Why did you do Spesh?

[babushka818]

zsteve, it's really great that you understand the concepts in the way you do, but not everyone can think that way. As Euler said, it's a complete different way of thinking in some topics.

To successfully apply the concepts in specialist, I personally think a fundamental understanding is almost necessary for a lot of the content. But in methods, though you mention how some may struggle to understand particular concepts, for most problems you can use a formulaic approach and solve *most* questions. Not everyone sees it this way. But many students can do okay in methods because when learning concepts, for the most part you can get away with the reason being "it just is" and moving on, something you can't do with spesh. This is of course generally the separator in methods, from who, as Euler said, follows steps blindly, and who understands the content and can apply it successfully.

I think it becomes more variable between both the higher up the spectrum you go; but for students who don't fully understand what they're doing, specialist can definitely be harder.

Just my opinion, thought I'd offer one just for perspective of a lower-intelligence student  

[nerdgasm]

Just out of interest, what was the predominant reason you did Specialist Maths? For love of maths, or just for the scaling

Edit: thought better of personal bias

On a personal level, this question is somewhat interesting for me, because I did Specialist Maths in 2011 (which means that soon I'll have grey hair, a hunched back, and complain that the whippersnappers class of 2016 has it way too easy! Back in the good 'ol days...). That year, there were some changes made to the way Spesh scaling was calculated, which made Spesh scores scale more (e.g. a raw 40 became 50, instead of 47). I can't exactly remember if the changes were announced in 2010, or 2011 itself though. Regardless, I do enjoy maths a fair bit, and so would have picked Specialist Maths even without this change. That being said, the increase in Spesh scaling allowed me to get exactly on the threshold of the ATAR cutoff of my undergraduate course, so I do have to be thankful.

On the topic of the difficulties of Maths Methods vs. Spesh Maths, I did Methods in Year 11 and Spesh in Year 12, so it's *really* hard for me to say which is harder. The reason I say this is because I think I had a different study approach in Year 12 compared to Year 11 - one that was more focused on conceptual understanding, which probably aided my learning of content in general. When I did Methods, there were definitely sections of the course where I just tried to memorise a formula (matrix transformations, linear approximation and the summation notation for an integral, for example), and I definitely paid the price for this on the end of year exams. When I did Spesh, there were occasions when starting a new topic (e.g. ellipses and hyperbolas) where I wouldn't just start doing the questions after the teacher had finished their explanation, but instead, I would actually just keep going over the worked examples and derivations, trying to 'annotate' between each line of working. All that being said, my raw Methods score ended up being slightly higher than my raw Spesh score.

However, I do agree that the exams in Maths Methods tend to set questions that require more application of learned knowledge, than Specialist Maths. I found that (especially in Exam 2) a Methods question could be a 'separator question' for around half of its subparts (or marks if you prefer), while in Specialist Maths, usually only one or two parts of a question would be unfamiliar/test understanding beyond the standard procedures/formulae.

[studentofthenow]

On a personal level, this question is somewhat interesting for me, because I did Specialist Maths in 2011 (which means that soon I'll have grey hair, a hunched back, and complain that the whippersnappers class of 2016 has it way too easy! Back in the good 'ol days...). That year, there were some changes made to the way Spesh scaling was calculated, which made Spesh scores scale more (e.g. a raw 40 became 50, instead of 47). I can't exactly remember if the changes were announced in 2010, or 2011 itself though. Regardless, I do enjoy maths a fair bit, and so would have picked Specialist Maths even without this change. That being said, the increase in Spesh scaling allowed me to get exactly on the threshold of the ATAR cutoff of my undergraduate course, so I do have to be thankful.

Suchhh a good answer!

On the topic of the difficulties of Maths Methods vs. Spesh Maths, I did Methods in Year 11 and Spesh in Year 12, so it's *really* hard for me to say which is harder. The reason I say this is because I think I had a different study approach in Year 12 compared to Year 11 - one that was more focused on conceptual understanding, which probably aided my learning of content in general. When I did Methods, there were definitely sections of the course where I just tried to memorise a formula (matrix transformations, linear approximation and the summation notation for an integral, for example), and I definitely paid the price for this on the end of year exams. When I did Spesh, there were occasions when starting a new topic (e.g. ellipses and hyperbolas) where I wouldn't just start doing the questions after the teacher had finished their explanation, but instead, I would actually just keep going over the worked examples and derivations, trying to 'annotate' between each line of working. All that being said, my raw Methods score ended up being slightly higher than my raw Spesh score.

However, I do agree that the exams in Maths Methods tend to set questions that require more application of learned knowledge, than Specialist Maths. I found that (especially in Exam 2) a Methods question could be a 'separator question' for around half of its subparts (or marks if you prefer), while in Specialist Maths, usually only one or two parts of a question would be unfamiliar/test understanding beyond the standard procedures/formulae.

[Callum@1373]

Probably a much more interesting reason here (this is at the end of yr 10, I did do GMA)

Put environmental science 1&2 in my preferences, but they didnt have enough people for a class. Then put enviro science 3&4 as a preference, but school said I'd need to do units 1&2 to do 3&4. Then I put down english language units 1&2, but there weren't enough people to make a class. I then asked if I could do bio units 1&2 and 3&4 simultaneously, but school said no. Then I was like shit, there aren't any more subjects I wanna study. A coordinator asked if I was going alright in maths and then enrolled me into GMA haha

[alchemy]

Assuming both are raw, why did you do better in spesh? Less monotonous? More fun? More time spent? Enlighten me because i also thought spesh was the "harder" one

I found spesh has a steeper learning curve although applications in methods are more intensive, immersive and "hard" IF you don't have much experience. I believe this was the case for me when I thought that merely understanding the content in methods was sufficient (I.e. I didn't do many questions in the book let alone practice exams).

Spesh, on the other hand, I not only understood from the get go but practiced a lot (practice exams, book questions,  even check my AN posts on the spesh board since year 10!). But tbh  I probably overdid it... Probably could've got around the same score if I practiced less

[blacksanta62]

Doing it because I like some of the things in the course (vectors, circular functions, a bit of complex numbers etc etc) and wanted something to keep me on my toes and get me mad (to make me try even harder) plus + bruh that scaling doe. I haven't even started the course properly and it's already fried 50% of my brain, I might as well put the other 50% to good use and "just do it". To the OP, if this was for people who have actually finished the course, apologies

[JackSonSmith]

1) Challenge
2) Interesting
3) That scaling
4) Meet like-minded people (nerds like me )

[HopefulLawStudent]

Just out of interest, what was the predominant reason you did Specialist Maths? For love of maths, or just for the scaling

Edit: thought better of personal bias

I want to tell you a story...

Once upon a time, there was a bored little Year 9 completing exercises that took her classmates 2+ hours in under 20 minutes. She'd spend the rest of the time chilling and drawing bad stick figures that didn't look like stick figures. The math bosses that be offered to move her up. And like the stupid little Year 9 she was, she went along with what they said like a lamb to slaughter. And the rest of the story, as they sometimes say, is history.

Okay. That's a lie. I actually really loved math at the time. But the truth is, I did specialist because I had nothing better to do and I was good at it so why not?

[qazser]

I want to tell you a story...

Once upon a time, there was a bored little Year 9 completing exercises that took her classmates 2+ hours in under 20 minutes. She'd spend the rest of the time chilling and drawing bad stick figures that didn't look like stick figures. The math bosses that be offered to move her up. And like the stupid little Year 9 she was, she went along with what they said like a lamb to slaughter. And the rest of the story, as they sometimes say, is history.

Okay. That's a lie. I actually really loved math at the time. But the truth is, I did specialist because I had nothing better to do and I was good at it so why not?

graduated yet or 2016 lol, you speak like you have

[acinod]

Asian 5

[Orson]

If anyone is interested in why someone didn't do spesh;

I was super weak at maths around grade 10 (around the time we were starting to choose subjects for VCE), but I was better than most of my class (see how I used italics). I learned the processes of stuff, but never really understood it. My teachers kept  telling me to do it, but me and my parents were like, "Am I really that good?".

Long story short. If I had done spesh, it probably would have most likely ended up in disaster (I only just got the ATAR for my course), but who knows. Anyway, I understand math much better now (the mechanics of it) and I'm a pretty good teacher (people tend to get stuff when I explain it to them). I'll be taking foundation math this year (spesh equivalent) so I guess we'll see if I'm ready or not!

[wyzard]

Just out of interest, what was the predominant reason you did Specialist Maths? For love of maths, or just for the scaling

Edit: thought better of personal bias

Because... why not?