Specialist 3/4 - Advice Please

[ThatOnlyNoob]

Hi everyone, new here!

Regarding my subject selection for Year 12, I am confused about choosing Specialist 3/4 or not.
I am currently doing Methods 1/2 (I average A/B+ in SACs) but have never done Specialist 1/2, question is would I be capable of doing it? Peoples' comments on the course work terrify me in my decision making. If I was to see through with my decision to go for it, is there anything I should learn on my own from 1/2? (Links of notes and questions would be nice )

Thanks!

[MightyBeh]

It's not that bad. As/Bs right now is enough to do specialist if you're okay with putting in some extra work to catch up to the 1/2ers. Talk to your teacher, they will be able to offer better advice than I can. About half the course expands on Methods, the other stuff is new. Chances are that you will end up with some extra time in methods because of the overlap though so the out-of-school load is pretty manageable imo. It's not rocket science and there's a lot of help here and other places online, as well as at your school.

Do it if you'd like, it's pretty unlikely to kill you. If you don't want to do it though, don't. Maths is usually a swing or miss for people and if you don't enjoy it you'll probably regret choosing specialist.

As for resources, make sure you know methods 1/2 really well and if you feel particularly motivated, looking into the methods 3/4 course will probably be pretty helpful. Most of Khan Academy will be really helpful so I would 100% recommend getting into that. If you want to rush Khan Academy's content, top priorities are Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus (including differential equations). I recommend all of it though. Most resources are out of date right now, unfortunately, so that's all I've got for you. Goodluck with what you decide

[keltingmeith]

Certainly, look at Khan Academy, see if you can pick up a textbook from someone, all of that to get an idea of specialist 3/4.

But, importantly - specialist 1/2 has little to no relevance to specialist 3/4. You might be thinking, "so? I'm worried about difficulty, not content/preparation!" - but the thing is that 1/2 specialist is a lot more abstract, whilst 3/4 specialist is a lot more applied. Usually, people struggle with the abstract parts, whilst gravitating towards the 3/4. That's not to say it's objectively easier, but a lot of people will find it easier to learn. So, if you're judging the difficulty based on the 1/2 subject, you might be seeing it as harder that you'd find 3/4.

Based on your methods average, I reckon you're fully capable to doing methods - you should ask your teacher about it, though, because they'll be a much better judge than myself or anyone else here about whether you'll be able to cope!

[ThatOnlyNoob]

It's not that bad. As/Bs right now is enough to do specialist if you're okay with putting in some extra work to catch up to the 1/2ers. Talk to your teacher, they will be able to offer better advice than I can. About half the course expands on Methods, the other stuff is new. Chances are that you will end up with some extra time in methods because of the overlap though so the out-of-school load is pretty manageable imo. It's not rocket science and there's a lot of help here and other places online, as well as at your school.

Do it if you'd like, it's pretty unlikely to kill you. If you don't want to do it though, don't. Maths is usually a swing or miss for people and if you don't enjoy it you'll probably regret choosing specialist.

As for resources, make sure you know methods 1/2 really well and if you feel particularly motivated, looking into the methods 3/4 course will probably be pretty helpful. Most of Khan Academy will be really helpful so I would 100% recommend getting into that. If you want to rush Khan Academy's content, top priorities are Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus (including differential equations). I recommend all of it though. Most resources are out of date right now, unfortunately, so that's all I've got for you. Goodluck with what you decide

Thanks for your reply! As for methods, I plan to do 3/4 as well. I particularly enjoy maths and honestly would like a little more work load. My B's come from lack of motivation, however I have changed my work ethics from the start of the year and been achieving heaps!

Khan Academy seems very useful (looked around quickly) and I just might go forward with doing Specialist, will also talk to my teacher about Specialist.
Thank you!

[ThatOnlyNoob]

Certainly, look at Khan Academy, see if you can pick up a textbook from someone, all of that to get an idea of specialist 3/4.

But, importantly - specialist 1/2 has little to no relevance to specialist 3/4. You might be thinking, "so? I'm worried about difficulty, not content/preparation!" - but the thing is that 1/2 specialist is a lot more abstract, whilst 3/4 specialist is a lot more applied. Usually, people struggle with the abstract parts, whilst gravitating towards the 3/4. That's not to say it's objectively easier, but a lot of people will find it easier to learn. So, if you're judging the difficulty based on the 1/2 subject, you might be seeing it as harder that you'd find 3/4.

Based on your methods average, I reckon you're fully capable to doing methods - you should ask your teacher about it, though, because they'll be a much better judge than myself or anyone else here about whether you'll be able to cope!

Thank you for your reply as well! I have looked at past exams + opinions of other specialist students, it seems a little overwhelming (first glance) but they share your opinion too. I feel much more at ease with some feedback, especially knowing I (hopefully) haven't missed anything from 1/2.

Khan Academy looks great (as mentioned in the other comment) and I will use it for sure! Definitely I'll get the opinion of my teacher and the specialist teacher about the content in 3/4!
Thank you!

[zsteve]

Hi everyone, new here!

Regarding my subject selection for Year 12, I am confused about choosing Specialist 3/4 or not.
I am currently doing Methods 1/2 (I average A/B+ in SACs) but have never done Specialist 1/2, question is would I be capable of doing it? Peoples' comments on the course work terrify me in my decision making. If I was to see through with my decision to go for it, is there anything I should learn on my own from 1/2? (Links of notes and questions would be nice )

Thanks!

Hi ThatOnlyNoob!
Yeah, Specialist has a reputation for being 'extremely hard', but I reckon that reputation is quite overrated. Rather, I'd say that the content is fairly basic but the competition is fairly formidable (Specialist 3/4 has a small and quite competitive cohort)
I didn't do Specialist 1/2 either, and went straight into Specialist 3/4. Can't say it affected me at all.

An average of A/B+ in Methods sounds decent, and it's likely you'll find Specialist to be no problem at all.

Anything you should learn in particular from 1/2? Probably just ellipses and hyperbolae. Not much else tbh.

[ThatOnlyNoob]

Hi ThatOnlyNoob!
Yeah, Specialist has a reputation for being 'extremely hard', but I reckon that reputation is quite overrated. Rather, I'd say that the content is fairly basic but the competition is fairly formidable (Specialist 3/4 has a small and quite competitive cohort)
I didn't do Specialist 1/2 either, and went straight into Specialist 3/4. Can't say it affected me at all.

An average of A/B+ in Methods sounds decent, and it's likely you'll find Specialist to be no problem at all.

Anything you should learn in particular from 1/2? Probably just ellipses and hyperbolae. Not much else tbh.

Hey there!
It's great to receive advice based on personal experience. I was sort of thinking if people were exaggerating the content in Specialist based on first glance or to scare others, I don't know but what you said sounds about right! If you don't mind me asking, how did you do in Specialist (raw study score, SACs etc)?
Thanks for your response

[zsteve]

Hey there!
It's great to receive advice based on personal experience. I was sort of thinking if people were exaggerating the content in Specialist based on first glance or to scare others, I don't know but what you said sounds about right! If you don't mind me asking, how did you do in Specialist (raw study score, SACs etc)?
Thanks for your response

Hi! My raw Specialist score was 47, for SACs I was rank 1 by a fairly sizeable margin (then again, my cohort was rather weak).
Bear in mind that, despite not doing Specialist, I had a (very) strong mathematical background going into year 12. Also I had encountered some things like vectors and complex numbers (which are taught in SM 1/2). So my story is thus rather skewed, just so you know

[ThatOnlyNoob]

Hi! My raw Specialist score was 47, for SACs I was rank 1 by a fairly sizeable margin (then again, my cohort was rather weak).
Bear in mind that, despite not doing Specialist, I had a (very) strong mathematical background going into year 12. Also I had encountered some things like vectors and complex numbers (which are taught in SM 1/2). So my story is thus rather skewed, just so you know

Fair enough! Just another question, how does the scaling work? Does it depend on the cohort or all-round performance across the state? I took a look at the VCE scaling report and saw ridiculous scaling of 11/12 marks. Is it the scaled mark that counts towards ATAR? (Btw I'm not doing it for the scaling, just a question that came to mind )

[Sine]

Hi everyone, new here!

Regarding my subject selection for Year 12, I am confused about choosing Specialist 3/4 or not.
I am currently doing Methods 1/2 (I average A/B+ in SACs) but have never done Specialist 1/2, question is would I be capable of doing it? Peoples' comments on the course work terrify me in my decision making. If I was to see through with my decision to go for it, is there anything I should learn on my own from 1/2? (Links of notes and questions would be nice )

Thanks!

Spec 1/2 doesn't really cover much of 3/4 so that shouldn't be a problem.

Specialist isn't too difficult if you put in the time to learn the concepts properly  - that is understanding what you are doing/why and how the tools you use work. Most people who struggle would just try to complete textbook questions just as a homework requirement but you need to know why you are getting these questions correct and why your getting others wrong. This will help for the more difficult application questions.

This year is the first year of the new study design but there have been only minor changes (friction and hyperboles/ellipses taken out but they still may come up and an addition of some statistics/probability) The course has had only a few minor changes for about 20years IIRC and a lot of the questions are similar.

In most cases if your considering it you should be able to cope and succeed with the correct work ethic.

[fred42]

I teach SM 1/2 and SM 3/4.

In Year 11 I cover similar triangles, Vectors, partial fractions, Complex Numbers, Circular Functions, Kinematics, Dynamics and Calculus. These topics help students prepare for Year 12. I have a couple of students in my Year 12 class this year who did not do Year 11 SM last year and are having more difficulty with the subject than the others. I suggest you do these chapters in the holidays.

Most students find the workload in SM quite heavy. It is unfortunate that the first SAC is not until the end of the first semester, so the students put SM and MM on the back burner while they prepare for SACs in other subjects. You need to keep this in mind - it is important to try to keep current.

Good luck.