Hi,
I'm currently a year 12 student doing Bio/Chem/Physics/Methods/English, and I really want to get into medicine, but am worried my low English marks will pull down my ATAR, and because I'm doing well in Methods, I really want to pick up Specialist Maths. The issue is, I chose not to do it in Year 11 because I at the moment didn't realise how advantageous it would be for me and because I assumed it would be too difficult. But I've heard it is possible to pick up Specialists in Year 12 without Units 1 and 2... Is that true? And how do we pick it up??
Specalist 3/4 covers 4 "Main topics" IMO
The preresiquite algebra which is complex numbers, ciruclar functions and some general stuff. Both of these are covered in the 1/2 but can be picked up more easily in the 3/4, especially the circular functions stuff. For this just doing the 3/4 chapters out of cambridge will be enough.
The next area is calculus. This is the largest area by far and the most vital thing to everything in the whole course.
There is no calculus in 1/2.
The next is mechanics and vectors, there is some of this in the 1/2 but once again it is covered very well in the 3/4 textbook and can just be learned from there. There is some BIG overlap with physics here (momentum, force triangles etc). The 1/2 does a poor job explaining this area if you ask me and some of it is just omitted. Calculus is needed for this area.
The last is statistics. The 1/2 touches on this, but doing methods would also work well to help it and once again the 1/2 doesn't cover it very well because this AOS involves Calculus, which isn't in the 1/2...seeing a patern here?
If you want to pick it up, then going through the 3/4 textbook THOUROUGLY will be more than sufficent, alot of the chap 1 stuff from last year like never shows up on the exam anyway. It isn't an easy subject, and it may be a tad harder for you but honestly picking it up as a 3/4 isn't too much of a challenge compared to how the course is anyway, GL!