Specialist or Further in year 12?!

[abhi223]

Hey guys, so my issue is that i cannot convince myself that spesh is better than further or vice versa. In year 11 i did English, Chemistry, Physics, Methods, Accounting (but dropped it) and SPESH. As for my spesh scores in year 11, i would say i was averaging 70% across my SACs but that was with no extra effort contributed towards the subject such as study or the completion of all my homework. As for the spesh exams, i dont know what our teacher did but he must have made it extremely hard for us to get a high score as the highest among st all the spesh students was 68% and i managed to get 58%. in year 2017, towards the end, we had a two week year 12 head start and managed to completely cover our first topic that we were meant to for year 12, which was complex numbers (if ur interested). So our teacher set us holiday H.W. which was to go over some of the past exam papers and solve problems to do with complex numbers that he had assigned us. I do that and... i can barely do a 1/3 of all the problems. keep in mind we had finished everything to do with compelx numbers so i was assuming i would know how to do most of it. Anyways, then i decide to give up and head over to the latest 2017 further maths exam and surprisingly i breezed through like (1/3) to a half of the exam paper and the good ol' issue of 'spesh vs further' once again rose in my mind and it taunts me everyday. as for why i think both subjects offer value is as per following. Further ; easy (not being cocky ), less time consuming beacause knowledge is straight forward, gives me more time to work on other subjects and im kind of confident with achieving a raw score of 45 in it if i put in the required effort which i m willing to. As for Spesh ; Scales ALOT (lol), i did it last year so experience, i assume it takes up alot of time so less progress on other subjects, and the exam looks really hard for spesh for the parts that we have covered from headstart. That should probably sum up everything and i m ready to give in my 100% next year. opinions from anybody are appreciated

[PhoenixxFire]

Hey!
From what you’ve written I’m assuming that you’re also doing methods.

The way I see it further will be super easy, boring, and repetitive. I find it super easy and I failed unit 1 methods lol.

So your options are an easy but boring subject, or a hard but potentially interesting subject.

Only you can make the decision but I would recommend considering how hard/interesting your other subjects are. If there are other subjects that will be hard or interesting then it would be fine to do further, but if there are not, you may end up with a very boring year.

One thing to note is that with further there are lots of people doing it, so a few silly mistakes will do more damage to your study score than they would in specialist.

[Quantum44]

Specialist maths is not meant to be easy. I didn’t work that hard in spesh 1/2 and was getting around 70% in my tests like you, but got a raw 42 (scaled to 52) at the end of year 12. Judging by how much work you are doing, you have a lot of potential and with consistent effort, you could score very well in year 12. Don’t be intimidated by the past exam questions your teacher has set you for holiday homework, some of the complex number questions are absolutely brutal, and if you put in the work, you will be well and truly ready by November.

While further may be simple, it’s not easy to score well and it gets scaled down. A 34 in spesh would be better than a 45 in further, and you can afford a lot more silly errors in spesh, which is a lot less stressful. You said you would have much more time for your other subjects, but are you going to use that time effectively? In my experience, being bored is never good for grades; but having a stimulating challenge could be beneficial. A lot of people will tell you not to choose subjects for the scaling, but if you’re good at maths, you might as well leverage that to get the best possible ATAR.

[TheAspiringDoc]

A 34 in spesh would be better than a 45 in further

^^adding onto this, a 34 in spesh would also improve methods knowledge and potentially reduce the need for methods study, whereas I don't think further would assist methods

[abhi223]

First of all thanks for replying, everyone. My main concern is that we were meant to be 'done' with the complex numbers section and i pretty much get what we learnt in class and can apply to similar problems that are in the book but idk if its the lack of teaching or something else but i find me not being able to do the problems from the exams, a big hurdle. i referred to the study plan for next year and apparently what we have done for complex numbers is everything we will ever do for it. Anyways in year 12, i will keep ENGLISH, CHEMISTRY, METHODS and PHYSICS and if i keep spesh wouldnt that just make my whole subject combo a bit too hard to cope with?

Specialist maths is not meant to be easy. I didn’t work that hard in spesh 1/2 and was getting around 70% in my tests like you, but got a raw 42 (scaled to 52) at the end of year 12.

Hey, so did you have a spesh tutor or anything? also how much would u say ur average time expenditure on spesh was per week?

Merged Posts: Try to avoid double posting and where necessary it is possible to multiquote ~ Sine

[Quantum44]

First of all thanks for replying, everyone. My main concern is that we were meant to be 'done' with the complex numbers section and i pretty much get what we learnt in class and can apply to similar problems that are in the book but idk if its the lack of teaching or something else but i find me not being able to do the problems from the exams, a big hurdle. i referred to the study plan for next year and apparently what we have done for complex numbers is everything we will ever do for it. Anyways in year 12, i will keep ENGLISH, CHEMISTRY, METHODS and PHYSICS and if i keep spesh wouldnt that just make my whole subject combo a bit too hard to cope with?
Hey, so did you have a spesh tutor or anything? also how much would u say ur average time expenditure on spesh was per week?

Merged Posts: Try to avoid double posting and where necessary it is possible to multiquote ~ Sine

Believe me, I had this exact same problem. I covered the entirety of vectors, trigonometry and complex numbers in the holidays by thoroughly doing every textbook question, but got super stressed when I looked at questions from past exams and struggled with even the ‘easy’ sections of questions on these topics. The bottom line is that textbook and exam questions really cannot be compared as textbook questions are designed to help you learn the course, not assess your understanding. I’d advise against looking over past exams until you are actually ready to begin practice exams and have covered the entire course in detail as I found it caused me to lack confidence. I didn’t do particularly well in my first few practice exams, but I found that I quickly picked up the patterns that VCAA use to assess students and how to crack those application questions.

Doing those 5 subjects will probably be difficult, but VCE is difficult if you want to do well. I’ll admit I let Chemistry slide so I could focus on my top 4 subjects, which is a risky strategy but can pay off, however if you study smart it’s definitely possible to balance all your subjects effectively (particularly since there is a prominent overlap between methods and spesh which I did not utilise).

I went to connect classes for spesh, which I didn’t find that useful. I guess they were helpful revision as I worked ahead of my school so I learned everything three times and could start practice exams right off the bat as everything was fresh in my mind. I definitely wouldn’t say you need tutoring to do well, but if you feel like you are struggling a bit and need help, then it’s probably a good option.

In term 1 and 2 I would probably do 8 hours a week of spesh to get through the course, then at the start of term 3 I tried to do two full exams per week so I could crack out 30 by the time the exam came around.

[TheAspiringDoc]

Believe me, I had this exact same problem. I covered the entirety of vectors, trigonometry and complex numbers in the holidays by thoroughly doing every textbook question, but got super stressed when I looked at questions from past exams and struggled with even the ‘easy’ sections of questions on these topics. The bottom line is that textbook and exam questions really cannot be compared as textbook questions are designed to help you learn the course, not assess your understanding. I’d advise against looking over past exams until you are actually ready to begin practice exams and have covered the entire course in detail as I found it caused me to lack confidence. I didn’t do particularly well in my first few practice exams, but I found that I quickly picked up the patterns that VCAA use to assess students and how to crack those application questions.

Doing those 5 subjects will probably be difficult, but VCE is difficult if you want to do well. I’ll admit I let Chemistry slide so I could focus on my top 4 subjects, which is a risky strategy but can pay off, however if you study smart it’s definitely possible to balance all your subjects effectively (particularly since there is a prominent overlap between methods and spesh which I did not utilise).

I went to connect classes for spesh, which I didn’t find that useful. I guess they were helpful revision as I worked ahead of my school so I learned everything three times and could start practice exams right off the bat as everything was fresh in my mind. I definitely wouldn’t say you need tutoring to do well, but if you feel like you are struggling a bit and need help, then it’s probably a good option.

In term 1 and 2 I would probably do 8 hours a week of spesh to get through the course, then at the start of term 3 I tried to do two full exams per week so I could crack out 30 by the time the exam came around.

You say you didn't make use of the overlap between methods and spec? How is that so?
Also, did you study methods ahead of your class and start papers for it in early term 3 as well?

[mtDNA]

Since I did both further and spec in year 12, I’ll provide you with my insight:

Given the scaling of specialist, it’s quite intuitive that a good score in the subject requires hard work (as with any subject, but particularly in spec). So if you are a student you has the diligence and dedication, then 100% go for specialist - ultimately the hard work will pay off (at least most of the time... in my case, although I did A LOT of work for specialist during year 12, I really - and I mean, REALLY - slacked off during the exam period, so from getting sac marks of 1 or 2 less than a friend of mine in my class who got a 47 raw, I ended up with a 35. So spec really does require full effort). So in essence, if you maintain a good work ethic and don’t burn out, then you’ll be set for the high 30s/40s raw in spec. In terms of difficulty, it can be quite challenging at times, but it’s certainly doable, so I wouldn’t get bogged down if you can’t complete exam questions yet - you’ll build up the mathematics skills throughout the year. Also, another perk of doing spec is that it really helps with methods: despite being different subjects, there is quite a substantial overlap in the calculus and probability sections, so that’s definitely a bonus for both subjects since you can study a concept which helps both subjects.

In regards to further: as you said, it is extremely easy. I’m not going to lie, the subject can become a joke at times in terms of how easy it is. However, I think a huge misconception is that because further is easy, then getting a 45+ ss is easy as well. Let me just say this: if you don’t work in this subject, you will not get a 40. I had friends who treated it as a bludge, and they ended up with study scores in the 30s (even though they were extremely capable maths students). Also, if you have a bad day on the exam, say good bye to a high 40 - a friend of mine was full marking nearly every SAC, but dropped 4 marks on the Exam 1, but he aced Exam 2. Unfortunately, he got a 41, just because of that one bad day. One last con: the cohort you are in can certainly make a difference to your score due to the sheer competition. After the exam, I was pretty certain I dropped 1 or 2 marks across both exams (98 or 99/100). Because of this, I thought I’d get a 47-49 score. However, because I was rank 3 and the two students above me sorta bombed the exams (both got low 40s), my SAC marks were pushed down significantly, leading to my underwhelming 45. So taking further is definitely a risk. On the contrary, I disagree with people who claim that further is ‘boring’ - I definitely enjoyed the subject, especially the financial section since it was maths which could be applied to the real world and not just a textbook. Another thing that is really good about further is the Geometry module: in methods (and even spec), you may encounter questions regarding similar triangles, which isn’t really in the methods course, but it is taught in further - this can give you a huge advantage.

So all in all, specialist is the perfect subject if you work really hard; it’s really only worth it for the scaling, so a score >35 is optimal if you are doing spec since you 100% want it in your top 4. In contrast, further is a good 5th or 6th subject since you can get a low 40 with minimal work, but getting a high 40 in it is a bit of a gamble. In my situation, specialist was my 3rd best scaled whereas further was my 5th. Therefore, I personally think specialist is the better option, but it ultimately comes down to your study habits and what you feel more comfortable with...

Hope this helps! 

 

[Quantum44]

You say you didn't make use of the overlap between methods and spec? How is that so?
Also, did you study methods ahead of your class and start papers for it in early term 3 as well?

I feel like I wasted a lot of time doing textbook questions for methods when I already knew certain areas of the course really well from spesh (eg calculus). I just felt like I needed to comprehensively cover the course to do well.

I initially started methods ahead of my class but kind of ran out of steam as I prioritised doing spesh. In the end I managed to cram through the course and still start practice exams at the start of term 3 for methods as well.

[abhi223]

Thank you so much guys!! As for my final decision, Spesh it is!