40+ How hard is it?

[onur369]

Im doing Methods 3/4 next year and am aiming for a 40+. How hard is it to achieve this score? Ive got a weekly based tutor so its good but how many hours a day should I study for Methods?

[taiga]

30 minutes a day of methods until the exam period and you'll get way above 40

[onur369]

Hmmm, What should I do in those 30minutes? Theres people who study hours but its far from effiecient.
Should I do questions or should I go over the theory again. Btw my teacher expects us to do every single
question in the book -,-

[taiga]

Every single question is a rubbish  method.

Be honest with yourself, read the theory for 5-10 minutes, then do the questions you think are challenging. If you can't, do the basic ones, then try the challenging ones. And if you can't do that, that's what tutor is for.

There is no point studying for hours. If you're doing 30 minutes a day, you're getting 3.5 hours a week, + 1.5 hours at tutor, + maybe 2 hours at school. If you can use all that time effectively, you're well on your way to a good mark.

But yeah, questionsquestionsquestions

Every question in the book will waste your time and you won't be able to excel.

[onur369]

Thanks mate Ill take your advice. My teacher next year is a bit of a demanding dude.

[Chavi]

The best advice I can give you for 40+ in methods is not to rely on your tutor too much. Many of the kids in my class last year who had tutors seemed like they were ahead at the beginning of the year, but ended up with mediocre scores at the end. In contrast, the top three scorers in my class (44, 48 ,49) didn't have tutors, and we had to focus on learning and understanding the concepts ourselves. Also taiga has it right. Consistency is the key. I think that having a tutor encourages laziness. It's different for every person - personally I study better without tutors, and posed my difficult math questions to VN.

If I had a tutor, I don't think I would've scored a 48 last year.

[pi]

^^I'll go with your advice Chavi, I prefer learning without tutors as well

[onur369]

Only thing good about tutors is that they teach you quicker methods whilst the teacher bores us students to death. The teacher takes 15mins explaining how to do a question in several steps when it only needs 3 steps. Gets annoying at times >_<

[Greatness]

Only thing good about tutors is that they teach you quicker methods whilst the teacher bores us students to death. The teacher takes 15mins explaining how to do a question in several steps when it only needs 3 steps. Gets annoying at times >_<

You must have a bad teacher then My math teachers are generally straight to the point, but my further teacher this year sucked arse..

[onur369]

Im doing Further Next year Was it hard?

[Greatness]

Im doing Further Next year Was it hard?

content wise no, just revise a day or two before sacs and spam 10+ sets of exams and you shold be fine.
becareful though on the exams, always read and analyse questions/graphs/diagrams. i lost 3 marks for not looking at graphs and diagrams properly.... -.-

[_avO]

Im doing Further Next year Was it hard?

content wise no, just revise a day or two before sacs and spam 10+ sets of exams and you shold be fine.
becareful though on the exams, always read and analyse questions/graphs/diagrams. i lost 3 marks for not looking at graphs and diagrams properly.... -.-

In addition, spend all your time in the exam to re read the questions and your answers regardless if you finish within 40 minutes (happened to me and I made a mistake for not reading the questions properly)

[onur369]

Ye, Ill make sure. Im aiming 45+ so I gotta study hard.

[dptjandra]

I would say that there is very little difference betwen about a 46 - 49 in methods except luck on the day...people who get 50 are still pretty freaky cos they just...don't...make...mistakes...    By inference, my feeling is that to get 46+ is a real achievement because it requires exceptionally solid and firm understanding of the course.  To get between 40 - 45, I reckon you need to be good enough to answer all extended response questions confidently, with some slips allowed in the MC...not tooo hard if you keep up to date all the time. I did the methods course in the summer holidays before the school year, which let me use class to reinforce ideas and identify the weak points (where I wasn't expecting the next step shown by the teacher).  I did about 45 mins a night (that said, having done the course and quite a number of questions before!), with a lot of extra work near SACs (eg. all relevant checkpoints), which saved me a lot of time 'revising' near the end.

I agree with what has been said about tutors - I feel they're helpful more regularly for students who struggle a little bit.  They can be helpful on a one-off basis (in later holidays or closer to the exam for instance) for stronger students too if it is a suitable tutor who knows what you want (eg. maybe some harder questions, or reinforcing some key areas).

[Chavi]

I would say that there is very little difference betwen about a 46 - 49 in methods except luck on the day...people who get 50 are still pretty freaky cos they just...don't...make...mistakes...    By inference, my feeling is that to get 46+ is a real achievement because it requires exceptionally solid and firm understanding of the course.  To get between 40 - 45, I reckon you need to be good enough to answer all extended response questions confidently, with some slips allowed in the MC...not tooo hard if you keep up to date all the time. I did the methods course in the summer holidays before the school year, which let me use class to reinforce ideas and identify the weak points (where I wasn't expecting the next step shown by the teacher).  I did about 45 mins a night (that said, having done the course and quite a number of questions before!), with a lot of extra work near SACs (eg. all relevant checkpoints), which saved me a lot of time 'revising' near the end.

I agree with what has been said about tutors - I feel they're helpful more regularly for students who struggle a little bit.  They can be helpful on a one-off basis (in later holidays or closer to the exam for instance) for stronger students too if it is a suitable tutor who knows what you want (eg. maybe some harder questions, or reinforcing some key areas).

This is an accurate analysis. Particularly about scoring 46+. The difference between a 46 and a 50 is usually waking up on the right side of the bed.