How is it that some people get 40 in methods but 48 in specialist?

[TheAspiringDoc]

I've seen it numerous times the past few years. I suppose they'd have studied a lot more for spec, but still - is it possible to do that well in spec without the foundations from methods?

[Yertle the Turtle]

I've seen it numerous times the past few years. I suppose they'd have studied a lot more for spec, but still - is it possible to do that well in spec without the foundations from methods?

It is a combination of a variety of factors. Specialist scales up a long way, while Methods scales up less. Also because there are different topics covered, some people find it actually in some ways a little easier, because they find those topics easier.

[TheAspiringDoc]

It is a combination of a variety of factors. Specialist scales up a long way, while Methods scales up less. Also because there are different topics covered, some people find it actually in some ways a little easier, because they find those topics easier.

I meant raw scores; before scaling.

[Orb]

Some people realise that their effort in year 11 was inadequate and thus worked a lot harder in year 12.

Also sometimes due to variance of exams, you could have a bad day on methods and a good day in spesh. That could explain it.

[Quantum44]

I've seen it numerous times the past few years. I suppose they'd have studied a lot more for spec, but still - is it possible to do that well in spec without the foundations from methods?

The people who do better in spesh than Methods tend to do Methods in year 11 and spesh in year 12, which means they are more mature when they take spesh and have a greater understanding of the work required to succeed.

[TheAspiringDoc]

The people who do better in spesh than Methods tend to do Methods in year 11 and spesh in year 12, which means they are more mature when they take spesh and have a greater understanding of the work required to succeed.

To clarify, the people from my school who have got this weird score combo have done the subjects in the same year

[Quantum44]

To clarify, the people from my school who have got this weird score combo have done the subjects in the same year

That’s odd, maybe they just made lots of silly errors in methods but not spesh. Also, the methods exam this year was very difficult and could have thrown some people off whereas the spesh exam was more standard.

[exit]

Actually I was searching what scores people who got high 40s for Spec got for Methods that same year. This trend is disturbingly accurate and common.

My take on it is that:

Some students may dedicate disproportionate amount of time to Spec

Mess up some of the harder questions on methods

Motivated to ace spesh after screwing up methods

[Sine]

generally spec 40-50 is luck (unless you are a god who is gonna get 49-50 everytime) for methods its probably only 45-50 for luck. So probably just bombed methods.

Or somepeople just find spec much easier since it is the more "mathematical" subject as methods it's more "maths" + out of the box thinking (for the sepearator questions).

[snowisawesome]

Few questions about methods/spesh
1. Is it true that year 11's who do methods 3/4 and then do spesh 3/4 in year 12 lose a bit of potential on their study score?
(as in, a year 11 doing methods 3/4 who gets 43 raw could get 48 raw if they did it in year 12 alongside spesh?
2. The content of spesh is harder than methods, but the application of methods is harder then the application of spesh

And in response to TheAspirinDoc's question, i'd assume that it's either because they worked harder in spesh, or had a bad exam day for methods (if they did both in the same year)

[appleandbee]

Few questions about methods/spesh
1. Is it true that year 11's who do methods 3/4 and then do spesh 3/4 in year 12 lose a bit of potential on their study score?
(as in, a year 11 doing methods 3/4 who gets 43 raw could get 48 raw if they did it in year 12 alongside spesh?
2. The content of spesh is harder than methods, but the application of methods is harder then the application of spesh

1. Maybe, but there are other reasons why a year 11 may not score as well they could have, such as the lack of experience doing a 3/4 subject rather than not doing Methods alongside Spesh. From personal experience, Spesh didn't help with Methods (apart from the sign test to for the gradients of slopes, although you can't use that technique in Methods, it helped with understanding calculus), it was mainly the other way around that a solid foundation in Methods helped with Spesh. In addition, I think it more cases than not, it's easier for a year 11 to do better in Methods because they have far more time to dedicate to the subject than in year 12.

2. The content and applications in Spesh are more abstract, whether that is easier or harder is subjective. I felt that Methods was a lot more content heavy as the topics in Spesh were way more interlinked. Also the difficulty of the Methods Exam 2 questions has increased over the years as it makes it easier for the examiners to separate students in a competitive subject.

[Quantum44]

Few questions about methods/spesh
1. Is it true that year 11's who do methods 3/4 and then do spesh 3/4 in year 12 lose a bit of potential on their study score?
(as in, a year 11 doing methods 3/4 who gets 43 raw could get 48 raw if they did it in year 12 alongside spesh?
2. The content of spesh is harder than methods, but the application of methods is harder then the application of spesh

And in response to TheAspirinDoc's question, i'd assume that it's either because they worked harder in spesh, or had a bad exam day for methods (if they did both in the same year)

1. This is not necessarily true. Doing methods 3/4 in year 11 can be advantageous as you have more time to concentrate on that subject and doing spesh 3/4 concurrently is not particularly beneficial and can in fact be confusing (particularly in statistics). Although some people can under perform in their year 11 subject as they do not understand the volume of work required to succeed in a VCE subject or feel more motivated in year 12.

2. I’m not sure that is a question, but people generally view methods and spesh in that way. The content of spesh is undoubtedly more difficult to understand but in methods exam 2, there is usually an extremely tough question that separates the low 40s from the high 40s. In spesh, exams are generally of similar difficulty between years and VCAA are pretty fair in what they ask of students.

[keltingmeith]

The trend isn't honestly that weird or disturbing.

Spec is more fun - there's a larger variety of concepts that are all a bit disconnected from each other. When you study vectors, it doesn't feel like you're doing complex numbers, and when you study mechanics, it doesn't feel like you're doing calculus. But everything still feeds in together - unlike methods, where everything feels like everything else, with the exception of probability which is almost universally despised.

The exams are easier - methods has less difficult content, and so makes up for it with harder separator questions. Spec has more content, and it's harder, so they can get away with less difficult questions.

If you can get above 30 in methods, then you know enough content to do well in specialist. Anything past 35, and you have a good enough brain to do well in specialist. Everything after that is all the types of questions and luck on the day.

That's the other thing a lot of people don't realise (which was mentioned above) - a lot of it is luck. The difference between a 40 and 50 sounds as big as the difference between 30 and 40 - but between 40 and 50 is only 8%. People here are separated by, sometimes, fractions of a percent. It doesn't matter how well you prepare, you only have an hour or two to do these exams - if in one of them you miss the fact that they wanted a specific form, or did 2+2=2 without thinking, it's really easy for that one mistake to cost you a study score. In methods, it's easier to make these mistakes because there are more fiddly questions - in Specialist, it's not.

[snowisawesome]

The trend isn't honestly that weird or disturbing.

Spec is more fun - there's a larger variety of concepts that are all a bit disconnected from each other. When you study vectors, it doesn't feel like you're doing complex numbers, and when you study mechanics, it doesn't feel like you're doing calculus. But everything still feeds in together - unlike methods, where everything feels like everything else, with the exception of probability which is almost universally despised.

The exams are easier - methods has less difficult content, and so makes up for it with harder separator questions. Spec has more content, and it's harder, so they can get away with less difficult questions.

If you can get above 30 in methods, then you know enough content to do well in specialist. Anything past 35, and you have a good enough brain to do well in specialist. Everything after that is all the types of questions and luck on the day.

That's the other thing a lot of people don't realise (which was mentioned above) - a lot of it is luck. The difference between a 40 and 50 sounds as big as the difference between 30 and 40 - but between 40 and 50 is only 8%. People here are separated by, sometimes, fractions of a percent. It doesn't matter how well you prepare, you only have an hour or two to do these exams - if in one of them you miss the fact that they wanted a specific form, or did 2+2=2 without thinking, it's really easy for that one mistake to cost you a study score. In methods, it's easier to make these mistakes because there are more fiddly questions - in Specialist, it's not.

So you're saying that from a 35+ raw study score onwards, there is luck involved?

[keltingmeith]

So you're saying that from a 35+ raw study score onwards, there is luck involved?

No - I'm saying anyone that has the potential to get past 35 in methods easily has the potential to do well (read: >30 ss) in specialist. It's only above 40 where luck really starts to play a part.