps in the answer. 3 Begin a new Test
All Tests generated by the system consist of 5 questions based on your criteria. A specific test can only be based on one Discipline (Algebra, Trigonometry, Analytical Geometry (Grade 12 only) and Geometry, and one related Sub Discipline.
This is the first part of the criteria. To select the last part, select ‘Proceed’. The following page will be displayed.
 This screen will display the Discipline you selected (Algebra in the example) . Select he Sub-discipline and then ‘Proceed’ to generate the test. No two tests will have exactly the same questions as each test’s questions are selected in a random fashion from the question database. Once displayed on the screen, print the test in Portrait format on your printer, or click on a specific question to display the (step by step) memorandum for this question. The system will always save the last test generated to allow you to return to the test at a later stage to check your answers against the memorandum 4 Previous test You will always be able to display the last test generated by the system by selecting the ‘Previous test’ option. Once the questions are displayed on the screen, double click in the question text to display the answer sequence Q: How do I do random questions?
A full description of this facility is available from the Demonstration option on the Q: When is the best time to start using Petran Maths? It is suggested that the student enrol during his/her Grade 11 year and work with the information on the website until his/her final Matric exam. This will allow the student great exposure to the complete syllabus for both the grades, especially the final preparation for the Matric and prelim exam. However, the student can enrol anytime during the year and start using the information. Q: Does Petran Math replace the Math teacher? Absolutely not. The Math teacher plays a very important role in the life of a Grade 11 and 12 students. He/she is the one that will teach you math. The ultimate objective of Petran Maths is not to replace the teacher but to:
Q: How do I know that Petran Maths will still be available next year and the year after? We know that there is a need for such a learning aid. We would hate to see all the effort and cost that went into the creation of Petran Maths go wasted, therefore, we are committed to provide this service to Grade 11 and 12 students for many years. We do believe that maths is an important subject for any career a student might want to pursue. The more exposure he/she can get during the last two years of his/her schooling in the subject the better results will be obtained in the final exam, which will open many opportunities for his/her future. This in itself is a great motivator for us to be around for a long time. Q: Is the question database updated on a regular basis? The content of the database will change continuously. That is, new questions will be added and if the syllabus changes we will have to update the database to accommodate the changes. In other words, the database will always reflect the current syllabus and have enough easy and challenging questions loaded in all the disciplines (Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry and Analytical Geometry) in all the sub disciplines and difficulty level to keep the student occupied for the specific year of study. Q: How do I know that my access to Petran Maths is exclusive? Each student will be allocated a unique user-name and password the day he enrols. This user-name and password will be email-ed on registration and will remain your property until the day your membership expires. If you keep this information to yourself, no unauthorised person will be able to enter the Petran Maths Learning and Exam Centre on your behalf. Yes you can. If you forward you current user-name and password to us via the provided Email facility (Contact Details) and we will change it and forward the new password to you. Q: What happens if I forget/lose my password? Identify yourself to us via the provided Email facility and we will do the necessary. Q: What type of computer equipment do I need to benefit most from using Petran Maths? After careful consideration and looking at the type of information that will be displayed, the designers of the website decided to design the website for a 800 x 600 dpi screen layout as the default. Therefore, to optimally benefit from the visual aspect of the information, you should have a screen that can work with this resolution. It does not mean that a screen with a 640 x 480 will not be able to display the information; you will just have to do a lot of paging up and down to see everything. Any screen with a higher resolution will be fine. The ultimate decision for screen resolution will be yours and with whatever you are comfortable is the best. In terms of the other PC hardware, it is important that you can connect to the Internet, therefore you will need a modem. Modems comes in different speeds and obviously the higher the speed the better will be the transfer of information between yourself and the Petran Website. A 56k mode is currently the better option. The ‘slower’ modems range from 4800 bpi to 1400 bpi. The smaller the number the slower the transfer rate. Again the decision of modem is entirely yours. It could be a cost consideration in the end. The 56k external modem sells for about R400 - R500. Q: Who are the people behind Petran Maths? Petran Mathematics is the brainchild of a maths teacher who have been teaching the subject for 20 years of which the last 12 years have been exclusively for Grade 11 and 12 students. Q: Can students outside South Africa use Petran Maths? Although Petran Maths was created for the South African student, it is available to anyone that have access to the Internet. We think that all Maths Students can benefit from the information contained in the database. Petran however, will only support the South African syllabus. Q: Are there any extra costs involved apart from my subscription and initial admin fee? The only extra cost you will have to subscribe to Petran Maths is you computer, if you do not already own one, and the charges for the telephone usage. This can be minimal as the call rate for local telephone calls outside of the peak time is about R3.00 - R4.00 an hour. These are the current rates for 2000 - 2001 and could change. Please refer to your local telephone directory for updated telephone cost information. Q: What happens if my subscription period expires? When you subscription period expires, your username and password will not allow you access to the website. You will have to re subscribe. It is important to remember that all subscriptions will expire at the end of the academic year. The academic year starts on 1st February and ends 31st January the following year. Q: Will Petran Maths be expanded to include other grades? At the moment our expertise is focussed on the Grade 11 ad 12 students and because we have been busy with this group of students for a number of years, we believe that we have a good understanding of their requirements. If there is an interest from the other high school grades, we will have to investigate the possibility to create a facility for their exclusive purpose as well. Petran Maths will however always be dedicated to the mentioned grades. Q: Will Petran Personnel be available during holiday periods? As it is our objective to assist the student in passing the exams we will definitely be available during school holidays.
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