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December 06, 2025, 08:32:20 am

Author Topic: Advice for summer holiday preparation  (Read 8981 times)  Share 

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AllG_

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Advice for summer holiday preparation
« on: November 18, 2014, 10:19:48 pm »
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Saw a similar thread in the chemistry board, so I decided to make a similar thread here. I was wondering what would you guys recommend me and other students who will be doing U3/4 Methods next year to do during the summer holidays as preparation? Would you recommend start doing the exercises from chapter 1, or perhaps start self learning the new concepts in U3/4 that weren't covered in U1/2 (advanced calculus like chain rule, binomial distribution in prob.) as most of the topics in U3/4 are the same in U1/2 anyway just harder.

Any advice would be appreciated. Cheers :)

AirLandBus

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Re: Advice for summer holiday preparation
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2014, 05:29:23 pm »
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Same boat - anything would be much appreciated. Depending on how headstart goes will depend how the holidays pan out. ive never had the teacher before so if he lets us take notes in class then ill probs starting working through the 1st chapter. If he prefers us to just simply listen then ill probably spend the holidays writing notes for the 1st chapter. See how it pans out. This will allow some tolerance in my study and allow me to spend more time on questions and hard checkpoint exam style questions.

DSubShell

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Re: Advice for summer holiday preparation
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2014, 06:11:35 pm »
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Tough question... Trying my best to remember what I did 2 years ago :P

I think before anything, read over the 1/2 notes/exams/outcomes and consolidate everything. 3/4 is very strongly based on these roots so its crucial you have no qualms with the work.

From there, I think it would be a good idea to have a skim over the textbook, especially the explanations and worked questions. You don't have to master all the concepts or be able to answer questions proficiently, but since methods has quite a long course, and its a good idea to expose yourself to whats coming. This should help once you learn the topics in class to ensure that you can grasp them quickly and get straight into it. Because you've seen the topics already, it wont take as long to understand, and you will build good connections in your head on the second listening.

If you have some more motivation, it may not hurt to get your feet wet and start doing questions. As I said, its a long course, and spreading work out may be a good idea. However, make sure of two things:
  • If there are questions you can't do, make a note, and make sure to go over with your teacher later. Don't forget about these or neglect them. If these questions/concepts are used later on in a chapter, its best to stop doing questions of this chapter at this point.
  • Don't get burnt out! There's a whole year ahead, so you also want to enjoy your holidays and relax before the work kicks in. Also, if you condense a lot of work before the year starts, you may have trouble remembering these skills later in the year. The key to methods is spreading the learning out.

Hope that helps. Feel free to ask me any Qs
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Renaissance

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Re: Advice for summer holiday preparation
« Reply #3 on: November 19, 2014, 06:23:47 pm »
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Do preparation that actually matters. Do just what you would be doing if it wasn't holiday, i.e. make notes, do practice problems.
Problem with pre-study is that it is usually very inefficient and you end up achieving very little because you are on holidays so there is no strong incentive/motive to study hard.

Brunette15

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Re: Advice for summer holiday preparation
« Reply #4 on: December 08, 2014, 06:17:24 pm »
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Don't waste your time revising unit 1 & 2, id recommend just trying to get a really good grasp of the first few concepts and possibly if you get time go a bit ahead.

Overall, good luck and enjoy your holidays while they last! Don't over study during the summer break you don't want to burn out throughout the year  ;)
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spectroscopy

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Re: Advice for summer holiday preparation
« Reply #5 on: December 08, 2014, 06:25:33 pm »
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for methods i would say if you can do and understand the first 4 chapters of the 3/4 textbook (going off cambridge essentials) then you will be well set up to start the year

bonkbadonk

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Re: Advice for summer holiday preparation
« Reply #6 on: December 12, 2014, 05:39:28 pm »
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Do the holiday homework. Our school (surprisingly in two periods) during transition taught us the chain rule, product rule and quotient rule for calculus. They then gave us a formula sheet from VCAA with all the derivatives so we could do the questions in the text book. Really good to start practising these things, so you can do them in a flash once you get into school
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lolaishappy

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Re: Advice for summer holiday preparation
« Reply #7 on: December 16, 2014, 10:37:44 pm »
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Wierd that your school has not set you exercises to do for holidays, luckly  ::)
Well my school has set chapter 1 to do over the holidays which polynomials and graphs.

She also gave us notes, on all graphs. Like a info page each of Linear, Quadratic to Quartic explaining which ones are negative, different sorts of function and what they mean (like (x+a)^2(x+b)... the 2 means it bounces off the intercept) And how to solve the x. Ohh and also maybe make notes of how you can make your CAS calculator useful,  to solve certain things. You should also try to memorise pascals triangle I guess, and other important components like this.
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AirLandBus

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Re: Advice for summer holiday preparation
« Reply #8 on: December 16, 2014, 10:50:03 pm »
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Wierd that your school has not set you exercises to do for holidays, luckly  ::)
Well my school has set chapter 1 to do over the holidays which polynomials and graphs.

She also gave us notes, on all graphs. Like a info page each of Linear, Quadratic to Quartic explaining which ones are negative, different sorts of function and what they mean (like (x+a)^2(x+b)... the 2 means it bounces off the intercept) And how to solve the x. Ohh and also maybe make notes of how you can make your CAS calculator useful,  to solve certain things. You should also try to memorise pascals triangle I guess, and other important components like this.

Hey, would it be possible if you sent me the notes on the different types of graphs? I'd be so grateful if you could but understand if you cant. Ive been looking for something like that, that i can quickly refer to in the mean time before i get my notes. Thanks.

lolaishappy

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Re: Advice for summer holiday preparation
« Reply #9 on: December 16, 2014, 10:53:34 pm »
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Hey, would it be possible if you sent me the notes on the different types of graphs? I'd be so grateful if you could but understand if you cant. Ive been looking for something like that, that i can quickly refer to in the mean time before i get my notes. Thanks.

Ofcourse, I'd be happy to help out, I'll try my best tonight :)
Newb coming through


AirLandBus

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Re: Advice for summer holiday preparation
« Reply #11 on: December 17, 2014, 01:16:50 pm »
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Ofcourse, I'd be happy to help out, I'll try my best tonight :)

Awesome. Thanks so much.

cosine

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Re: Advice for summer holiday preparation
« Reply #12 on: December 17, 2014, 02:00:15 pm »
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Guys any advice to absolutely demolish the methods exam next year?
Also, is it possible to get 100% on the exam? lol, i may or may not be aiming to do that ;)

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lolaishappy

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Re: Advice for summer holiday preparation
« Reply #13 on: December 18, 2014, 08:48:55 pm »
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Guys any advice to absolutely demolish the methods exam next year?
Also, is it possible to get 100% on the exam? lol, i may or may not be aiming to do that ;)

Were all aiming for that, but were bad at quickscoping.
I had to. 8)
Newb coming through

AirLandBus

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Re: Advice for summer holiday preparation
« Reply #14 on: December 18, 2014, 08:50:10 pm »
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Were all aiming for that, but were bad at quickscoping.
I had to. 8)

How are those notes coming along?  ;)