Australian Geometry Test Too Difficult?

[Paul Dale]

I suspect this test required a little creative thought and that stymied the examinees rather more than the problems' difficulties. The knowledge required to solve these problems was contained within the high school curriculum (in oz a couple of years ago when my daughters were doing it):

• angles in a regular polygon
• angle inscribed in a semicircle is 90°
• triangle angles sum to 180°
• angle on a line is 180°
• tangent to a circle and radius meet at 90°
• similar triangle properties
• Pythagoras's theorem
• the Pythagorean triad 1:√3:2 has angles 90°, 60° and 30° (this one isn't necessarily taught)
• perhaps some of the basic plane geometry theorems (not sure if they are required)
  

Pauli