Mathematical Methods - The dilemma of a year 11 student

[Christiano]

Thanks peeps, these comments have really help turn my decision around and motivate me to get through methods. I'm thinking of going to TSFX for methods and maybe even perhaps chemistry, is it worth it?

[coletrain]

personally i find one-one tutoring helps me more, but all individuals learn differently 

[slothpomba]

Hey, christiano, you sound a bit like me.

I thought i was the only person who liked the sciencey subjects but wasnt a huge math fan.

I know its hard but the harsh reality is you need methods.

Many a time i thought of dropping it but it all came back to me needing methods for most of the things i wanted to do.

I have a tutor, that helps a bit. Its like group based with a class of 5 people who are much better at it than me. I got a tutor to pass, they got a tutor to enhance their score and get 50. So, sometimes i feel stupid for asking questions like.. how do you tell if a function is odd or even.. or something like that. He's a very nice guy though, "oh, that's easy, ill show you how... *whips out paper*" .

So, yeah, i know a lot of the questions you have may seem stupid and everyone else in the class is doing way better than you (i was in this situation for most of yr 11), the questions...really, really need to be asked. I was afraid of asking questions for most of that year and i suffered. (especially with my teacher i heard him say to some people... what you shouldn't even be in this class if you cant do this or your hopeless)

You can often see the teacher after class and ask questions (or mine allows you too anyway) and go to any lunchtime sessions your school holds, if you have any friends in methods you could ask them too.

Mate, when worst comes to worst however and the chips are down, you only need a study score of 25.

Good Luck
~kingpomba

[Christiano]

Wow, I also thought I was the only one who loved science but didn't like math .. They're supposed to come hand in hand with each other. Thanks for the great advice!

[TrueLight]

well... it is useful
but i belong with the 'i hate math' group too
lots of science students do as well, although this forum is i think over represented with maths and physics students
but yeah i reckon keep it because most course in uni require methods as a prereq and only 25... lol i remember failing nearly all of my sacs for methods and having to redo them and still got above that

[Ilovemathsmeth]

Hey peeps, I just started school yesterday, and today i had my first double period of math methods .. expectations of the difficulty and pace of the subject were high, like I knew I would get like 2-3 exercises per lesson ..

But I had a lot of difficulty understanding almost all the language used by the teacher, the tediousness of the math, the shyness of asking questions that comes down to the fact that I'm surrounded by geniuses and the knowledge that it would only get harder. I'm not too analytical, and I'm a bit slow when it comes to complex methods in math.

So I'm considering dropping methods for further.

Now I'm a sciencey kind of guy, having interests in biology, chemistry and the general knowledge part of physics (Not doing the math lol). I'm looking to go for a course in the science based department .. mainly medicine or biology type stuff. But most prerequisites require you to take part in math methods, and usually to get over 25 on the SS as well. If I drop methods, many of those options go down the drain.

I did hear something about university courses dropping methods as a prerequisite. Can anyone confirm this?

I would like to know what people think, regarding their own experiences, did you learn how to train your brain to think of the questions as 'puzzles', is there other pathways to the courses I want, and would it be easier to get a higher raw score in further than a low score, scaled up in methods?

Methods is practically a pre-requisite for everything.

The pace of the subject is high because it's Maths and there's a lot to cover, content-wise.

You can definitely do well in Methods if you work hard. I put in a lot of effort into units 1/2. You won't regret doing this as a good sound understanding of 1/2 will help you greatly in 3/4.

I personally think it's harder to do well in Further, because it comes down to whether or not you can avoid stupid mistakes and the cohort is a lot bigger. The calculations are really simple in Further. In Methods, the content is a lot more interesting. The scaling is very good for Methods. Further scales down. For instance, I got 49 for Further, but that scales down to 48.8.

[kyzoo]

The pace of the subject is high because it's Maths and there's a lot to cover, content-wise.

IMO, VCE maths are the least concept-dense courses in VCE. Chem and Physics encompass many more concepts than Methods or Spesh. This is evidenced by the maths textbooks devoting a lower percentage of space to theory than science textbooks, and maths textbooks containing less total content.

[superflya]

The pace of the subject is high because it's Maths and there's a lot to cover, content-wise.

IMO, VCE maths are the least concept-dense courses in VCE. Chem and Physics encompass many more concepts than Methods or Spesh. This is evidenced by the maths textbooks devoting a lower percentage of space to theory than science textbooks, and maths textbooks containing less total content.

true.

[the.watchman]

The pace of the subject is high because it's Maths and there's a lot to cover, content-wise.

IMO, VCE maths are the least concept-dense courses in VCE. Chem and Physics encompass many more concepts than Methods or Spesh. This is evidenced by the maths textbooks devoting a lower percentage of space to theory than science textbooks, and maths textbooks containing less total content.

true.

Yep, it's more learning types of questions etc. rather than actual theory

[appianway]

Maybe the methods course comes across as having quite a bit of content because it's often not instructed by teaching first principles or reasons why things are done.

[the.watchman]

Maybe the methods course comes across as having quite a bit of content because it's often not instructed by teaching first principles or reasons why things are done.

Lol
DR HE!!!

[appianway]

Well, not all of us live close enough to Box Hill/have enough time to go to Dr. He

But seriously. The VCE methods course doesn't really teach the concepts very well...

[the.watchman]

Well, not all of us live close enough to Box Hill/have enough time to go to Dr. He

But seriously. The VCE methods course doesn't really teach the concepts very well...

Yeah, a lot of the teachers can't properly explain the concepts, but try to launch straight into questions...

[m@tty]

I think it is often considered large because it is taught in a way which separates all topics. Whereas when boiled down, there isn't really that much which needs to be understood.