Is it wise to do modules that aren't being studied at school?

[vashappenin]

Hey all
So the modules our school is doing for further are Business Maths, Number Patterns and Geometry and Trigonometry.
I'm not sure whether I actually like these modules, especially geo&trig, because I feel like it's easier for me to make little mistakes in it and I HATE geometry.
I reeeally love matrices I'll definitely be doing that module over these holidays to hopefully replace geo&trig in the actual exam. Also, I thought of doing the graphs and relations module these holidays as well, seeing as a lot of it (or so I've heard.. correct me if I'm wrong) is taught in methods.

Out of these 5 modules, which 3 are the best/easiest/least prone to silly mistakes? Do you think it's stupid of me to be doing 2 different modules over the summer holidays to actually do in the exam? Any advice on what I should do?

Thanks in advance

[Planck's constant]

No

[vashappenin]

Some justification would be nice instead of just a one-worded answer.

[Planck's constant]

Whether you like it or not, you have to climb 4 mountains during the year to be able to compete in SAC's, improve your ranking etc. This is the time to learn how NOT to make silly mistakes.
Climbing a 5th mountain for practice is a waste of time which you should be investing in your other subjects.

[Planck's constant]

I sympathise with your concern however.
Your school has made a bad choice of modules.
Can't be helped unfortunately. Studying extra modules is not the answer.

[Stick]

I'll have to agree with argonaut here. Regardless of whether you like the assigned modules or not, you're going to have to sit a SAC on them anyway and you're going to have to learn how to minimise silly errors in them if you want to do well in them. You're not going to get any support whatsoever from your school if you learn extra modules on your own, nor will you get much practice come exam time - to save paper, schools tend to just print out the relevant modules when handing exams out to their students. Not to mention, you seriously will forget them come exam time if you start now. The only time you should bother learning a new module is if you're not understanding the topic at all and you haven't done well on the SAC. It's worth it only to save your exam score from serious harm.

I did Geometry and Trigonometry, Graphs and Relations and Business-related Mathematics as my three modules. When you get to Business-related Mathematics, you'll see that a lot of it is new and unless you're an Accounting student (which you're not) you would never have seen it, and your advantage over the regular Further students is lost. You have to spend a lot of time understanding the theory or else you won't be able to do the arithmetic well at all. Furthermore, VCAA loves testing theory knowledge for this module (Question 9 of this year's multiple choice exam had no calculations in it whatsoever - I got it in a few seconds in reading time while others simply had no clue whatsoever; and remember, Question 9 is always the hardest question). I know a few kids learnt Matrices out of frustration, but they felt a little uneasy doing something different in the exam room compared to everyone else.

Yes, a lot of Graphs and Relations and Matrices is covered in Methods, but many Methods students then become complacent and feel they can fill these modules out on the exam without doing the work in the worst-case scenario, which is not true. Each module is equally prone to silly errors and it's just something you'll just have to work on throughout the year. Luckily, for stronger Maths students, Further is not a subject where time is an issue so I can only urge you to take your time and complete everything once, but properly.

Also, you don't need to do any holiday homework for Further, trust me.

Feel free to ask me more questions or if you need any help. I'm making a bit of an effort to hang around here since I know the Further forum tends to get a bit neglected.