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VCE Stuff => VCE Mathematics => VCE Mathematics/Science/Technology => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE Mathematical Methods CAS => Topic started by: burbs on January 08, 2011, 05:28:17 pm

Title: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: burbs on January 08, 2011, 05:28:17 pm
My school uses MQ, I bought that and Essentials.

Did teachers mind that you did questions out of your book instead of following the syllabus? How did you decide what Qs to do?

Cheers
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: Greatness on January 08, 2011, 05:32:27 pm
I plan to do questions from our schools textbook at school and for homework, but also do questions from essentials at home to study for sacs etc
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: nacho on January 08, 2011, 06:05:41 pm
Hey, I did the same thing as you.
I'll probably be going out of my way tofinish the Maths quest chapters so that in class i will be permitted to do extra work of my own choice, also, I think as long as you're working, teachers will be more than happy that you're doing extra work
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: sgeorge on January 08, 2011, 06:23:05 pm
Our teachers were fine with us using alternative textbooks, as long as we learnt the material. I usually did the required/suggested work, then used essentials, where I did a number of questions which I thought to be of a higher difficulty.
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: luken93 on January 08, 2011, 07:32:43 pm
Yeah we use Essentials at school, but I'm going to do Essentials at school and MQ at home
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: Romperait on January 09, 2011, 04:16:14 pm
Just do the questions from Essentials at home which correlate to the topics you're covering in class. If you're that concerned about not doing enough work that you're gonna use two textbooks, then that's the way to go.
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: pi on January 09, 2011, 04:20:42 pm
Yeah we use Essentials at school, but I'm going to do Essentials at school and MQ at home

I'm in complete reverse! MQ at school (get the basics) and Essentials at home (do some challenging problems after).
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: m@tty on January 09, 2011, 04:44:37 pm
For Spesh last year my school used maths quest... I never did any questions in class because of that(I lie; perhaps 2 per class..)
My teacher didn't really mind, because he knew I understood the content.

I was planning to get essentials, but in the end I didn't.

What you propose is fine it all depends on your teacher though.
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: taiga on January 09, 2011, 05:13:34 pm
I'd say that if you have Mathsquest, you should get essentials for questions.

If you have essentials, dont use mathsquest for questions. If you're loaded, you can use it for the explanations (of pretty basic questions), but otherwise I don't think there is much use.
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: luken93 on January 09, 2011, 05:28:11 pm
Yeah we use Essentials at school, but I'm going to do Essentials at school and MQ at home

I'm in complete reverse! MQ at school (get the basics) and Essentials at home (do some challenging problems after).
I know, for once our school made a good decision!
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: burbs on January 09, 2011, 05:30:39 pm
I'd say that if you have Mathsquest, you should get essentials for questions.

If you have essentials, dont use mathsquest for questions. If you're loaded, you can use it for the explanations (of pretty basic questions), but otherwise I don't think there is much use.

I guess my real issue is that I know some teachers at our school were pretty picky about h/w in yr 11, not sure how that translates to yr 12. Now that I think about it at least 10%% of our yr 12s would have used Essentials.
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: luken93 on January 09, 2011, 05:38:43 pm
I'd say that if you have Mathsquest, you should get essentials for questions.

If you have essentials, dont use mathsquest for questions. If you're loaded, you can use it for the explanations (of pretty basic questions), but otherwise I don't think there is much use.

I guess my real issue is that I know some teachers at our school were pretty picky about h/w in yr 11, not sure how that translates to yr 12. Now that I think about it at least 10%% of our yr 12s would have used Essentials.
I'm somewhat amazed that a school like MHS is taking a book that is good at explanations over a book with harder questions? I know explanations are of course good, but in a school that has one of the best and strongest cohorts I don't really understand why you wouldn't opt for a teextbook that could challenge students...
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: iNerd on January 09, 2011, 05:39:36 pm
I'd say that if you have Mathsquest, you should get essentials for questions.

If you have essentials, dont use mathsquest for questions. If you're loaded, you can use it for the explanations (of pretty basic questions), but otherwise I don't think there is much use.

I guess my real issue is that I know some teachers at our school were pretty picky about h/w in yr 11, not sure how that translates to yr 12. Now that I think about it at least 10%% of our yr 12s would have used Essentials.
I'm somewhat amazed that a school like MHS is taking a book that is good at explanations over a book with harder questions? I know explanations are of course good, but in a school that has one of the best and strongest cohorts I don't really understand why you wouldn't opt for a teextbook that could challenge students...
You do realise schools have deals with book companies? MHS probably gets a better deal with MQ then Essentials...(or so I was told by Dovey {head of maths} ).
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: luken93 on January 09, 2011, 05:51:05 pm
I'd say that if you have Mathsquest, you should get essentials for questions.

If you have essentials, dont use mathsquest for questions. If you're loaded, you can use it for the explanations (of pretty basic questions), but otherwise I don't think there is much use.

I guess my real issue is that I know some teachers at our school were pretty picky about h/w in yr 11, not sure how that translates to yr 12. Now that I think about it at least 10%% of our yr 12s would have used Essentials.
I'm somewhat amazed that a school like MHS is taking a book that is good at explanations over a book with harder questions? I know explanations are of course good, but in a school that has one of the best and strongest cohorts I don't really understand why you wouldn't opt for a teextbook that could challenge students...
You do realise schools have deals with book companies? MHS probably gets a better deal with MQ then Essentials...(or so I was told by Dovey {head of maths} ).
I do realise that, but they also have the ability to change every 3 or so years...
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: iNerd on January 09, 2011, 05:52:31 pm
I'd say that if you have Mathsquest, you should get essentials for questions.

If you have essentials, dont use mathsquest for questions. If you're loaded, you can use it for the explanations (of pretty basic questions), but otherwise I don't think there is much use.

I guess my real issue is that I know some teachers at our school were pretty picky about h/w in yr 11, not sure how that translates to yr 12. Now that I think about it at least 10%% of our yr 12s would have used Essentials.
I'm somewhat amazed that a school like MHS is taking a book that is good at explanations over a book with harder questions? I know explanations are of course good, but in a school that has one of the best and strongest cohorts I don't really understand why you wouldn't opt for a teextbook that could challenge students...
You do realise schools have deals with book companies? MHS probably gets a better deal with MQ then Essentials...(or so I was told by Dovey {head of maths} ).
I do realise that, but they also have the ability to change every 3 or so years...
But what incentive do they have? They figure we're MHS nerdy students, we'll go buy whatever book we want - IMO it's about cash and convenience here.
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: burbs on January 09, 2011, 06:21:39 pm
I'd say that if you have Mathsquest, you should get essentials for questions.

If you have essentials, dont use mathsquest for questions. If you're loaded, you can use it for the explanations (of pretty basic questions), but otherwise I don't think there is much use.

I guess my real issue is that I know some teachers at our school were pretty picky about h/w in yr 11, not sure how that translates to yr 12. Now that I think about it at least 10%% of our yr 12s would have used Essentials.
I'm somewhat amazed that a school like MHS is taking a book that is good at explanations over a book with harder questions? I know explanations are of course good, but in a school that has one of the best and strongest cohorts I don't really understand why you wouldn't opt for a teextbook that could challenge students...
You do realise schools have deals with book companies? MHS probably gets a better deal with MQ then Essentials...(or so I was told by Dovey {head of maths} ).
I do realise that, but they also have the ability to change every 3 or so years...
But what incentive do they have? They figure we're MHS nerdy students, we'll go buy whatever book we want - IMO it's about cash and convenience here.

MQ has better explanations apparently. In yr 11 it is sufficient.
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: luken93 on January 09, 2011, 06:30:03 pm
Yeh I reckon MQ has better explanations for Spesh
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: taiga on January 09, 2011, 06:33:01 pm
The MHS maths dept is rather mercenary. We used the worst book out (dimensions) for a few years, just because one of the teachers was a writer.
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: iNerd on January 09, 2011, 06:34:23 pm
The MHS maths dept is rather mercenary. We used the worst book out (dimensions) for a few years, just because one of the teachers was a writer.
Bull?

(No, not bullshit, I mean the teacher Bull :P)
Title: Re: Question for past year 12s who used an alternative text book
Post by: pi on January 09, 2011, 10:02:55 pm
The MHS maths dept is rather mercenary. We used the worst book out (dimensions) for a few years, just because one of the teachers was a writer.
Bull?

(No, not bullshit, I mean the teacher Bull :P)

He was a shit teacher too, don't know how he got to we the 'maths genius' guy in the herald sun footy tipping...

His only good book was the year 9 one, where he did some matrices, other than that, even maths quest trumps his series. Although Dr G (a brilliant teacher for methods and spesh) wrote the spesh one (spesh dimensions), haven't seen it though.

taiga, the pulley part of the yr11 GMA book was interesting though (the general formula).