ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => VCE Mathematics => VCE Mathematics/Science/Technology => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE Mathematical Methods CAS => Topic started by: AllG_ on November 18, 2014, 10:19:48 pm
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Saw a similar thread in the chemistry board, so I decided to make a similar thread here. I was wondering what would you guys recommend me and other students who will be doing U3/4 Methods next year to do during the summer holidays as preparation? Would you recommend start doing the exercises from chapter 1, or perhaps start self learning the new concepts in U3/4 that weren't covered in U1/2 (advanced calculus like chain rule, binomial distribution in prob.) as most of the topics in U3/4 are the same in U1/2 anyway just harder.
Any advice would be appreciated. Cheers :)
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Same boat - anything would be much appreciated. Depending on how headstart goes will depend how the holidays pan out. ive never had the teacher before so if he lets us take notes in class then ill probs starting working through the 1st chapter. If he prefers us to just simply listen then ill probably spend the holidays writing notes for the 1st chapter. See how it pans out. This will allow some tolerance in my study and allow me to spend more time on questions and hard checkpoint exam style questions.
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Tough question... Trying my best to remember what I did 2 years ago :P
I think before anything, read over the 1/2 notes/exams/outcomes and consolidate everything. 3/4 is very strongly based on these roots so its crucial you have no qualms with the work.
From there, I think it would be a good idea to have a skim over the textbook, especially the explanations and worked questions. You don't have to master all the concepts or be able to answer questions proficiently, but since methods has quite a long course, and its a good idea to expose yourself to whats coming. This should help once you learn the topics in class to ensure that you can grasp them quickly and get straight into it. Because you've seen the topics already, it wont take as long to understand, and you will build good connections in your head on the second listening.
If you have some more motivation, it may not hurt to get your feet wet and start doing questions. As I said, its a long course, and spreading work out may be a good idea. However, make sure of two things:
- If there are questions you can't do, make a note, and make sure to go over with your teacher later. Don't forget about these or neglect them. If these questions/concepts are used later on in a chapter, its best to stop doing questions of this chapter at this point.
- Don't get burnt out! There's a whole year ahead, so you also want to enjoy your holidays and relax before the work kicks in. Also, if you condense a lot of work before the year starts, you may have trouble remembering these skills later in the year. The key to methods is spreading the learning out.
Hope that helps. Feel free to ask me any Qs
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Do preparation that actually matters. Do just what you would be doing if it wasn't holiday, i.e. make notes, do practice problems.
Problem with pre-study is that it is usually very inefficient and you end up achieving very little because you are on holidays so there is no strong incentive/motive to study hard.
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Don't waste your time revising unit 1 & 2, id recommend just trying to get a really good grasp of the first few concepts and possibly if you get time go a bit ahead.
Overall, good luck and enjoy your holidays while they last! Don't over study during the summer break you don't want to burn out throughout the year ;)
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for methods i would say if you can do and understand the first 4 chapters of the 3/4 textbook (going off cambridge essentials) then you will be well set up to start the year
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Do the holiday homework. Our school (surprisingly in two periods) during transition taught us the chain rule, product rule and quotient rule for calculus. They then gave us a formula sheet from VCAA with all the derivatives so we could do the questions in the text book. Really good to start practising these things, so you can do them in a flash once you get into school
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Wierd that your school has not set you exercises to do for holidays, luckly ::)
Well my school has set chapter 1 to do over the holidays which polynomials and graphs.
She also gave us notes, on all graphs. Like a info page each of Linear, Quadratic to Quartic explaining which ones are negative, different sorts of function and what they mean (like (x+a)^2(x+b)... the 2 means it bounces off the intercept) And how to solve the x. Ohh and also maybe make notes of how you can make your CAS calculator useful, to solve certain things. You should also try to memorise pascals triangle I guess, and other important components like this.
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Wierd that your school has not set you exercises to do for holidays, luckly ::)
Well my school has set chapter 1 to do over the holidays which polynomials and graphs.
She also gave us notes, on all graphs. Like a info page each of Linear, Quadratic to Quartic explaining which ones are negative, different sorts of function and what they mean (like (x+a)^2(x+b)... the 2 means it bounces off the intercept) And how to solve the x. Ohh and also maybe make notes of how you can make your CAS calculator useful, to solve certain things. You should also try to memorise pascals triangle I guess, and other important components like this.
Hey, would it be possible if you sent me the notes on the different types of graphs? I'd be so grateful if you could but understand if you cant. Ive been looking for something like that, that i can quickly refer to in the mean time before i get my notes. Thanks.
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Hey, would it be possible if you sent me the notes on the different types of graphs? I'd be so grateful if you could but understand if you cant. Ive been looking for something like that, that i can quickly refer to in the mean time before i get my notes. Thanks.
Ofcourse, I'd be happy to help out, I'll try my best tonight :)
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Since people are looking for notes, just thought I'd remind that there's this amazing resource on ATAR Notes right here with plenty of notes for you to look through and enjoy~
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Ofcourse, I'd be happy to help out, I'll try my best tonight :)
Awesome. Thanks so much.
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Guys any advice to absolutely demolish the methods exam next year?
Also, is it possible to get 100% on the exam? lol, i may or may not be aiming to do that ;)
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Guys any advice to absolutely demolish the methods exam next year?
Also, is it possible to get 100% on the exam? lol, i may or may not be aiming to do that ;)
Were all aiming for that, but were bad at quickscoping.
I had to. 8)
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Were all aiming for that, but were bad at quickscoping.
I had to. 8)
How are those notes coming along? ;)
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How are those notes coming along? ;)
o momento, I'm trying now
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Guys any advice to absolutely demolish the methods exam next year?
Also, is it possible to get 100% on the exam? lol, i may or may not be aiming to do that ;)
With whether it's possible, it is because apart from last year, most people (depending year to year, sometimes everyone) that got a 50 study score full-marked both exams (considering I had a friend with really good SACS in strong school, and lost one mark across both exams and got a 49). So it happens every year, it's just very hard (especially in exam 2) to do so but not impossible.
I've done quite a lot of exams and never full-marked exam 2, although exam 1 is very easy to get 100%.
Just do many practice exams I guess, because practice makes perfect. That generally works for most people, even though I have a friend who did NOT do ANY practice exams any still managed a 49 (same friend as before, he did tons of challenging questions).
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With whether it's possible, it is because apart from last year, most people (depending year to year, sometimes everyone) that got a 50 study score full-marked both exams (considering I had a friend with really good SACS in strong school, and lost one mark across both exams and got a 49). So it happens every year, it's just very hard (especially in exam 2) to do so but not impossible.
I done quite a lot of exams and never full-marked exam 2, although exam 1 is very easy to get 100%.
Just do many practice exams I guess, because practice makes perfect. That generally works for most people, even though I have a friend who did NOT do ANY practice exams any still managed a 49 (same friend as before, he did tons of challenging questions).
I don't think most people full mark both exams unless if it was one of the earlier exams for a 50, granted that it would then be theoretically 'impossible' to find out who gets Premiers... how do you differentiate a full marker from a full marker if they all have Rank 1 SACs?
Food for thought haha
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I don't think most people full mark both exams unless if it was one of the earlier exams for a 50, granted that it would then be theoretically 'impossible' to find out who gets Premiers... how do you differentiate a full marker from a full marker if they all have Rank 1 SACs?
Food for thought haha
Great score Hamo94!! :) if you don't mind me asking, how did you prepare for Methods 3&4 over the holidays?
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Great score Hamo94!! :) if you don't mind me asking, how did you prepare for Methods 3&4 over the holidays?
Pretty sure the beast completed the whole of Unit 3!
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Great score Hamo94!! :) if you don't mind me asking, how did you prepare for Methods 3&4 over the holidays?
Haha I did pretty poorly (by my standards) but thanks anyway, so i'm re-doing it.
I revised all of Units 1&2 and did up to around chapter 8 in Essentials (which was around U3 minus a bit of calculus). Looking back on it, I can say that it was probably unnecessary (I blew the application task anyway, my time would've been better allocated spreading the work around my other subjects). Definitely, however, ensure that 1/2 knowledge is very solid because it gives you the foundation that you need for 3/4, many careless marks occur through the SACs that could otherwise have been avoided via careful prep
Being in the position that i've already worked the course through, I won't be doing much on MM over the holidays, maybe a trial exam or two to see if i've forgotten anything :)
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Haha I did pretty poorly (by my standards) but thanks anyway, so i'm re-doing it.
I revised all of Units 1&2 and did up to around chapter 8 in Essentials (which was around U3 minus a bit of calculus). Looking back on it, I can say that it was probably unnecessary (I blew the application task anyway, my time would've been better allocated spreading the work around my other subjects). Definitely, however, ensure that 1/2 knowledge is very solid because it gives you the foundation that you need for 3/4, many careless marks occur through the SACs that could otherwise have been avoided via careful prep
Being in the position that i've already worked the course through, I won't be doing much on MM over the holidays, maybe a trial exam or two to see if i've forgotten anything :)
Cheers Hamo94!
42 for Methods is pretty amazing but then again, it's great that you're aiming higher! :)
That 99.95 is coming for you! :)
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Cheers Hamo94!
42 for Methods is pretty amazing but then again, it's great that you're aiming higher! :)
That 99.95 is coming for you! :)
Does anyone have a exercise record sheet for essentials for chapter 1 (as in the recommended questions to do)? In need of one.
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Does anyone have a exercise record sheet for essentials for chapter 1 (as in the recommended questions to do)? In need of one.
If someone posted one of these for the entire course, it would be incredibly helpful.
Also, does someone have one for the Maths Quest series?
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If someone posted one of these for the entire course, it would be incredibly helpful.
Also, does someone have one for the Maths Quest series?
why not do all questions? or for ones with subquestions do every second one. thats how i roll 8)
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why not do all questions? or for ones with subquestions do every second one. thats how i roll 8)
That makes sense, though it is a lot of work. I guess that's what it takes to get a 50 :)
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That makes sense, though it is a lot of work. I guess that's what it takes to get a 50 :)
and for spesh thats a 55 :o :P
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The thought of doing Math Methods for another year brings tears to my eyes. What are the hardest chapters / topics that pop up heaps in the exams? I want to get them down pat - or at least try to read over them before I start the year. (If that is even possible)
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Does anyone have a exercise record sheet for essentials for chapter 1 (as in the recommended questions to do)? In need of one.
Not sure if this is too late to be helpful but these are the recommended questions for chapters 1 and 2 from Essentials that I have.
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The thought of doing Math Methods for another year brings tears to my eyes. What are the hardest chapters / topics that pop up heaps in the exams? I want to get them down pat - or at least try to read over them before I start the year. (If that is even possible)
The topics that mainly come up in every methods exam is Calculus and Probability, especially in the extended response. Practically all the extended response questions in exam 2 cover those two aforementioned topics. The multiple choice section of exam 2 and the entire exam 1 cover a good mix of topics (like Functions and trigonometry included). Calculus and probability also happen to be the topics many students struggle with because they are more theoretical and the questions they ask are longer (have multiple parts in the exam).
That makes sense, though it is a lot of work. I guess that's what it takes to get a 50 :)
I used to have a lazy maths teacher that just told me to ‘be selective’ lol. Do some of the exercise questions (an amount that you are comfortable with) but focus on the extended response/challenge questions at the end of each chapter (do all of them).
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The thought of doing Math Methods for another year brings tears to my eyes. What are the hardest chapters / topics that pop up heaps in the exams? I want to get them down pat - or at least try to read over them before I start the year. (If that is even possible)
Agreed with appleandbee, especially calculus! Go over all these chapters during this break and try do as many questions as you can would be my advice. This is doable if you put time and effort into it. Don't feel upset about doing methods for another year. It is just 1 more year in your life and soon it is over! Good luck :)