Hello, I started methods 1/2 this year and Im kind of struggling. Like I can do the textbook questions but when it comes to my sacs, THEY ARE REAL HARD! Like I seriously cant! Ive been getting like 64%, 75%, 78% etc. Before my sacs I not only do practice tests from school but also from "edrolo" and random resources. Can anyone please give me some advice? Btw, I also go tuition.
Work smarter, not harder.
You seem to be preparing by what I like to call, the "shotgun approach". Imagine being a shooting range, and you want to hit the centre of the target - instead of taking a second to think, and using just a handful of bullets to hit the centre, you're just taking out a shot-gun and firing. The truth is, with this method you'll always hit the target, but you'd have to be damn lucky to hit the centre. So the question is, how are you working?
What do you do when you finish a question? Do you immediately look up the answer? What do you do if it's wrong? Do you just look up a worked solution, or ask someone to solve it for you? What about when you get it right? Do you think about it all, or do you just do the next one? How many of these questions do you have a good think about? Do you ever try to use a different method to solve a question? Have you ever tried asking, "I could answer a question this way, but what if I change x and y to be z and f?" What do you do when you get a SAC back? Do you look at where you went wrong? What do you do then - again, do you just ask for the worked solution, and move on?
It's really easy to get stuck on, "I can answer these types of questions, or those types of questions, but I don't know the trick for *this* question!!" And here's the secret - there is no trick. There's never any trick. The "trick" is understanding the material, and taking time to understand how you tool box of maths works. For example, consider the following question:
Some might say that the "trick" is to realise that:
and apply the product rule. I disagree - in this case, it's not a "trick". All you've done is realised you can use what you know about exponentials to help you answer this question. In fact, there's another "trick" you could use for this question - and I'll leave you to figure it out.
So, here's the question you need to ask yourself - are you truly understanding your material, and taking the effort after you get a question wrong to figure out why you got it wrong? Or are you just trying to do as many questions as possible, memorising "the trick" to all of them, and hoping that those questions end up on your exam?
Sorry if the tone of this post feels incredibly "called out" - I'm gonna be honest, I've made a lot of assumptions here about you that might not be true. So, if none of this is true - and you truly would consider yourself the kind of person that's working smarter, not harder - why don't you tell us about /how/ you go about using your study materials?