Should I do Specialist 3/4?

[Ash Grey]

Hi,

I just wanted a piece of advice, if I should take Specialist 3/4...

I am currently doing spesh 1/2, and I am currently finding the subject pretty challenging, with my SAC scores ranging from the 60s-70s, barely touching the 80s. I realised that the reason why I'm getting low marks is not only because of the huge number of careless mistakes that I make but I also find the questions on the SACs, a different level to the questions. I also admit that at the start of the year I lagged a bit, causing me to not be consistent with my work.

I really like the subject though, and I find it interesting, and so I keep reassuring myself that if I work consistently, and because I would have a wide range of resources, I would do well. However, I would want to know, realistically speaking, would I able to do well next year? My Methods and all my other subjects (Physics, Chemistry, etc) are going really well with me getting A+s and sometimes A... As I would be doing 6 subjects next year, my mom is advising me to drop Spesh, and take Further.

So, I want to know if I would be able to do well next year if I fine-tune my study techniques?

[S_R_K]

... my SAC scores ranging from the 60s-70s, barely touching the 80s.

I really like the subject though, and I find it interesting,

Your scores suggest you are capable of doing 3&4. I think what you should consider is whether you want your education to be just about ticking the boxes and massaging your scores, or whether you want to feel challenged and enriched by what you study.

Also, while you shouldn't pick subjects for scaling, you should keep in mind that high raw scores for Further, and relatively low raw scores for Specialist, can be misleading when it comes to how that subject will contribute towards your ATAR (eg. a raw 40 study score in Further is equivalent to about a raw 27 study score in Specialist)

[Krycek]

Hi,

I just wanted a piece of advice, if I should take Specialist 3/4...

I am currently doing spesh 1/2, and I am currently finding the subject pretty challenging, with my SAC scores ranging from the 60s-70s, barely touching the 80s. I realised that the reason why I'm getting low marks is not only because of the huge number of careless mistakes that I make but I also find the questions on the SACs, a different level to the questions. I also admit that at the start of the year I lagged a bit, causing me to not be consistent with my work.

I really like the subject though, and I find it interesting, and so I keep reassuring myself that if I work consistently, and because I would have a wide range of resources, I would do well. However, I would want to know, realistically speaking, would I able to do well next year? My Methods and all my other subjects (Physics, Chemistry, etc) are going really well with me getting A+s and sometimes A... As I would be doing 6 subjects next year, my mom is advising me to drop Spesh, and take Further.

So, I want to know if I would be able to do well next year if I fine-tune my study techniques?

To be honest I actually found Specialist Maths more straightforward than Maths. I actually didn't do Specialist Maths units 1/2 but I had done Methods 3/4 so I had some experience in some of the subjects there- especially trigonometry and calculus (except differential equations). I also did Physics, which made understanding the Dynamics and Force section of Unit 4 sooo much easier.Probability in Specialist Maths isn't hard and I would argue that its on the same difficulty (if not easier) as the Methods probability. The last section on Hypothesis testing was easily the most straightforward section of Specialist Maths for me. Since you are doing well in Methods and Physics, I don't doubt you will do well in Specialist Maths. If you find the subject interesting, that's more of a reason to do it. In the end, I found the Specialist Maths actual exams to be more manageable than the Methods exams (although thats likely due to me only doing one subject this year).

I made several careless mistakes on my sacs and assignments and I made notes that targeted these mistakes and put them on my bound reference. You still have a long time left where you are able to focus on your errors and address them.

As for Further Maths, I also did that and funnily enough I didn't do units 1 and 2 either. The catch is that you DON'T need unit 1 and 2 knowledge at ALL to do well in this subject. The content is very straightforward and the only aspect that makes Further Maths hard is the fact that you can make so many silly mistakes and that can heavily affect your study score if you continue your mistakes to the real exam.

However I found Further Maths dreadfully boring as it wasn't similar to the other subjects that I was doing, which were more 'scientific'. Thankfully my teacher and tutor were awesome and they made the subject more bearable for me. The reason why I did this subject was I made the awful mistake of continuing Japanese to my vce education, which failed horribly as I suck at languages in general.

 Specialist Maths is by far harder than Further Maths without a doubt but I can tell you that it was more enjoyable than Methods and Further.

In the end, I think you should discuss this with your teachers, school counselors and your parents. I would advise you to choose Specialist over Further but that's just my opinion. I suggest you go over the FM syllabus and see if any of it interests you. Any way good luck on choosing what subjects you want to continue to year 12 and I wish you the best of luck on your VCE studies!

[huy8668]

It really depends on what you mean by doing well.

Do you consider getting a 30-35 doing well? If so, considering the scores you're getting, your interest in the subject and your good attitude towards studying, I reckon you can definitely do well, without compromising the other subjects too much. Thus you should take it next year for sure.

Do you consider getting 40+  doing well? If so, I reckon it could be very difficult for you to do well next year, unless you make sacrifices on your other subjects.
For example, say on your 5 other subjects you can get 40+ on all of them. But because you want to get a 40+ for spesh, you spend all your time into it. In the end, you get your well-deserved 40+ for spesh but all your subjects are now 30. Maybe not worth, I reckon.