methods in year 10

[blitzkrig]

I'm currently in year 9 and next year I'm moving schools from Glen Eira College to John Monash Science School, and I was looking to do Unit 1,2 Math Methods and also Unit 1,2 Hebrew. I was wondering whether anyone could give me some idea of how difficult that would be.
Thanks in advance.

[Sine]

I'm currently in year 9 and next year I'm moving schools from Glen Eira College to John Monash Science School, and I was looking to do Unit 1,2 Math Methods and also Unit 1,2 Hebrew. I was wondering whether anyone could give me some idea of how difficult that would be.
Thanks in advance.

Depends on how strong your foundation is but its definitely doable if you put the effort in

[halo]

I'm currently in year 9 and next year I'm moving schools from Glen Eira College to John Monash Science School, and I was looking to do Unit 1,2 Math Methods and also Unit 1,2 Hebrew. I was wondering whether anyone could give me some idea of how difficult that would be.
Thanks in advance.

I did 2 unit 1/2 subjects in year 10 (methods and physics) and it was fine - I actually really enjoyed it. methods was a bit more difficult than physics because I found it to be a big jump from year 10 maths, but you do get used to it pretty quickly. Be prepared to put in a lot more time into methods if you want to lay a really good foundation for 3/4 (so that you'll have less areas to work on or patch up in year 11 if you chose to do your 3/4 then)

[zofromuxo]

Like Sine has already commented, having a strong foundation is vital and crucial.
One thing I would add is trust your own ability. If your struggling and want to pull out, then pull out.

I had to do Further Unit 1 to get into Math Methods Unit 2 because my school messed up my subject selection. I got into Methods Unit 2 and I was not suited to it at all. I kept pushing through due to people's expectations, even though I felt my ability was overstated by them. I bombed both the exams, I failed both my Exams and overall just wasted my time doing the subject.

[cookiedream]

Yeah, you definitely need to a strong foundation and be prepared to do a lot of work throughout the year. I'll tell you my experiences when I picked up 1/2 Methods in Year 10 (and then 3/4 Methods last year)

So at the start it was definitely a big jump from Year 10 Maths (which I moved out of at the start of the year) and I was struggling for the first few months. I remember being devastated by my 70 something percent for my first test and an 80 something percent for my second test, all because I ran out of time when the questions were quite doable. After having a pep talk with my mum, I decided to not only just do the homework questions, but to do a few questions more. Then I progressively started doing pretty much every single question in each exercise.

I actively sought advice from Methods 3/4 students and graduates who had done methods, as well as looked at advice articles in newspapers. I got a tutor as well, who provided me a copy of Maths Quest. So I ended up doing questions from both Cambridge and Maths Quest. The first few months of doing this much work was terrible, but I slowly adjusted and ended up getting a low 90s in one test and 100% in another test. Wherever I made mistakes, I would write a note to myself in red pen saying things like "Two decimal places not three!!" or 90% of the time "Silly mistake!!!".

Going into 3/4 Methods, I felt more prepared since I did the work in 1/2 and my brain was more adjusted to the greater amount of work that 3/4 would demand. While I didn't end up doing all the practice SACs my school gave me, I definitely built a strong foundation by doing almost all the questions in each chapter (especially chapter reviews, namely the extended response questions - since Methods can be pretty nasty in Exam 2). My teacher was also relatively good and she encouraged me to keep working at this standard.

Though in saying all this, I am quite guilty of procrastinating and getting behind a few times (and subsequently spending hours catching up). But I guess when it comes to VCE, that is almost unavoidable for everyone.

Also, in your case, since you're doing a language (which probably takes up as much time, if not more), it might seem a bit more difficult re: splitting study time and effort between them. Try talking with your Careers counsellor about this.

tl:dr, doing methods early is undoubtedly quite difficult (unless you're a natural at math, which I'm not lol) and it requires a lot of continuous hard work, but in the end when you get your study score, it would be all worth it!!

(P.S. I know I'm not qualified to give such advice for Spesh coz I haven't been putting as much effort into Spesh as I did with Methods last year, largely because I couldn't organise my time well aahhh ;-; *cries*)

[KiNSKi01]

yo I'm in year 10 at the moment doing methods (we don't actually call it 1/2 methods because we arent allowed to accelerate it at my school BUT we do the same SAC's that they do in 1/2 methods and our results get compared to 1/2 methods and we literally work from the 1/2 textbook. So its basically 1/2 methods  ) Anyway, If you are good at maths it is definitely something achievable and you can expect to do well in it if you do the work. Even if you consider yourself average at maths, as long as you put in extra work, it is definitely achievable. From my experience there is no drastically new content in methods except maybe circular functions (which I have done in spesh).If you enjoy maths but aren't super confident about accelerating methods I guess you could do 1/2 Further instead  . From what i've heard it is much easier than methods 

[blitzkrig]

Thanks for all the replies, this has helped me make my decision. I'm confident in my math skills, and I'm up for a challenge and some extra work, so I think I will do Methods   .