Spesh or Further

[Angelx001]

I'm currently doing Further 3/4 next year but I'm not sure whether I should drop it to pick up Spesh. I know I would have to catch up on a lot, however, I find that further is really difficult when it comes to Financial Maths. I also always lose marks for silly mistakes. I'm doing better in Methods as well and enjoy it more than Further. Help? Should I keep further if I want a 45+ to pick up Spesh instead?

[keltingmeith]

This is a fairly loaded question, believe it or not! So, I'm going to be as objective as possible with this, and I've gotta say, whenever I see this question, my response is: the fact that you're even considering this probably means you should do specialist.

Firstly - further is quite competitive, and to be quite honest, the difference between a 40 and a 45 is quite often luck, but usually comes down to being meticulous and making sure to answer everything exactly as asked. Importantly, this means that you shouldn't make silly mistakes. So, if you're often making silly mistakes in financial, you've got a big problem - especially since it's part of the core units.

Now, let's move over to specialist. Yes - maybe you need to catch up. However, specialist 1/2 really has nothing to do with 3/4, with the exception of some very minor topics. More importantly, to do well in specialist 3/4, you'll have a solid base in methods 1/2 (or even 3/4 if you've done it), and score well in methods. The only risk is that specialist is harder, and plenty of people who did really well in methods didn't do so well in specialist. Having said that, plenty of people I know did really well in specialist, but not so great in methods, so this is one of those things you have to experience to believe.

All the said, from the sounds of your situation, I'm going to assume that you're a decent maths student, who will work hard throughout the year, and in Further, you will get a 45 study score. That's great - BUT, to compare the two maths subjects, we need to look at scaled scores. I will use last year (because that's what our own ATAR Calc gives me) as the basis.

So, if you did these subjects last year, you got a 45 in Further, this is a scaled score of 44. To get the same score in specialist, you only needed to get 33. That is - to get the exact same increase on your ATAR, you only needed 33 instead of 45 in your subject.

In my experience, if you're considering a 45+ for Further, and at the same time think that specialist might be a worthwhile subject, then 33 is easily achievable with the same amount of effort - and you might find you do even better. So, I would recommend doing specialist.

[exit]

Yes if you are the type of person to make many careless mistakes. The high end of Further is all down to luck as one mark lost can equal one study score lost. A lot of Spesh is built on Methods stuff, and while the concepts/ideas from spesh are harder and more complex, it is overall the easiest to score well in after scaling. It has a lower risk than Methods (excessive curveballs/doing very in-depth) and the scaling is amazing (since it is scaled to other maths subjects, including yr11 methods students) instead of other subjects.

[Swagadaktal]

Just coz u make careless mistakes now dont mean ull always make em famalam

I made a shit tonne of em, -- like so many its unbelievable.
But i made no silly mistakes on the actual exam.

You can train urself to not make em so its a shitty reason to not do further.

But yeah do spesh

[exit]

Just coz u make careless mistakes now dont mean ull always make em famalam

I made a shit tonne of em, -- like so many its unbelievable.
But i made no silly mistakes on the actual exam.

You can train urself to not make em so its a shitty reason to not do further.

But yeah do spesh

High 30s already scale to basically 50/49/48s in Spesh. In further, you make *only* a couple mistakes regardless of how good you are and you've already definitely got lower than what you could have in Spesh abd many people who aren't near as knowledgeable as you. Considering Further is considered a very 'shallow' subject, all they need is a couple weird questions/curveballs to mess you up. Not necessarily 'careless mistakes'.

If you get all the non-curveballs in Spesh, a 40 would definitely be achievable.