Benson's Portfolio

Unit 2 Topic A & B Test Reflection (Functions and Statistics)

I chose Question 3 as evidence of my best thinking, as it includes a lot of concepts about statistics learned in class. We had to describe the association, whether or not it was weak, moderate, or strong, of the scatter plot by analyzing the line of best fit. We also had to predict based on the given line of best fit from the real-world problems.

I also chose Question 1 as evidence of my best thinking, as the concepts were rather new to me at the beginning of the unit. It shows the basics of understanding functions as we had to find the characteristics of a line plot, the maximum, minimum, domain, range, intervals of increase and decrease, etc.

Throughout Unit 2, I had a better understanding of the overall concept of functions and its relationship with statistics.

One skill I still need to work on is considering correlation vs. causation when interpreting the correlation coefficient of a given problem. This is also the challenging part during the assessment, as I wasn’t able to fully show my understanding in the Critical Thinker section of the test.

One strategy that was very helpful during this test was reminding myself to use D.O.T.S when analyzing the association of the graph and using the word “predicted” when finding the point on a line of best fit.

Goal Reflection & End-of-Semester Check-In

During Semester 1, I wanted to challenge myself to try L4 questions, which I struggled to master. This was because, L4 questions are designed to be hard and over the standard. It was hard to understand and solve for many L4 questions given during the first semester.

I improved a lot on my accuracy compared to 7th grade as I was able to have time to check my work and have a lower rate of making silly mistakes on my test. I believe that I have also have improved on my notetaking skills during class, as I was able to note down crucial facts and concepts learned in math class.

Something I can improve on is to “clean up” and categorize my notes to make them look neat when I need to review. My handwriting is messy and sometimes my notes are all over the place meaning that sometimes I can’t find my notes.

Next unit, I will still try for the L4 questions while still keeping my accuracy. I will take better notes as in neater and clearly for future reviews. It may be hard at first since my handwriting isn’t the best, but with practice, I think that I will master the skill.

In math class, we were learning about linear functions and piecewise functions. I have designed a story problem with Francis to show our learning.

Our story problem is about the salary of an employee over time, using piecewise functions. I am mostly proud of how successful it was to collaborate with Francis, as we were able to create a model and equations to demonstrate the salary.

The hardest part of creating the piecewise function of the story was showing our work and computations, and also using consistent units for money.

I would add more to the story as I thought it was too easy to follow the story and calculate for the solution. It was a really fun way to show our understanding of piecewise functions while also connecting this to real-life situations.

During PE class, we learned the basic positions in soccer and how to transition from offense to defense. I demonstrated how to dribble and shoot as well as defending the goal, intercepting passes, and chances. I have also created chances for my teammates to score, and spread out to create passing options.

In this unit, we learned how to return a volley using forehand and backhand techniques, while also reviewing how to do a legal serve. I also learned how to use the handshake grip to hold the paddle.

Something I did well was adding spins to my hits, which can make the ball fast and unpredictable. I was engaged in every class and am working on enhancing my skills with the new grip that my friends recommended to me. I believe that my skills with the backhand are improving a lot, as I can win games using these techniques.

Something I need to work on is my forehand, as I cannot control the trajectory of the ball, which usually results in the ball to go off bounds.

Our Probability Fair game was called Ready, Set, Goal! A 4-stage game where we have to complete a bottle flip challenge, a dice roll, and the ball drop. Completing the bottle flip would earn you a Tier 3 prize, the dice roll would result in a Tier 2 prize, and completing the ball drop once, would give you a Tier 1 prize. Finally, to get the Grand Prize, you need to do it again.

There where some conflicts as to decided which challenges to incorporate in our fair. We solved this by adding more challenges, from 2 challenges to 4 to make sure everyone’s ideas are used.

Something that went well was that we had a lot of customers as they thought that our game was interesting and fun. This resulted in the decrease of our prizes as many people participated in our game. Something that went terrible was that there were people trying to steal our grand prize.

Our theoretical probability of winning the Tier 3 prize was 50%, our experimental probability was 54 wins our of 154 entries, which was 35%, which was lower than the theoretical probability. The Tier 2 prize was 25%, our experimental probability was 21% which was fairly close to our theoretical probability. Tier 1 prize was 6%, our experimental probability was 10% which was higher than expected. The Grand Prize was 0.7%, however nobody won the Grand Prize.

What chemical compounds are found in a burger?

A simple molecule that is in a burger is H2O, water, as it is spotted in every ingredient. An extended structure that is in a burger is NaCl, salt, it can be spotted in the meat patty of a burger.

A physical change during the burger making was grilling the meat patty. This is because the proteins breaks down to the extreme heat caused by the fire. A chemical change also occurs when the extreme heat causes the Maillard Reaction which is a chemical change.

Something we can improve is to bring our food the day of the Fun Food Fair as people didn’t want to eat our stuff because it was in the fridge for a week.