Did I make a horrible mistake?

[Romaboy]

Hey guys,

So today I changed from Business Management to Specialist Maths.
I thought it was a good idea at the time because I'm above average at methods and I think I could do specialist if I did unit 1 but seeing as I haven't, am I at a massive disadvantage?
I feel like this may be horrible.
My careers counseller said if I find it too difficult, I should just drop to further. Is this a viable option?
If I don't do further 1/2, could I still get a 40+ in further?

Thanks guys

[Greatness]

Yeah if you struggle with spesh just drop into further. You dont need year 11 further for year 12. It's all pretty simple stuff anyway

[sam.utute]

Hey guys,

So today I changed from Business Management to Specialist Maths.
I thought it was a good idea at the time because I'm above average at methods and I think I could do specialist if I did unit 1 but seeing as I haven't, am I at a massive disadvantage?
I feel like this may be horrible.
My careers counseller said if I find it too difficult, I should just drop to further. Is this a viable option?
If I don't do further 1/2, could I still get a 40+ in further?

Thanks guys

Definitely don't need Year 11 Further to do it in Year 12.
I did Year 11 Specialist Maths but I found it really boring so I dropped to Further in Year 12.
The concepts in Further are pretty basic (it just requires practice) so you don't need to worry about not having taken it in Year 11.

[Lasercookie]

Seeing that it's Year 11, it's probably not that bad of a mistake. There's nothing wrong with trying out subjects for the sake of it.

Likewise, you don't need Unit 1/2 Specialist (or General Maths Advanced or whatever they call it) for 3/4 Specialist. The stuff that isn't covered in Methods is all explained from scratch and if you're willing to put the effort in, you can get your head around it easily enough.

Seeing that you decided to move into the subject, I assume you're decently interested in it. If you really want to do specialist, I would stick with it for at least Unit 2 and see what you think of it. I don't know what's exactly covered in Unit 2 GMA as I didn't do it - but if 3/4 Spesh is easy enough to pick up, Unit 2 Spesh shouldn't be too bad (I'd assume you'd have to be prepared to learn a lot of new concepts in one go however, particularly new stuff that was taught in Unit 1).

But yeah, if you really don't like Unit 2 GMA, you always have the option of picking up Further 3/4 for next year too.

[ligands]

my school only does a unit 2 spec subject (no unit 1)

also i'm doing further without 1/2 and its actually really boring, we were learning to add and multiply matrices , find inverses and transition matrices -.-

[AllAboutTheLGs]

I did unit 1 GMS, unit 2 GMA, and found that most of the stuff they teach in unit 2 carries on to Specialist (Vectors, Complex Numbers, Trigonometry) so you should be fine Unit 1 is mostly algebra anyways.

[max payne]

I did further without 1&2 and im doing specialist without having done the 1&2 and Im not struggling at all. Specialist covers everything you need including briefly the things you should already know.

[Special At Specialist]

The specialist course is designed so that it teaches pretty much everything from scratch. The only assumed knowledge is stuff like basic algebra, transposition, geometry and pythagoras' theorem (year 8 and 9 stuff).
If you put in the effort, you can easily do 3/4 specialist without 1/2. Good luck

[KevinooBz]

My school doesn't even run Specialists

[ligands]

i wish i did spesh instead of further

[golden]

You could skip 1+2 Further and still get 40+ if you put in some work.

But you're giving up a +11 scaling for a -1? scaling.
Look through the exams, check how many mistakes you can afford to make using the statistics on VCAA (might not want to check last years one because that was not the norm - we had an easier on average exam and the people doing specialist last year were really elite). Last year it was like drop more than 1.5 marks on the first exam and A+ is gone (there are also no half marks so it rounds off to about making 2 mistakes). Do you think you can manage a 30 in specialist rather than a ~41-42 is further? How much easier?

Also consider your future prospects. People take a subject for the sake of scaling or wanting a high score but you should also consider how it will have an affect on you later on.

It's up to you!