Derrick Ha's weekly tuition, Worth it?

[Lollerblades]

Has anyone heard about these weekly classes? Are they good?! How many people in each class? Thanks

[thushan]

Given his reputation Derrick Ha would be the equivalent of God. So yes, worth it

[Jenny_2108]

Has anyone heard about these weekly classes? Are they good?! How many people in each class? Thanks

You are from NSW and travel to Vic because of DH's weekly classes? :O

Anyway, I don't know about these classes but I attended his revision lecture today and it was so awesome!
He explains very clearly, introduces some careless mistakes/tricks in the exams and gives a lots of interesting questions
I assume his classes are very good. If you wanna know how many people in ea class, just contact to him

[Faith-PoweR]

Can someone tell in details about the classes of Derrick Ha?
The way he teaches, the classes atmosphere etc.
Is it worth to go as I live in western suburb which is really far away to wheelers hill
Thanks in advance!!!!! 

[Shenz0r]

I've been going to his weekly classes since the start of the year, so bear with me here.

The class sizes are very small, only 5 people per class. The beginning of the lesson is usually question time, where we usually just present difficult questions which we don't really understand, and he'll spend around 20-30 minutes altogether answering them and helping you understand the theory behind it. He's a very good explainer because he relates all the theory to real life, so he'll help a lot with your understanding of the theory.

He'll also give you weekly notes with homework on them - and the questions range from easy to difficult.

Apart from theory, there are two things that Derrick really emphasises - and that's eliminating your careless errors, and finding alternative methods to check whether your answer is correct or not. Whenever we're going through exams together, he'll always ask us how we can check our answers using another method (using both CAS techniques and tech-free techniques). Oh, and graphs. He's very tight about graphs.

The class atmosphere is very casual and you know, just relaxing. You feel like you're being taught by another student (albeit a very intelligent one). He's also heaps friendly, so don't feel intimidated by his intelligence!

If you feel that theory and careless mistakes are letting you down in Methods, I would definitely recommend considering going to his weekly lessons. If you want to just know how to set out your answers in a VCAA exam, then his books should suffice.

EDIT: Oh, and he teaches you in his house and you can see like so many academic trophies and certificates LOLOL

[Jenny_2108]

Apart from theory, there are two things that Derrick really emphasises - and that's eliminating your careless errors, and finding alternative methods to check whether your answer is correct or not. Whenever we're going through exams together, he'll always ask us how we can check our answers using another method (using both CAS techniques and tech-free techniques). Oh, and graphs. He's very tight about graphs.

He also highlights careless this in his maths lectures.
You are so lucky to join in his class because the ques he gives are very interesting and make you think

[Faith-PoweR]

Thanks Shenz0r!
btw how much does it cost?

[Shenz0r]

You pay in "blocks" of eight lessons, each block costs around 280 and each lesson is around 1 hour and 30 mins

[Bismuth]

$40 for 1.5hrs (he claims 80 minutes, but it always goes over so that's why it's probably written as that). Paid in blocks of seven.

I'm in the other class, but Shenz0r is on the money with how the class is. He has always been happy to answer questions via email and during the big methods SAC to check answers.

Very polite and friendly person. To add to Shenz0r's comments, he probably emphasizes the careless mistakes in Methods more than anything. I have friends who go to his Specialists classes and while it certainly has its focus on accuracy,  Methods is about perhaps one or two difficult questions and the rest being careless mistakes costing marks.

First time I've ever had a tutor so I can't make a comparison. However, I think it has been worth every penny and he's changed my conceptual understanding of math as a whole.

[Shenz0r]

Oh yes, and I forgot to mention that he makes your conceptual knowledge of the entire course - and your basic skills - very solidified. He actually shows you how formulas such as the Quadratic Formula, and the Binomial Distribution work. Which is very useful, especially in Probability where he pretty much shows you all these alternative ways of checking your work, and fall-back techniques that you can rely on if you have no idea what to do.

Like, for example, in the Preparatory questions before the revision lecture, the very first question was a transformation question:

And you had to apply the following transformations:
-Dilate by a factor of 3 from x-axis
-Dilate by a factor of 1/2 from y-axis
-Reflect in x-axis
-Translate 4 units in the positive t-direction and 4 units in the negative x-direction

Most (literally everybody) couldn't do that question, because they simply didn't know what to do. If it were a simpler case, like a simple sine graph, yeah, everybody can transform that. But with this question you actually have to know the steps in the transformations (such as when you dilate by a factor of k from the x-axis, you replace y with y/k) in order to work it out. And this is the kind of thing that Derrick nails into your head. He shows you why things and formulas are the way they are, so you won't get stuck when you're presented with harder problems.

[Jenny_2108]

^ everyone should know how to it because they already studied about transformation
You still apply the transformation as normal, nothing is different from the basic skills you learn at school
But in this case, y and x is on the same side so when we dilate by factor k from x-axis, we multiplies y with 1/k instead of k and translate a units in positive y direction => y becomes (y-a) instead of +a
For transformation of x, its the same as normal graphs
I don't think everyone has trouble with it if they are presented with these kind of questions. Transformation is general concept and you can apply it in every graphs with similar ideas. Thats why we need to understand transformation instead of memorising

[Shenz0r]

You still apply the transformation as normal, nothing is different from the basic skills you learn at school

Exactly, I was surprised that so many students (even in a strong cohort like MHS) didn't have the basic skills to apply the transformations. But yeah, point is, Derrick does help you break down seemingly harder problems into smaller and more manageable type of questions. Especially in probability. His fall back technique for obtaining a probability is to write all the possible cases down first, then multiply the total number of favourable arrangements (found by combinations) by the probability of one of the arrangements. Which again, makes seemingly hard questions very manageable.

And then in another example, in related rates, he'll tell you to keep splitting up your derivatives with the chain rule if you can't find a proper expression for it the first time round. A lot of people get stuck if they can't find say and don't realise that you can split it further with the chain rule.

[Jenny_2108]

You still apply the transformation as normal, nothing is different from the basic skills you learn at school

Exactly, I was surprised that so many students (even in a strong cohort like MHS) didn't have the basic skills to apply the transformations. But yeah, point is, Derrick does help you break down seemingly harder problems into smaller and more manageable type of questions. Especially in probability. His fall back technique is for obtaining a probability is to write all the possible cases down first, then multiply the total number of favourable arrangements by the probability of one of the arrangements. Which again, makes seemingly hard questions very manageable.

Today in methods lecture, the 1st thing he taught was probability ==! and he spent like the whole morning to talk about it.
omg, only 1 question and he asked to do with 3 different ways :O

And then in another example, in related rates, he'll tell you to keep splitting up your derivatives with the chain rule if you can't find a proper expression for it the first time round. A lot of people get stuck if they can't find say and don't realise that you can split it further with the chain rule.

omg, I really like this question its so much fun, like playing with chain rule.
Yeah, we have to split into many chain rules and find the relation between A,V,r,t

[Shenz0r]

Today in methods lecture, the 1st thing he taught was probability ==! and he spent like the whole morning to talk about it.
omg, only 1 question and he asked to do with 3 different ways :O

Ahaha yeah, I was there today!

But yeah this is what I mean by Derrick telling you about alternative ways to do your work, it's pretty much how you verify if your answer is correct (because two correct methods should give the same answer).

[Jenny_2108]

^ the lecture was so crowded lol. It was like triple compared to the spesh one

Btw, did he teach the same thing in weekly classes and the revision lecture? Anything different?
What kinda questions he gives in weekly classes? Are they challenging?