Post by: kenhung123 on November 08, 2009, 07:02:12 pm
Post by: Gloamglozer on November 08, 2009, 07:04:41 pm
Post by: kenhung123 on November 08, 2009, 07:08:25 pm
Post by: Gloamglozer on November 08, 2009, 07:10:40 pm
fair enough. does everyone have the desire to do at least 1 math subject anyway? e.g. you know your gonna get even 30 for further but still want to do it for the sake
Basically another 2 reasons why I did it was:
1. I wanted to tread the waters, that is, I wanted to see how "easy" it was compared to Methods. So yeah, just for the sake of completing 6 subjects, I did Further.
2. Also, I didn't want to pick up a subject I had no prior knowledge in after I completed a 3+4 last year.
Post by: kenhung123 on November 08, 2009, 07:15:00 pm
Post by: Gloamglozer on November 08, 2009, 07:18:03 pm
you picked up 3/4 without 1/2? did you feel like you didn't know much compared to the class or your all quite even? (perhaps sac performance)
Not really. Considering most of the stuff you do is an extension of the maths you've done from year 7-10. There are a few overlaps with Further and Methods and a few new things, but you pick them up pretty easily.
In some cases, yes you can be disadvantaged, but all in all, the concepts are easy to pick up and expand upon.
The only thing you have to make sure is exam pressure and careless mistakes - they are devastating, not only to your exam morale but also to your study score! :)
Post by: minilunchbox on November 08, 2009, 07:24:13 pm
fair enough. does everyone have the desire to do at least 1 math subject anyway? e.g. you know your gonna get even 30 for further but still want to do it for the sake
My friend isn't going to do any 3/4 maths subjects even though she's only going to have 5 subjects total. She wants to be a teacher so she doesn't 'need' it and she just doesn't like maths even though she's been acing GM this year. (But I guess that's not really saying much.)
Post by: Ilovemathsmeth on November 26, 2009, 09:58:48 pm
But a lot of people take it because they think it's an 'easy 50' when it isn't really that easy to do well, you need heaps of practice.
Post by: /0 on November 27, 2009, 01:13:09 am
LOL I did it because I wanted 48-50. Not sure how well I went though...
But a lot of people take it because they think it's an 'easy 50' when it isn't really that easy to do well, you need heaps of practice.
Your school sooo should have allowed you to do spesh, it would be easier to scale over 50 in spesh than get a 50 in further
But ah well that's in the past
In fact people who are 'good' with maths are taking a bigger risk if they do methods+further than methods+spesh
Post by: kenhung123 on November 27, 2009, 07:22:06 am
Post by: m@tty on November 27, 2009, 02:07:19 pm
Further:
So last year 42 in Specialist scales above a 49 in Further and 44 scales to more than anyone gets in Further
also if you make several errors in Further and achieve 45 it is equivalent to 35 in Specialist
EDIT:
35 in Specialist ~75% in exams = 30 marks lost [mid A's]
45 in Further ~lose 5-7 marks[I think]=93-95% in exams [mid A+]
Post by: Ilovemathsmeth on November 27, 2009, 02:23:32 pm
My school was tight, they were adamant that 1/2 Spesh is important for 3/4. Sucks really, I'm going to go through the 3/4 course on my own soon and I haven't looked at 1/2 - people have told me it's not that important.
Post by: m@tty on November 27, 2009, 02:45:17 pm
Quote from: Ilovemathsmeth
So what I got in Methods would have been the same as a 43 in Spesh?According to last years scaling even a little higher
All these scalings are taken from http://entercalc.syte.cc as such I think they may not be exact
Post by: kenhung123 on November 27, 2009, 05:04:53 pm
Anyone who is 'good' at mathematics.
Further:Specialist:
So last year 42 in Specialist scales above a 49 in Further and 44 scales to more than anyone gets in Further
also if you make several errors in Further and achieve 45 it is equivalent to 35 in Specialist
EDIT:
35 in Specialist ~75% in exams = 30 marks lost [mid A's]
45 in Further ~lose 5-7 marks[I think]=93-95% in exams [mid A+]
Anyone who is 'good' at mathematics.I still have the impression that specialist requires a lot more study and 42 is a very, very good score. Maybe even equivalent to 50 further effort. Who knows?
Further:Specialist:
So last year 42 in Specialist scales above a 49 in Further and 44 scales to more than anyone gets in Further
also if you make several errors in Further and achieve 45 it is equivalent to 35 in Specialist
EDIT:
35 in Specialist ~75% in exams = 30 marks lost [mid A's]
45 in Further ~lose 5-7 marks[I think]=93-95% in exams [mid A+]
Post by: NE2000 on November 27, 2009, 05:37:42 pm
Post by: /0 on November 27, 2009, 05:41:17 pm
Post by: kenhung123 on November 27, 2009, 05:48:00 pm
Post by: NE2000 on November 27, 2009, 05:50:58 pm
But other factors include: there are more people doing further than spesh and in addition to that there are most likely more duds in further than in spesh. Therefore getting into the top 2% of a small group of high achieving mathematics students is very hard.
Yes but 50 is 0.2% I think, and getting top 0.2% of any cohort is difficult
Post by: m@tty on November 27, 2009, 06:25:00 pm
The top 2% in every subject will always be tough to beat
Including further, when considering 45+ you can disregard all duds. No duds get 45+
EDIT [What I was going to post 1 hour ago]
Specialist certainly does require much more study[learning material] than Further, I haven't done Specialist yet but I looked over the further book in 1 night... [just got spesh book today :D, though it is mathquest :(]
Like all maths subjects the main effort is in spent in completing practice questions in order to solidify conceptual understanding and eliminate errors. However no matter what you do you will still make silly errors. As you should know in Further little errors count much more than in specialist
Post by: Ilovemathsmeth on December 09, 2009, 01:40:26 pm
Post by: Ahmad on December 09, 2009, 01:48:28 pm
Post by: kenhung123 on December 09, 2009, 02:12:38 pm
Post by: kyzoo on December 09, 2009, 02:33:12 pm
Post by: kenhung123 on December 09, 2009, 02:38:07 pm
Post by: Ilovemathsmeth on December 09, 2009, 02:52:44 pm
Post by: NE2000 on December 09, 2009, 02:53:37 pm
Some people who do all the maths and science say specialist requires most study (meth, spesh, physics, chem)
Yeah I did all of them and I agree that I studied most for spesh out of all of them. But some notes:
- studying that much for spesh and doing methods in the same year meant that I really didn't have to put much time into methods. Apart from probability, most of it was almost assumed knowledge in spesh.
- finishing the course early and focussing on understanding everything and having a good teacher meant that most of the study was just finding tougher questions to try and doing trial exams.
- again if it was further a larger amount of time would have been spent trying to find out how to stop making careless errors, which is far more time consuming and difficult imo :P
But that's just my experience.
The question you have to ask yourself is 'am I good at maths?' Obviously the question is very subjective, so rephrase it to be 'am I finding methods fairly straightforward?' If so, then spesh is a good option to get a high SS after scaling. In addition you will be taking a subject that is quite interesting. If methods is being a bit challenging then maybe you should just go further. The reason is that if you are good at maths and find methods straightforward then you probably will eventually (you've got a year) understand all of the concepts in specialist maths. Depending on your aims you could then begin looking at 40+ which scales to 48+. If you do further when you are a spesh-capable student then you may aim for 48+, but that'll just come down to your luck and concentration on the day of the exam.
Post by: QuantumJG on December 09, 2009, 03:48:21 pm
Specialist is easier to guarantee a high score in than further is for someone good at maths, in my opinion. Further depends too much on accuracy, which I dislike.
Specialist maths is the maths needed to pursue: physics, maths, engineering or actuarial studies. It also is a much more interesting maths to study than further maths.
Post by: kenhung123 on December 09, 2009, 03:57:32 pm
Post by: stonecold on December 09, 2009, 04:05:39 pm
Post by: kyzoo on December 09, 2009, 07:48:43 pm
Further is very easy to learn. You can coast through most of the year, and you just have to make sure you nail the exams. As others have said, the concepts are very easy to grasp, but it is your ability to be super accurate and eradicate careless reading errors and calculations that really matters. If you have gone through maths in the past and have on many occasions gotten full marks/very close to full marks, then I would say Further is for you, otherwise if you're looking for a 40+ SS, it may be wiser to do specialist, particularly if you are looking at doing an engineering course in Uni.
If you've gotten full marks/very close to full marks in past maths tests, then shouldn't that mean you should do Specialist because it indicates you're good at Maths? Especially if the maths tests weren't easy.
Post by: NE2000 on December 09, 2009, 07:52:22 pm
Further is very easy to learn. You can coast through most of the year, and you just have to make sure you nail the exams. As others have said, the concepts are very easy to grasp, but it is your ability to be super accurate and eradicate careless reading errors and calculations that really matters. If you have gone through maths in the past and have on many occasions gotten full marks/very close to full marks, then I would say Further is for you, otherwise if you're looking for a 40+ SS, it may be wiser to do specialist, particularly if you are looking at doing an engineering course in Uni.
If you've gotten full marks/very close to full marks in past maths tests, then shouldn't that mean you should do Specialist because it indicates you're good at Maths? Especially if the maths tests weren't easy.
Yeah I would say that too.
In the end: if you are good at maths you should do spesh. Who'd have thunk it
Post by: Martoman on February 08, 2010, 05:15:03 pm
Post by: littlebecc on February 08, 2010, 09:32:02 pm
I'm figuring it's gonna be my 6th subject. Definitely not my strong point.