How to prepare for Specialist 3&4?

[FarAwaySS2]

I'll be doing Specialist in 2015 and I was wondering what I could do in this year to get a grasp on the concepts early and begin working ahead. What resources are recommended? How many questions should I practise daily or every week?

Thanks! Much appreciated!

[emilyhobbes]

So will you be studying methods 3/4 next year as well?

[FarAwaySS2]

Yes I will be studying Methods 3&4 next year.

[emilyhobbes]

hmm the thing is that spesh builds on a lot of methods knowledge, and there's a lot of overlap in terms of areas of study, but spesh just adds more depth, so in reality, I'd say that methods is pretty good prep for spesh. A lot of my friends who did methods and spesh simultaneously found that they were often doing really similar stuff in either class at the same time.

However there are areas like vectors, kinematics and dynamics which methods doesn't touch, so maybe take a look at these areas, especially if you won't have a grounding in physics. I wasn't doing physics and found dynamics really difficult to grasp initially, but the rest of my classmates did do physics breezed through it.

maybe take a look at a spesh 1/2 textbook? I'd recommend Essentials

good luck! sorry if this wasn't what you were looking for hahah

[FarAwaySS2]

Thankyouuuu! That was super helpful! Now I definitely know what to do. I'm doing Physics so I don't think it'll be a problem. Thanks! So if I finish 1&2 Methods, would it be enough to begin Specialist 3&4? Or would I have to know parts of 3&4 Methods to begin Specialist 3&4 on my own?

Thanks for your advice!

[Professor Polonsky]

Spesh largely builds on Methods 3/4, with some completely new concepts (e.g. vectors, complex numbers). If you have not already completed Methods 3/4, and your school does not offer GMA (sort of spesh 1/2), then I'd go over some topics next summer holidays to even the playing field for you. I wouldn't worry about it now, though.

[FarAwaySS2]

Spesh largely builds on Methods 3/4, with some completely new concepts (e.g. vectors, complex numbers). If you have not already completed Methods 3/4, and your school does not offer GMA (sort of spesh 1/2), then I'd go over some topics next summer holidays to even the playing field for you. I wouldn't worry about it now, though.

Yep. I've done GMA, so all goods. Okay, thanks!

[Einstein]

Our school doesn't offer GMA. Is methods enough for 3/4 spesh or should i ale be doing something in the 2014/2015 holidays?

cheers

[emilyhobbes]

I did half of gma, and it's pretty useless imo hahah
methods 3/4 should be enough, it gives you a good grounding in most of the spesh topics

[b^3]

Our school doesn't offer GMA. Is methods enough for 3/4 spesh or should i ale be doing something in the 2014/2015 holidays?

cheers

It should be alright. Our school did run GMA, but considering there were 5 classes of further and a single ~10 student class of spesh they ran GMA to set people up for Further and Methods and so we didn't cover anything from the GMA book for spesh. This meant at the start of the year most of us were a little bit stumped with some topics as we'd never come across them before (for example vectors and dynamics, a bit of complex numbers and such), where as I knew others at other schools that just breezed through those areas because they'd covered them earlier. It probably would have helped us if we had covered at least some of those topics from the GMA book, BUT in the end you can still do well, it'll just take a bit more effort (e.g. even with that bad grounding I still got 40+ in the end). As others have said above the other topics have a lot of overlap with methods (think of doing pretty much all of methods differentiation in one or two exercises in spesh). If anything doing spesh makes methods a lot easier.

I will add to the physics point. Those in my class who were doing physics got through the dynamics/physics-y sections pretty easily, while those who didn't struggled a fair bit with it (I think more because it's a slightly different way of setting out the question, the diagram is pretty much needed every time and just knowing the terms/definitions of what you're dealing with. i.e. It took a while for the non-physics people to get the hang of acceleration, velocity and displacement, what they're representing and how they're connected to each other).

So really you should be right, but it wouldn't hurt to look over a few spesh specific topics from the GMA book if you have the time.

[M_BONG]

I will add to the physics point. Those in my class who were doing physics got through the dynamics/physics-y sections pretty easily, while those who didn't struggled a fair bit with it (I think more because it's a slightly different way of setting out the question, the diagram is pretty much needed every time and just knowing the terms/definitions of what you're dealing with. i.e. It took a while for the non-physics people to get the hang of acceleration, velocity and displacement, what they're representing and how they're connected to each other).

So really you should be right, but it wouldn't hurt to look over a few spesh specific topics from the GMA book if you have the time.

Yeah I definitely agree. Mechanics and some of kinematics really stumped me as I dont do physics. The most important thing is to understand how to draw the diagram and what the question is ultimately asking. I think practice in that chapter (And maybe some basic vectors) should give you a solid start.

[Professor Polonsky]

I did half of gma, and it's pretty useless imo hahah
methods 3/4 should be enough, it gives you a good grounding in most of the spesh topics

Hmm not sure to what extent I agree with this. GMA at my school was geared specifically towards spesh, so I might have a different experience, but even though I completely flanked it I found having been exposed to much of the new material before starting spesh helpful.

[emilyhobbes]

my gma course was quite strange.. in sem 1 it was just another methods 3/4 class, so we got double time for methods (accelerated class) and sem 2 it was various topics in spesh but none that were terribly relevant to the 3/4, so yeah my experience probably isn't very representative in hindsight!

[zhujunyan]

Don't worry too much. I didn't do unit1&2 for methods and specialist maths. But it ended up pretty well.
What you can do is the chapter review on the book. They are a bit harder than the exercises but they give you some feelings about the exam and your weak spots.

Good Luck