VCE Unit 3 and 4 Chemistry Study Guide 2013 - what should the format be?

[thushan]

Mao's just emailed me asking for the format of next year's study guide. I'd like to put it to the floor as to what the preferred format should be.

As you may know, there is no midyear next year, meaning that I have to combine my Unit 3 and 4 books into one contraption. However, this is not practical because a 700-page monolith would be...impossible to write on or carry for that matter. We have to split it into two books. The question is - how?

One proposal is to split the books into Basic and Advanced, with Basic being easy tests and easy exams, looking at basic skills and techniques, very basic application, and recall of information, and Advanced, looking at more application of the skills and more complex understanding and problem solving. The Basic book will have about 12 tests and 2 x 2.5 hour exams and the Advanced book will have about 12 tests, a 2.5 hour exam, and a challenge 3 hour exam.

Another proposal is to split the book into a Test book and an Exam book. My main worry for this is because one is more content-heavy than the other, so one book may be a little too big.

Do you like either of these proposals, or would you like to suggest another?

[pi]

I like the Basic and Advanced books, will cater for a larger target audience too (weaker and high achieving students)

[nisha]

Basic and Advanced books Thush.

[Lasercookie]

How basic is basic? Does that mean around the level of the easier VCAA questions / questions designed to teach you the main concepts? I assume those 2.5 hour exams would be VCAA-level content.

Would the basic book skip out on a few of those challenging questions, in favour of placing those over to the Advanced book?

[thushan]

How basic is basic? Does that mean around the level of the easier VCAA questions / questions designed to teach you the main concepts? I assume those 2.5 hour exams would be VCAA-level content.
Would the basic book skip out on a few of those challenging questions, in favour of placing those over to the Advanced book?

The basic book will be below VCAA standard to about easy VCAA-standard. Yup, the hard questions will be put in the Advanced book. And the Advanced book will from about hard VCAA-standard to beyond VCAA standard (beyond VCAA standard will only be on the last 3 hour exam, as our signature challenge exam).

[paulsterio]

Another issue you'll have to start thinking about as well is whether they'll have integrated questions. i.e. questions which will span across Unit 3 and Unit 4 concepts or that they'll pull a "Physics" type exam and split it up into Units.

In regards to which format is better, well, it's a tough one to call.

I like the Basic and Advanced books, will cater for a larger target audience too (weaker and high achieving students)

The issue with doing this is that you'll be cannibalising your own sales, because few would buy both the Basic and Advanced books. So financially, it will be less viable. But I've yet to think of a format for my own 2013 Physics book, so I'll let you know if I do think of something, because we'll probably have to keep our books reasonably consistent.

[thushan]

Another issue you'll have to start thinking about as well is whether they'll have integrated questions. i.e. questions which will span across Unit 3 and Unit 4 concepts or that they'll pull a "Physics" type exam and split it up into Units.

In regards to which format is better, well, it's a tough one to call.

I like the Basic and Advanced books, will cater for a larger target audience too (weaker and high achieving students)

The issue with doing this is that you'll be cannibalising your own sales, because few would buy both the Basic and Advanced books. So financially, it will be less viable. But I've yet to think of a format for my own 2013 Physics book, so I'll let you know if I do think of something, because we'll probably have to keep our books reasonably consistent.

I'd beg to differ for the Basic and Advanced books - because people will want as much prep material as possible. They can start off with the basic book, and then move into the Advanced book. Either way, we will be cannibalising our own sales.

And btw - I'm writing new integrated questions too.

[Jenny_2108]

The basic book will be below VCAA standard to about easy VCAA-standard. Yup, the hard questions will be put in the Advanced book. And the Advanced book will from about hard VCAA-standard to beyond VCAA standard (beyond VCAA standard will only be on the last 3 hour exam, as our signature challenge exam).

Actually,  I dont like the idea of basic book with "below VCAA standard" because we all have the same VCAA exams, so we want to do prac questions similar standard with VCAA. You may separate but I think most of people will buy the advanced rather than basic one.

Btw, if you worry that the book is too thick, I suggest you can cut some answer's space. Its sometimes too much unnecessary space.
Or you can put the detail solution in CD. If we read the model answer at the back of the book and dont understand about it much, we can open the CD and see for full details of explanation.

Anyway, its just my opinion though

[paulsterio]

I know, either way we'll be cannibalising our own sales, which is bad, but I know that personally, if there was a "SACs" book and an "Exam" book I would buy both - one earlier on and one maybe later on in the year. However, if it was just a Basic and Advanced, I would probably just aim for the Advanced and skip over the basic - but I do agree that this format opens it up to a larger audience, though.

[pi]

I would probably just aim for the Advanced and skip over the basic - but I do agree that this format opens it up to a larger audience, though.

That's because you are a high achieving student. Most are not.

[thushan]

The basic book will be below VCAA standard to about easy VCAA-standard. Yup, the hard questions will be put in the Advanced book. And the Advanced book will from about hard VCAA-standard to beyond VCAA standard (beyond VCAA standard will only be on the last 3 hour exam, as our signature challenge exam).

Actually,  I dont like the idea of basic book with "below VCAA standard" because we all have the same VCAA exams, so we want to do prac questions similar standard with VCAA. You may separate but I think most of people will buy the advanced rather than basic one.

Btw, if you worry that the book is too thick, I suggest you can cut some answer's space. Its sometimes too much unnecessary space.
Or you can put the detail solution in CD. If we read the model answer at the back of the book and dont understand about it much, we can open the CD and see for full details of explanation.

Anyway, its just my opinion though

Jenny, I see where you are coming from, but remember that when you are first trying to learn the content, you want to be able to do questions that hone your skills in solving simple questions first. It's a step by step process. I can't chuck problem solving questions right from the word go when you guys are still learning the content and getting the ideas and concepts in your head. That's what the Basic book is for. Once you've mastered the concepts and the Basic book is done, you can then go for the Advanced book questions.

Btw the Basic book will have VCAA-standard questions, but on the easy side. But the easier tests on the Basic book will be below VCAA standard, to warm the students, who are still learning, onto using their skills to do simple problems.

[thushan]

I would probably just aim for the Advanced and skip over the basic - but I do agree that this format opens it up to a larger audience, though.

That's because you are a high achieving student. Most are not.

Not only that, but I bet that you'd want to have a go at the Basic questions too first - looking back, it's hard to think that once you were not able to solve the simple chem problems yourself. When I first learnt chem, I had to solve easy problems too first, because I was still learning the concept. Everyone goes through it.

[Lasercookie]

For the tests in the book, I think it's fine to target the "easy" stuff in order to teach the concepts. I think the practice exams are a different matter though.

The main concern I have is that, especially for the basic book, would be to keep those standard 2.5 hour exams at VCAA level, i.e. not 100% 'easy VCAA-level' but also have that reasonably even mix of difficulty that VCAA exams tend to have with their questions (and that one or two challenging questions that VCAA will have in nearly every exam).

Maybe I've misinterpreted things a bit (especially with being unsure on how much "easy VCAA-level" actually covers), but I think the value of the 'basic' book would drop reasonably if the two practice exams were biased too much towards the easy end of the things. A practice exam that's too easy wouldn't really be helpful to any chemistry student, regardless of what level they are at.

[paulsterio]

I know - but you have to consider the time when people are getting into Exam prep books - like I fully agree with you, we all start from scratch and work our way up, but if you're producing an "Exam Study Guide" that is at a basic level, that is a contradiction of some sorts - because by that stage, most will already be up to a higher or more "advanced" stage (at least at VCAA standard or beyond). Like, I would buy a basic level book at the START of the year, but not right before exams - so maybe the basic book should focus more on SACs rather than exams?

[Russ]

I think SACs and Exams is better than Basic and Advanced. You can make the SAC book essentially a basic book even with a few difficult problems thrown in here and there, but the marketing is much easier than selling two different exam booklets