Can I Do Specialist Without GMA?

[Martoman]

Matty does speak the truth about VCE maths though. Most of it is done in "studies" the further equivalent of IB maths... lol.

[azn_dj]

Well this is my honest opinion of spesh vs. Methods.
During the year, methods is a lot easier than Spesh. The concepts aren't so querky, etc.
However, doing trial exams, I am finding spesh trials that much easier to do than Methods. Especially with Analysis Questions. With Spesh, they basically tell you what to do. Methods, its a big story where you haven't quite worked out what is going on.

Oh and for the record, I never did General. I did Literature in year 11, dropped it and picked up Spesh for year 12. (Hahaha yes this sounds like a VERY stupid thing to do but I have come along way and Im doing better in Spesh than I was in Literature.)

So yes its possible to not do General maths (let along General Advanced) and do Specialist Maths.

[spaciiey]

i did methods last year, without having done 1+2. in year 10, i did well in math BUT the stuff we learned in year 10, in all honesty, wasn't entirely useful for methods 1 +2. it was really more further math based with a little algebra. therefore, i kind of regret not doing 1+2 cause i didn't have the groundwork BUT i wouldn't have been able to fit it in my (already full) timetable. i quite literally died last year... kept getting c's and d's, somehow pulled my head out of my arse at the end of the year to get a low b plus. i hated the subject (except the calculus bits), didn't like the teacher.

on the other hand, this year, i did spesh, without doing GMA. still had the same teacher (ugh, gag, yuck, he tried to kick me out of his class at the start of the year but i managed to stay in). half of the class are failing, and they all did GMA last year. this year, i'm loving spesh. quite literally. i'm on top of all of the work, and mostly pulling a's and am at the top of the cohort. it's entirely possible to do spesh without GMA... and it's probably funner, i reckon.

[BubbleWrapMan]

This is all very encouraging to hear. Though I talked to the subject coordination guy today and he was like "you can't do it without GMA you stupid kid" (I'm paraphrasing) so I'm gonna have to appeal to a higher authority.

But yeah, good to know there's nothing completely necessary from GMA. If only some teachers weren't so dogmatic.