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VCE Stuff => VCE Mathematics => VCE Mathematics/Science/Technology => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE Mathematical Methods CAS => Topic started by: AR1472 on March 17, 2019, 08:06:31 pm

Title: Methods is really hard... help
Post by: AR1472 on March 17, 2019, 08:06:31 pm
Am I the only one who things methods is actually super hard? I see so many users on here saying all you need to do is put in a more effort and you'll be fine, but no matter how hard / smart I study, I always do bad in my tests and doing 3/4 this year, I'm 100% behind my class. And no I'm not exaggerating, I have friends in my class who complain about the difficulty of methods and come out with 90%+ scores, where I'm barely getting 40%. Btw I go to macrob, and so my whole family is relying on a good score, all my friends are going to get good scores and the pressure is honestly just too much.

I'm writing this and I have another test tomorrow, and I'm trying not to stress because I know that won't help, so I'm sitting here doing practice questions and I can only answer like 20% of them and I'm freaking out again.

How do you guys study? I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I've never been to tutoring in my life, and I get so many people telling me to go to tutoring because it'll help (will it???) but tutoring is too expensive.

My first SAC is in May so not too soon, but I don't know how I'll manage to go over 5 chapters of work that I completely screwed up so far this year.

I know this whole post is basically a mess, but any tips/ insights into how you found methods would really help. Was anyone in my position and managed to pick it up for the rest of the year??

Thanks guys x
Title: Re: Methods is really hard... help
Post by: ianchiu03 on March 18, 2019, 10:01:34 am
Hey,
I think a lot of people think methods is hard mostly because of the huge jump in expectation from junior math to VCE. Especially getting introduced to functions can be quite daunting, especially as you've mostly only touched on quadratics prior to methods. One piece of advice I would give is to not remember formulas as just a bunch of letters arranged in random order. The best way to tackle methods is to see the value in formulas. Don't just remember it, understand the process to obtain it. For me, looking at simple proofs of formulas definitely helped me to remember and consolidate each formula and apply it to exam situations.
Another piece of advice I would give is to not read the textbook, unless you are trying to learn new content. The textbook contains a lot of useless information that will not help in the exam. Go straight to practice questions and find your weaknesses, then put in the work to fix them.
Hope this helps!
P.S. btw I'm an MHS student lolll so I know how pressure feels :(
Title: Re: Methods is really hard... help
Post by: technodisney on March 18, 2019, 10:11:05 am
What helped me was really trying to understand where everything comes from. Memorising all the formulas and how to do each individual type of question doesn't help for SACs (as @ianchiu03 mentioned). What helps is understanding where it all comes from so you are able to problem solve and logically think through a new question.

Youtube is full of videos which explain the concepts in very visual and engaging ways (if you are a visual learner). For Calculus I would highly recommend watching 3Blue1Brown's Calculus series. Visually shows where everything comes from and how it all forms a bigger picture.
Title: Re: Methods is really hard... help
Post by: AR1472 on March 18, 2019, 08:49:47 pm
Hey,
I think a lot of people think methods is hard mostly because of the huge jump in expectation from junior math to VCE. Especially getting introduced to functions can be quite daunting, especially as you've mostly only touched on quadratics prior to methods. One piece of advice I would give is to not remember formulas as just a bunch of letters arranged in random order. The best way to tackle methods is to see the value in formulas. Don't just remember it, understand the process to obtain it. For me, looking at simple proofs of formulas definitely helped me to remember and consolidate each formula and apply it to exam situations.
Another piece of advice I would give is to not read the textbook, unless you are trying to learn new content. The textbook contains a lot of useless information that will not help in the exam. Go straight to practice questions and find your weaknesses, then put in the work to fix them.
Hope this helps!
P.S. btw I'm an MHS student lolll so I know how pressure feels :(

Hey, thanks for the advice!! So would you recommend going through practice questions this early in the year? I was thinking I'd save them for later, but I'm worried the textbook questions won't be good enough for my upcoming SACs. Btw did you do methods last year?

Pressure is the worst  :-\
I feel like urgh I have to get really good study scores but everything is just so stressful...

What helped me was really trying to understand where everything comes from. Memorising all the formulas and how to do each individual type of question doesn't help for SACs (as @ianchiu03 mentioned). What helps is understanding where it all comes from so you are able to problem solve and logically think through a new question.

Youtube is full of videos which explain the concepts in very visual and engaging ways (if you are a visual learner). For Calculus I would highly recommend watching 3Blue1Brown's Calculus series. Visually shows where everything comes from and how it all forms a bigger picture.

Thank you sm! I'll check out 3Blue1Brown's channel. I've never actually considered watching videos, but maybe that will help more than reading over stuff.  ;D
Title: Re: Methods is really hard... help
Post by: ianchiu03 on March 18, 2019, 10:31:11 pm
Yeah I don't textbook questions are the type of questions that will be asked in SACs. However it would be good to attempt textbook questions to gain a solid base IMO. Idk what macrob SACs are like but I think they should contain exam style questions?

No, I actually haven't started methods at school yet....   :( I'm starting next year. Do you have any tips or any advice on what to expect? Is methods really competitive?
Title: Re: Methods is really hard... help
Post by: AR1472 on March 23, 2019, 01:56:12 pm
Yeah I don't textbook questions are the type of questions that will be asked in SACs. However it would be good to attempt textbook questions to gain a solid base IMO. Idk what macrob SACs are like but I think they should contain exam style questions?

No, I actually haven't started methods at school yet....   :( I'm starting next year. Do you have any tips or any advice on what to expect? Is methods really competitive?

sorry for the late reply >.<

Are you starting methods 1/2 or 3/4 next year? If you've already started 1/2, I recommend you keep revising the contents you learn throughout the year during the coming summer holidays, as 3/4 teaches most of these topics again and just goes a bit further. Plus, the pace is faster as well. So having a solid base of 1/2 will get you through methods much better than you would have if you forgot 1/2.

If MHS teaches methods like Macrob does, the pace will be relatively fast. This year I have a maths test every week (interchangeing between methods and spesh) and each test covers between 1-3 topics/chapters. My teacher said it's super fast so that we finish the course around mid-term 3 and we can have the rest of the year to revise for exams.

For both 1/2 and 3/4, keep revising older topics even if you're not getting tested on them until the exam. Otherwise it's easy to forget.

And yep, methods is pretty competitive. It's mainly because it's such a popular subject, so the level of standard is pretty high when it comes to marks. But most students are willing to help each other, give their friends notes and want each other to do well.

hope this helps!! if you have any more questions feel free to ask ^^