Choosing Specialist Mathematics

[AIFN68]

Hello all,

I am in Year 10 this year and I am wondering whether to choose Specialist Mathematics 1&2 next year. I am currently doing Biology 1&2, and am going to do Biology 3&4 and Further Mathematics 3&4 next year. I am going through a pseudo Mathematical Methods 1&2 course right now, which covers almost all of the content of Mathematical Methods 1&2 and some superficial elements of specific Specialist Mathematics 1&2 topics.

I will do Mathematical Methods 1&2 in Year 11 as well, and will most likely take that year as a chance to go ahead to Mathematical Methods 3&4 myself the year before I will complete it in school. I have also started a Specialist Mathematics 1&2 tuition recently, and hope to have Unit 1 and half of Unit 2 completed by the start of next year, which is when I will start it in school. This will effectively give me ample time to complete Unit 3&4 myself before I start it in school.

I will be doing English 3&4, Mathematical Methods 3&4, Chemistry 3&4 and one other subject in Year 12. I am wondering if doing Specialist Mathematics is practical for my workload in those next 2 years, as I have heard of Specialist Mathematics' notorious difficulty and workload. I am getting A's (over 85s) in pseudo Mathematical Methods 1&2 currently, but even with my secure foundation in Mathematics, I am still double-minded on doing Specialist Mathematics next year. I am aiming for 97+, hopefully, 98 ATAR, as I am hoping to gain admission to Undergraduate Medicine at Monash University. 

If anyone has the time, please give me some advice regarding my matter.

[Sine]

I don't think specialist maths is inherently that much of a bigger workload compared to other subjects, the concepts may be of a higher level, but the amount of content is probably similar to other subjects. Also if you are completing the content early it will free up some time when you actually do it in school.

Hope this helps

[mabajas76]

If you are planning on doing medicine, not sure if you need spec, maybe biology would be better lol. However if you enjoy math, then man do I recommend spec. probably the 3 biggest perks of spec are its scaling (I think one year it was like 13-14), its content (way different way of learning an super fun) and the style of working. If you just memorize working out or learn formulas, u will suck. Sorry but spec is Math, and some of it is about as Math as you can get. If you don't understand, and I mean really get your head around the theory of why certain formulas work, then you r gonna struggle with certain topics. Theory is pretty important. However the third, and in my opinion the best perk is the solutions, and that is that their kinda are not any. Even on the exam (only if it is ambiguous), it will just give you a problem and you may solve it any way you wish, if you have a geometry problem, and you recreate it as a set of equations on a graph and solve it like that, you can get full marks! Creativity is encouraged and many problems are at your whim to choose which mathematical tool you will select to solve it, algebra, circle theroms, geometry in the plane, trig, the possibilities are endless! Also difficulty is exaggerated, it covers a fair chunk of methods and general and is mostly just new stuff that gets people. Enjoy!