SACE Stage 2 General Mathematics formula sheet: what you get and what to write on your notes

Formula sheet

Mathematical Methods, Specialist Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry each get a sheet from the Board, so a student who has read about those may expect one for General Mathematics. There is none. We have therefore not made a sheet for the drawer: the guide below tells you what the Board does give you and how to build your own. Compare the Board's Methods formula sheet, which is a real one-page sheet.

What the Board gives you in General Maths

The exam rules page gives Methods and Specialist students two unfolded sheets (four sides) and General and Essential Mathematics students one, so you have half the space. Our QCE General Maths formula book guide and WACE Applications sheet guide show states that do give a sheet.

What the 2025 paper actually tested

The Board's 2025 General Mathematics paper shows what the notes sheet needs to cover. These are its questions, by marks:

Roughly half the marks sit in finance and networks. A notes sheet that handles those two topics well is worth more than one that tries to hold everything.

What to put on one A4 sheet

• Finance steps for your calculator. The key presses for compound interest, loan balances and annuity values, and the order of the inputs, since the paper uses a graphics calculator.
• Effective annual rate. The effective rate for interest compounded n times a year is (1 + r ÷ n)^n − 1, where r is the annual rate as a decimal.
• Network rules. How to do the forward scan (earliest start) and backward scan (latest start), the critical path as the path with zero float, and what a dummy link is for.
• Regression. The calculator steps for a linear and an exponential model, and for r, plus the residual: observed value minus predicted value.
• Normal distribution. The 68, 95 and 99.7 percent rule and the calculator steps for probabilities, and for a missing standard deviation.
• Command words. A line on what "calculate", "show that" and "interpret" ask for.

Worked examples to put on your notes

Example 1: effective annual rate

A savings account pays 3.9% a year, compounded monthly. The effective rate formula, with r = 0.039 and n = 12, gives:

That is 3.97% a year, which is the rate you compare between accounts.

Example 2: a residual

A model predicts 120 visitors on a day when 134 visitors came. The residual is the observed value minus the predicted value:

A positive residual means the model underestimated that day.

Example 3: the empirical rule

Bag weights are normally distributed with mean 18.5 kg and standard deviation 2.7 kg. About 95% of bags lie within two standard deviations of the mean:

Work through probability and statistics ideas in the Probability course.

Practise with a notes sheet

Our Year 12 Statistics (Standard and General Maths) daily paper is a short timed paper of 8 questions worth 25 to 35 marks. It is not a SACE paper. Write your A4 sheet, then sit the paper with only that sheet and your calculator, and see what you missed.

Exam answers

The answers and a worked mark scheme come with today's paper once it is marked. They show which method each question wanted. We do not publish official answers, past paper answers or leaked papers.

Read next

Australia · SACESACE General Maths: Stage 2 exam on Topics 3, 4 and 5SACE General Maths for Stage 2: the six topics, why the exam covers only Topics 3 to 5, notes allowed, the 2026 date, SATAC and a daily practice paper.