Considering Maths Extension 2. (1 Viewer)

[DebuOfCourse]

Hi.
My first post:

I am currently in year 11, doing 3 unit maths, phys, chem, 3 unit english, sdd.

I am thinking of doing 4 unit maths, but am unsure of myself. I want to know how everyone determined whether they were capable to do it or not, as to assess myself to see if I'm capable or not?? I am really confused by all this, cause I have a very distinct fear of failing to keep up with workload!!

Right now I'm not excellent at Maths but am coping well. I also am considering doing 4 unit English, but if I can decide that I can actually do 4 unit maths then I won't do english ext 2.

Thanks.

pEACe

 

[DebuOfCourse]

Sorry about that kind of out of touch post.
I realised that someone has already posted pretty much exactly the same question and got a good response.

I do have another query though in slight modification to the first:

Is anyone here finding that they wern't so good at 3 unit in year 11, did 4 unit any way, and found they actually picked up on their skill and started getting better marks?

I really can't ask my teachers this type of a question because my school has a policy of degrading you from doing 4 unit. Soooo many people wanna do it that they tell everyone who doesnt get 100% that don't bother cause theyll get rejected!!.

So what's the deal? Do you really need to be fully pyscho maths minded for it? Cause I enjoy maths, but am not the best at it.

pEACe

(the names Dev by the way.)

 

[Nelly]

Dev,

In yr 11, I came 25th in my 3U class, and like 20th in 2U. Then in yr 12, it kinda gets a bit more serious, and i picked things up a bit. I have finished the year 4th in 3U, and 3rd in 4U in the year. So you can pick things up in yr 12, dont be discoraged by your yr 11 marks. Just make sure you do more than 10 units with 4U math, otherwise if you bomb it, you wont be able to drop it.

Good Luck

 

[DebuOfCourse]

Thanks Nelly, that is quite exceptional.
Congratulations on the remarkable pick up.

However, I still am not sure as to what is required to do that. I guess a better question would be, how did you manage to do it?

pEACe

Dev

 

[Nelly]

Dev,

I just put in a few days **literally a few days**, because in 6 hrs a day, for 3 days, accumalates to 18 hrs. In 18 hrs, you can perfect the entire 3U course (4U is a different story). For the trials, i studied for 3 days straight in the first week of the holidays. I ended up with 98 (87% raw) in the trial.

For 4U math, you just have to be consistent with ur study. If you enjoy it, (which you obviously do) then you will do fine. 4U maths is really interesting if you enjoy it. You will come accross some very interesting topics which will challenge you, but never give up. All it needs is 'realistically' 5/6 hrs a week of revision.

It aint that bad, and its REALLY worth it.

Good Luck

 

[quartic]

Of course if you really want a 100 UAI the best way to go about it is to do 4unit maths and english and physics and chem (or equivalently well scaled subjects).

Seriously though there are many advantages in doing 4unit maths. For one you don't have to do 2unit (which has quite frankly ordinary scaling), 3unit counts for 2 units rather than one and of course the 4unit section has exceptional scaling if you get even decent marks. So you get 3 extra units of good scaling by doing 4unit as opposed to 3unit.

Also doing 4unit will most likely boost your 3unit marks as it will all seem pretty basic. I must warn you though that you have to be prepared to do some work. I coasted through yr11 and got average marks in maths then I did 4unit and my marks have improved greatly, though whenever I've gotten behind it starts getting tough.

 

[DebuOfCourse]

What would you consider "even decent marks"???

AND...

It gets tough when you fall behind in any Maths any time I think. I, in year 11, have had many sleepless nights just catching up and getting up to date........AFTER THAT COMES STUDY!!!!!


I am also considering doing 4 unit English... Do you know how the scaling is for that? I read the scaling chart on the boredofstudies website, but am not entirely convinced.


pEACe

Dev

 

[quartic]

Decent marks would be about 50% in the final exam (depending on the dificulty of the paper that year) Even a bit less and it would probably still be worthwhile unless you are super good at all other subjects.

 

[DebuOfCourse]

50%?!?

Are you serious?!?

WhoA! That really is quite surprising......Guess it must be much harder then I thought!!

 

[Weisy]

50% for 4 unit...

dead serious....

The course itself is fantastic. Time, is the issue, rather - there just isn't enough of it!

It's also good to put into perpective the fact that although 4unit is difficult, you don't need to excel in it to understand the concepts, and liking the subject itself would probably be your best motivation to do it. I personally find it a lot different from 3 unit, which is usually really 'marks-driven', due to the types of people who usually attempt it. I'm not saying that 4unit people don't want good marks, there just seem to be much more of a liking amongst 4unit people for the subject.

I think you need to be the type of person looking for a challenge, and the type of person willing to spend days working on difficult proofs, as long as you find them challenging and interesting. Not the type of person lookin for the right combination of subjects to get 100.

Weisy

 

[DebuOfCourse]

That is a very interesting and inciteful response. Dare I say it, quite wisey!

It really has opened my mind up to it, but I will still have to consider it seriously after my exams are over.

Thanks.

pEACe

Dev

 

[Weisy]

good stuff

good luck, Dev

just for the record, my name's Wei (pronouced 'way', hence "Weisy" is "waysie"), and so the 'wisey' pun doesn't fit entirely.

however, thanks for the sentiment.

cheers

 

[kate@bangas]

maths ext 2

hey, ummm....i don't know what u want to know but in the middle of last year i decided to do ext 2 maths. Maybe i shouldn't have chosen it because it is a really hard slog...i mean i work really hard doing very similar subjects to you and i'm still not going fantastically. If you are going to regret not giving it your best, then do it...the challenge is worthwhile but sometimes it CAN be inctredibly overwhelming.
Good luck with deciding!
kate

 

[DebuOfCourse]

Yeah Thanks Wei, I realised your name though, it was just a bad joke on my part.

pEACe

 

[DebuOfCourse]

Thanks for the insight Kate......

 

[McLake]

Your Time table looks like mine:

4U Maths
3U Eng
Phy
Chem
Engo

DO 4U for following reasons:

1 Your likley to make a few mistakes on 2U which will matter, on 4U mistakes are OK

2 It's fun!

3 Scaling ...

4 You know you want to do an insane amount of units (not that 13 is that insane ...)

 

[lengstar]

i have to do 4 unit but i think i wont get it
all my friends are doing it and there in other schools
if i dont get it is it worth begging the teacher to let me do it.

 

[McLake]

Originally posted by lengstar
i have to do 4 unit but i think i wont get it
all my friends are doing it and there in other schools
if i dont get it is it worth begging the teacher to let me do it.

Are you aware of what the 4U topics are?

Graphs
Complex No's
Conics
Polynomials
Intergation
Volumes
Mechanics
Harder 3U

If you think you can do 6 out of the 8 topics go for it.

Even if you don't think you can try it out and then drop down (if this is an option at your school)

Don't be too daunted by the subject if your resnobably good at 3U maths.

 

[BlackJack]

It'll be worth the effort... but that's just me. I mean, there's always this site for maths questions that even your teachers can't get their heads around. There are good students (and ex-s) here.

But seriously, If you happen to like maths go for it. My bro did it 2 yrs ago (got mebbe 40-odd % something in the Catho trials) and he was fine w/ it.

McLake we all know you do 13 units, you insane person... like me...