MATHS SUBJECT SELECTION

[mishyprzed1]

Hi guys!

I am in year 10 and I would like to know the difficulties of the three different maths for VCE.  I'm thinking of either doing further and methods or methods and spesh.  In year 10 so far, I'm finding maths very easy and getting over 95% in each test.  I am kind of leaning towards doing methods and spesh, but I heard that spesh is very difficult.  If I did spesh and methods, would that be too much?  Would I stress out with the two maths subjects?  Or would doing them both help me with the other (for example, spesh helping me with methods)?

Thank you for the people who take there time to respond!

[Sine]

Hi guys!

I am in year 10 and I would like to know the difficulties of the three different maths for VCE.  I'm thinking of either doing further and methods or methods and spesh.  In year 10 so far, I'm finding maths very easy and getting over 95% in each test.  I am kind of leaning towards doing methods and spesh, but I heard that spesh is very difficult.  If I did spesh and methods, would that be too much?  Would I stress out with the two maths subjects?  Or would doing them both help me with the other (for example, spesh helping me with methods)?

Thank you for the people who take there time to respond!

Plenty of people do methods and specialist so I wouldn't say that it will be too much. Although, it would most likely be a greater workload than methods and further.

Also heaps of people do 2 maths, whether that be methods/spec or further/methods. Doing methods/spec together will help a little bit since they cover some similar topics. They are still very much two different subjects but they can still help a little with each other in terms of understanding.

[eloisegrace]

Lots of people do methods and spesh together and while they both have a high workload the concepts overlap. If I was in your situation, I would take methods and spesh in year 11 and possibly drop spesh for further in year 12. Taking spesh in year 11 can expose you to the content and then you can see if you want to do it in year 12

[iamflowting]

In my opinion the most important thing to consider is just whether you like the content. I would highly advise that you follow eloisegrace's advice and test the waters with Specialist 1/2 in year 11.

Specialist Maths is a hard subject. However, if you like the content then it will make it a lot more bearable and heck, maybe even enjoyable. Specialist Maths was not my highest study score unit but I do not regret doing it because I genuinely felt that it was one of my favourite subjects. As a little plus it also helped me a lot in my first year at Uni as there is some content overlap with first year Uni-level Maths.

On the matter of will doing one help you in the other. Honestly, not really. Sure, there is a little overlap but the concepts you learn in Specialist won't help you as much as you think in Methods.

[BiggestVCESweat]

If you're good at maths do spesh instead of further--you'll get a higher scaled study score and you have more room to make mistakes.

[Lilyyyy]

further is a different type of maths compared to methods and spesh. I would consider myself a maths person (doing all three maths) but I quite dislike further, there is a lot of data interpretation, finance, stats etc, reminds me a lot of stuff I did commerce and health; very different from the calculus and trig in methods and spesh. I suggest you do methods early if your school allows, it will help drastically if you continue to do spesh 3/4 in year 12 after completing methods. But if you can't do that, definitely at least try doing methods and spesh in year 11, see if you like the content and you can always drop spesh for further in year 12. Generally, if you are good at methods, you would also be good in spesh, given that you can properly manage your time. Hope that helps!