advice on doing methods needed.

[rory123]

I am doing VCE year 11 at tafe next year and want to do methods and physics. But i was kick out of year 9 and did no work when i was there, I then went on to do VCAL (where we did no maths) , but i now want to go back to school and go to uni. So i am doing maths on mathsonline.com and am getting a year 10 text book that i will work through over the next 3 months before school starts. My question: will i be fine doing maths methods in year 11 if i work hard over the holidays, or will i be to far behind to catch up.
Thanks for your advice in advance.

[Nokiacharger]

You can definitely catch up if you're willing to put in the hard work.

I failed my year 10 exam, got 31% at a school where the highest Study Score for methods last year was 41 and I'm passing comfortably.

[rory123]

Thanks for that. I was wonding if you would be able to tell me what parts of maths I need to learn before going into methods.
thanks again.

[Nokiacharger]

Maths isn't something where you have to really study specific areas to get good at it.

Take sport for example, a professional 100m runner, he will succeed in AFL for instance because he adapts pretty quickly to the new game. It's the same for maths.

So just practice doing maths and you will get good at it so that when you pick-up new mathematical concepts really quickly. You could do any maths and you will be fine so you develop good general mathematical skills when you start year 11 methods.

However, having said that, if you really want maths that is relevant to year 11, you might want to consider the following areas of mathematics:

-Functions (Linear,Quadratic,Cubic,Quartic)
-Calculus/Integration
-Probability
-Trigonometric Functions

If you can start studying these, you will be more than fine. You have two long years of maths to do. If you work hard enough, you can even top the state. Trust me. If you want any help feel free to post a question for us to solve on ATARnotes or alternatively get a tutor. There are many options to find help.

Good luck, I'm sure you can get a very very good score if you work hard and believe that you can do it.

Happy to help, I was in the exact same situation but I was probably worse, so believe me, it works out really well if you work hard enough.

[Special At Specialist]

When I was in year 10 advanced maths, I did the following topics:
1. Surds (square roots, rationalising the denominator and so on).
2. Trigonometry (learning the SOH, CAH, TOA rule).
3. Factorising quadratics (there are about 10 different methods).
4. Sketching parabolas (intercepts, translation, dilation, etc.).
5. Unit Circle (learnt what a radian is).
6. Cubic Functions (SPOI form and other forms but we didn't have to factorise them).
7. Shapes (composite 2D shapes, volume and TSA of most 3D shapes, silos, prisms).
8. Exponentials and logarithmic functions (logarithm laws, initial conditions, graphing).
9. Probability (with/without replacement, in union with, intersecting, venn diagrams).