Sydney University’s 2019 intake provided with calculus catch-up

The University of Sydney will offer an online calculus course for school-leavers who do not meet the tough new maths prerequisites

The University of Sydney will offer a catch-up online calculus course for school-leavers who do not meet the university’s ­tougher new requirements for maths prerequisites that come into force next year.

The five-week course, titled ­introduction to calculus, will be available for $64 through US massive open online course ­provider Coursera from December 10.

Students who have applied to the University of Sydney but who do not satisfy the maths prerequisite for their course can do the MOOC and then sit a maths exam at the university early next year in order to be admitted.

They must get at least 70 per cent of questions correct in the two-hour, multiple-choice exam, which will be offered next year on January 24 and 31 and on ­February 7.

Questions will be different for each sitting and students can try more than once.

The university has won praise from maths and science educators for requiring students starting university next year directly from school to have studied calculus-standard maths in Year 12 if they are doing degrees in science, ­engineering, medicine, veterinary science, pharmacy, IT and computing, commerce, economics or psychology.

The new requirement means the University of Sydney has the toughest maths prerequisites of any university in Australia.

It is the only NSW university to ­require calculus-standard maths for maths-heavy degrees.

University of Sydney maths ­associate professor David Easdown said even though the course was titled introduction to calculus, it taught students broader topics including manipulation of equations and how to handle various types of functions.

He said even though the exam was multiple choice, students would still need to use pen and paper to find the correct ­answers.

Professor Easdown said passing the exam would be “very strong evidence” that the student had “mastered basic techniques and have an understanding of why the technique works”.