ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => VCE Mathematics/Science/Technology => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE Mathematics => Topic started by: 95+plz on May 22, 2016, 01:46:59 pm
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Hello, first of all I have a couple of questions that hopefully you guys could answer for me :)
Now I know most people do specialist maths with methods, however I was wondering whether it is okay to do specialist without methods. I've had people tell me this isn't recommended, why is that?
Also, when it comes to courses in which methods is a pre-requisite, would they also accept people who have completed spec but without methods (since spec is considered a more difficult maths subject)?
I would also prefer to not do both subjects.
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Hello, first of all I have a couple of questions that hopefully you guys could answer for me :)
Now I know most people do specialist maths with methods, however I was wondering whether it is okay to do specialist without methods. I've had people tell me this isn't recommended, why is that?
Also, when it comes to courses in which methods is a pre-requisite, would they also accept people who have completed spec but without methods (since spec is considered a more difficult maths subject)?
I would also prefer to not do both subjects.
To do specialist maths, you have to do methods with it.
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AFAK, Methods is a prereq. I tried to do Spech without methods but was outright refused at my school so I guess it would be the same for you :)
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Well the other two replies said that you couldn't, which holds true for students at my school, but I'll explain why.
Spec is in a sense 'harder' than Methods because it builds upon assumed knowledge from Methods. As such, most schools would not let you do Spec without Methods because it's such a high chance that you'd fail the subject and they can't risk bad scores etc. I don't know if courses accept only Spec (I think so?), but it's assumed you've done Methods if you use Spec as a prereq.
Why would you choose Spec instead of Methods? Just curious.
I did Methods as an accel. subject last year and I am doing Spec this year. I am fortunate in that I don't have to do two Maths at once, and as many and many of my accel friends have commented: we would mostly likely not have done Spec at all if we'd had to do two Maths together. So I'm wondering why you want to do a 'harder' subject without the stepping stone. It's more content, more work and especially a pain if you don't know content from Methods.
Example: An entire chapter in Methods is covered in 3 pages of the Spec textbook. It's all assumed knowledge and revision.
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Even if you can do specialist maths without methods, that is a very very bad idea. Almost all of the concepts from specialist maths is built from methods; for example trigonometry in methods you learn what they mean and solving simple equations involving them, while in specialist the study of trigonometry is extended by the trigonometric identities which allows you to manipulate them better, and their inverses.
If you prefer not to do both, you can just do methods, specialist is optional. Many of the uni courses that requires intensive math like engineering will offer a math subject on the same level as specialist to help you catch up with the needed math knowledge (Melbourne uni offers the subject Calculus 1 which serves this purpose), so you don't have to worry too much about that.