Is it possible to do specialist maths without units 1/2

[mdntimp]

I would certainly not recommend that you jump straight into spesh without any prior consideration. It is correct that some schools don't even do GMA, however they do another kind of class OR further excel their methods students instead. So it is still "equivalent". Furthermore, the pain, worry and stress it would cause you is SO not worth it, as you will probably get average marks and at the end of the day it will most likely go into your bottom 5th or 6th subject and only 10% mark will be taken, and at most you'll get a few are points difference... Which you will certainly not even need considering your other subjects and how well they scale up (provided you do work well and aren't a failing student lol)

FURTHERMORE... Spesh isn't necessarily a prereq of ANY engineering course that I know of... You must either have physics OR specialist, you don't HAVE to have both. And considering you already take physics, you'll be fine :-)

[Edward Elric]

I would certainly not recommend that you jump straight into spesh without any prior consideration. It is correct that some schools don't even do GMA, however they do another kind of class OR further excel their methods students instead. So it is still "equivalent". Furthermore, the pain, worry and stress it would cause you is SO not worth it, as you will probably get average marks and at the end of the day it will most likely go into your bottom 5th or 6th subject and only 10% mark will be taken, and at most you'll get a few are points difference... Which you will certainly not even need considering your other subjects and how well they scale up (provided you do work well and aren't a failing student lol)

FURTHERMORE... Spesh isn't necessarily a prereq of ANY engineering course that I know of... You must either have physics OR specialist, you don't HAVE to have both. And considering you already take physics, you'll be fine :-)

Thankyou, the more reassurance i get the better, thanks for your support and everyone else as well. I wont be doing spesh in 2014. Hope your studies go well for you next year

[zhujunyan]

school always says that you can't do this or you can't do that. Screw it!!!!
Give it a shot. Let's say you try it for 1 month. If it goes well, stick with it. Otherwise, you still have chance to change your subject without missing too much.

Good Luck!

[scribble]

FURTHERMORE... Spesh isn't necessarily a prereq of ANY engineering course that I know of... You must either have physics OR specialist, you don't HAVE to have both. And considering you already take physics, you'll be fine :-)

but if you havent done spesh in highschool, you'll have to make it up by taking subjects that teach the material at uni while those who have done spesh will be able to go straight on to more difficult (and more interesting) math.

I definitely think its possible to do spesh (and most other 3/4 subjects) without having taken the 1/2 units.
Remember that although the concepts in further are easy to grasp and you probably won't need to invest a large amount of time into learning them, if you want to do well in the subject the amount of effort you need to put in increases dramatically. If you want to get in the 40s in further after scaling, you need to know the course quite well. Whereas if youre just average in spesh, a 30 raw will scale to above 40.

[musarratkhan04]

Hi,


I'm currently a year 12 student doing Bio/Chem/Physics/Methods/English, and I really want to get into medicine, but am worried my low English marks will pull down my ATAR, and because I'm doing well in Methods, I really want to pick up Specialist Maths. The issue is, I chose not to do it in Year 11 because I at the moment didn't realise how advantageous it would be for me and because I assumed it would be too difficult. But I've heard it is possible to pick up Specialists in Year 12 without Units 1 and 2... Is that true? And how do we pick it up??

[mabajas76]

Hi,


I'm currently a year 12 student doing Bio/Chem/Physics/Methods/English, and I really want to get into medicine, but am worried my low English marks will pull down my ATAR, and because I'm doing well in Methods, I really want to pick up Specialist Maths. The issue is, I chose not to do it in Year 11 because I at the moment didn't realise how advantageous it would be for me and because I assumed it would be too difficult. But I've heard it is possible to pick up Specialists in Year 12 without Units 1 and 2... Is that true? And how do we pick it up??

Specalist 3/4 covers 4 "Main topics" IMO
The preresiquite algebra which is complex numbers, ciruclar functions and some general stuff. Both of these are covered in the 1/2 but can be picked up more easily in the 3/4, especially the circular functions stuff. For this just doing the 3/4 chapters out of cambridge will be enough.
The next area is calculus. This is the largest area by far and the most vital thing to everything in the whole course.
There is no calculus in 1/2.

The next is mechanics and vectors, there is some of this in the 1/2 but once again it is covered very well in the 3/4 textbook and can just be learned from there. There is some BIG overlap with physics here (momentum, force triangles etc). The 1/2 does a poor job explaining this area if you ask me and some of it is just omitted. Calculus is needed for this area.

The last is statistics. The 1/2 touches on this, but doing methods would also work well to help it and once again the 1/2 doesn't cover it very well because this AOS involves Calculus, which isn't in the 1/2...seeing a patern here?

If you want to pick it up, then going through the 3/4 textbook THOUROUGLY will be more than sufficent, alot of the chap 1 stuff from last year like never shows up on the exam anyway. It isn't an easy subject, and it may be a tad harder for you but honestly picking it up as a 3/4 isn't too much of a challenge compared to how the course is anyway, GL!

[musarratkhan04]

Specalist 3/4 covers 4 "Main topics" IMO
The preresiquite algebra which is complex numbers, ciruclar functions and some general stuff. Both of these are covered in the 1/2 but can be picked up more easily in the 3/4, especially the circular functions stuff. For this just doing the 3/4 chapters out of cambridge will be enough.
The next area is calculus. This is the largest area by far and the most vital thing to everything in the whole course.
There is no calculus in 1/2.

The next is mechanics and vectors, there is some of this in the 1/2 but once again it is covered very well in the 3/4 textbook and can just be learned from there. There is some BIG overlap with physics here (momentum, force triangles etc). The 1/2 does a poor job explaining this area if you ask me and some of it is just omitted. Calculus is needed for this area.

The last is statistics. The 1/2 touches on this, but doing methods would also work well to help it and once again the 1/2 doesn't cover it very well because this AOS involves Calculus, which isn't in the 1/2...seeing a patern here?

If you want to pick it up, then going through the 3/4 textbook THOUROUGLY will be more than sufficent, alot of the chap 1 stuff from last year like never shows up on the exam anyway. It isn't an easy subject, and it may be a tad harder for you but honestly picking it up as a 3/4 isn't too much of a challenge compared to how the course is anyway, GL!

Thank you!!

I really hope my school lets me pick it up though... that's my main concern. Because my school does spesh through Distance Ed, so it's up to BSDE, whether they will let me start Specialist Maths in year 12 without units 1 and 2.