Should I choose Further Maths or Specialist Maths?

[tea.squaredd]

It's subject selection time, and I'm stuck with the dilemma of either Spesh or Further?

My subjects next year will include: Chem, Methods, English, Bio

I don't find Specialist terribly hard, but I just can't find the time (maybe I'm just too lazy)

But next year, I want to do really well in Chem and Bio and I've heard Spesh takes up a LOT of time. Furthermore, heaps of year 12 students I've asked say Spesh is the most time consuming subject. The scaling however, is attractive, and I found the course materials in Spesh much more interesting than that of Further.
If I chose further, then my year 12 will be considerably less stressful, and I can find time to put into my other subjects. I've already made a mental note to not treat Further with a  'Oh, it's just further' attitude. My methods teacher ( who teaches all 3 maths) also says that Further isn't hard to learn at all, but I'd do well in either subject (FM or SM)

So what do you think?

Cheers

[wildareal]

Further will not be less stressful. If you want a good result you have to make no mistakes. None. Zilch. I knew a guy last year that dropped 2 marks on the exam and got a 47 with pretty high sacs! Spec is far more involving, and far less tedious. It's more about motion than the statistics in further. Also Spec does have attractive scaling, however you have to remember it is significantly harder than Methods and miles ahead of Further. If you enjoy Maths do Spec, if you want to chill (but you still can't make mistakes) do Further. There is a misconception too that Further is easy; the material is, but as said there is so much room for error because in a lot of the statistics you are just number plugging. Good Luck choosing. Wildareal

[superstar1]

i recommend you do further as well, my brother who did spesh got so angry after the marks came out and wished he had done further instead because he said that it weould have been less time consuming and he would have got a higher mark. But still his spesh mark was very good too. So listening to him i did further this year and im enjoying it. BUt you have to watch out for silly mistakes.

[98.40_for_sure]

I would have to disagree and say that further is more time consuming... i have done very little work all year for spesh. It is easier to get a 45+ scaled in spesh than it is to get 45+ scaled in further. Dropping marks in further is analogous to /wrist... whilst you can afford to drop a chunk of marks in spesh and still 48+.
I recommend you pick the one you find most interesting, which i would think is spesh unless you like to blindly plug numbers.

[Hutchoo]

If you want security, spec is your man.
Personally, specialist math is over hyped (http://vcenotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,30189.0.html), a lot of students say it takes up a lot of time..but they might not understand the concepts-making them study more for it.
I've always been a spec math fanboy due to the fact that it broadens mathematics at a 'restricting' VCE level.
Specialist also has like 13 chapters as opposed to MM with like 15.

Do subjects that you're interested in, as you've stated "I found the course materials in Spesh much more interesting than that of Further" - you're suppose to do subjects that you find interesting, chances are you'll do better in them.

[iNerd]

Did you do Advanced General Mathematics this year?
If you found that difficult then Specialist is only going to get harder...
However I endorse the view that you are better off with Specialist as Further is just a real killer in terms of scaling and the amount of effort and concentration required to not lose a mark.

EDIT: 200th post

[98.40_for_sure]

Did you do Advanced General Mathematics this year?
If you found that difficult then Specialist is only going to get harder...
However I endorse the view that you are better off with Specialist as Further is just a real killer in terms of scaling and the amount of effort and concentration required to not lose a mark.

Spesh is not harder than GMA... compare my 70%'s in GMA with close to 100%'s in spesh 3/4. Also it's debatable as to whether spesh is harder than methods. My methods marks are shocking due to silly errors, which don't seem to happen in spesh

[iNerd]

Did you do Advanced General Mathematics this year?
If you found that difficult then Specialist is only going to get harder...
However I endorse the view that you are better off with Specialist as Further is just a real killer in terms of scaling and the amount of effort and concentration required to not lose a mark.

Spesh is not harder than GMA... compare my 70%'s in GMA with close to 100%'s in spesh 3/4. Also it's debatable as to whether spesh is harder than methods. My methods marks are shocking due to silly errors, which don't seem to happen in spesh

GMA vs Spesh I can't know for sure but going on what I've heard, Spesh is harder especially with the extension of the physic-type topics such as kinematics. As for whether Spesh is harder than methods, really isn't debatable as VCAA makes sure Spesh scales more then Methods because they consider Spesh to be harder then Methods. However it can also be said that Spesh covers a different aspect of Maths in comparison to Methods which some people may find easier. It is wrong however to use your "silly mistakes" in Methods as a reason to say that Methods is harder  

[stonecold]

If silly mistakes didn't exist then school would be easy and everyone would get 99.95...

And this goes for further.  If you can cut the dumb mistakes, then you will get 50.  The concepts are the easiest in VCE IMO, and the course can be learnt in 2 weeks.

[samiira]

The major thing that i regret from this year is choosing spesh over further.. nonetheless if u think u can do it then go for it.. but it requires heaps of effort and time

[kyzoo]

Spesh does not take that much time...it's probably been my least effort-requiring subject this year. Lol Physics and Chem is harder for me than Spesh.

[roberto]

do spec. it's worth the effort especially considering u'd need to ace further to get an equivalent scaled score

[Hutchoo]

do spec. it's worth the effort especially considering u'd need to ace further to get an equivalent scaled score

[roberto]

do spec. it's worth the effort especially considering u'd need to ace further to get an equivalent scaled score

haha. like my positive attitude?

[vexx]

A good idea is to do further, teach yourself the course over the holidays which wont take more than a few hours... I didn't even go to class for one of my modules because i knew the entire thing (matrices), and the others were learnt quite quickly.
Then just do a practice exam a week until the exam, going over very carefully any mistakes and you'd get close to 50 if not that.

I dont know if anyone does this though because the course is so freaking boring that i hardly went to any classes and didn't do any homework. Obviously this has affected my score since i wont be getting anything incredible, so work a bit each week and don't be slack since its hardly any work and easy to not do anything like i did.
Spam practice exams to get no mistakes, and you will be fine

Otherwise, if you are good at maths and find spesh not too bad, then work hard at that for a high 40's whereas you can lose everything in just one question over both exams for further to get a worse score.