Dropping accelerant mathematics (dumping my thoughts and feelings) (1 Viewer)

joannax

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I was doing accelerating mathematics (with extension 1) and I did extremely well in the preliminary course (ranked 1st and 2nd for most assessments) but in the middle of term 3 of 2017 I suddenly felt extremely demotivated, I never felt so demotivated in my life. I think cramming and not treating math seriously enough had drained me out. I didn't stay up to date with homework and so I would cram chapters worth of content around 2 weeks before my exams). Note to all people starting their prelims this year, stay up to date please.

So what happened is that by term 4 in 2017 where I start the HSC math (and ext1) course I was still very demotivated, I even thought I might've been depressed. On the first week of term 4, I didn't listen to my teacher (I self study in class anyways so doesn't matter), decided to not do any work for all lessons and just slept, played games on my phone etc. The following week I went on holidays overseas for 2.5 weeks and didn't do any maths. When I arrived back to school, I bludged all my subjects, including maths. I didn't care about my reports anymore, my family never bothers to read my report card, legit got straight A's for the first time in sem 1 and parents didn't even care. So I was about 3 chapters behind and I had 2 weeks before the test and didn't bother studying or catching up, the sight of math gave me massive headaches and made me hate life. I never felt so demotivated in my life. I bludged through my exam and I got around 60-70% for my extension 1 and ranked really average for both 2u and ext.1 which poses a problem since my school is ranked pretty low (250+ weak cohort) and receiving a bad rank for the first assessment may affect my final rank and marks quite a bit.
(Applications of Calculus, Inductions, Intergration etc. <- Topics that I didn't finish/cover which was in my test) :spzz:

Throughout the summer holidays, I decided that I would drop accelerant so I didn't do any catching up for math so it's too late now. I decided to drop accelerant on the first week back to school so here I am regretting that I did not try hard enough for maths. Now I have to redo my preliminary course in 2018. Which isn't going to be too bad since my class never finished the preliminary syllabus (Circle geometry, Polynomials, Permutations etc.) so now I can revise on my weak points and catch up on the topics that I missed in the preliminary course and hopefully start some early HSC topics. Call me a bloody bragger for putting my marks/ranks but the effort I put in those marks/ranks 2 weeks before exams have killed me inside and outside (possible brain damage if that's even possible).

Dropping accelerant math at the start of the year switched my timetable a bit. Some sacrifices for dropping accelerant included that instead of getting a super nice, cool teacher for english, I now have a strict and unenjoying teacher, and the fact that I have to sit through maths for another year covering the same topics. Just thinking about the possibilities and outcomes if I had finished my math course a year early, I could've focus on other subjects and not worry about math, but it's too late now. Consequences are unavoidable.

My advice to you is to try not to drain yourself out in year 11 since prelims don't affect your HSC/ATAR.
I would love to hear your experiences if you have also dropped accelerating mathematics in your school years.
 

BienvenueAMusA

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oh wow.

dude i don't know what to say but think about it this way: because you dropped accelerated now you have another year to revise everything and really work hard and because you've seen some of the content before then you should be more skilled. if the questions are boring then get cambridge maths and hop straight to the extension section.

good luck and thanks for sharing your thoughts
 

joannax

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Hey, an update on my thread. I decided to pick up my accelerant maths again. I suddenly regained a MASSIVE load of motivation due to the fact of my school's first assessment weighting was only 10%. Also having the thought of just doing another year of maths *shivers*. I kind of don't really care if I don't do my very best in maths anymore but I am extremely determined to catch up on all relevant chapters in the next 4 weeks before my 2nd assessments. If anyone knows Maths In Focus, yeah, it's going to take quite... a while. I find it amazing that literally a week ago, I couldn't do a single math question without having a mental breakdown but now I am flowing through my textbook! I am half way through Geometrical Applications of Calculus (Chapter 2 of Maths in Focus) and it's only been 3 days!!! I am shocked of how well I am flowing through the textbook considering that I haven't touched maths in the past 2 months.
If I do bad in the next few assessments I still might redo another year of maths, but for now, I believe I will finish this god awful course that is causing mental breakdowns ASAP.

Just for some ranting, I have to catch up on 4 chapters in the span of 4 weeks: Geometrical applications of calculus, Integration, Exponential and logarithmic functions and Trigonometric functions. Yay how fun...

(Knowing that I get to finish maths once in for all this year, fills me with determination ;D)
 

fan96

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Good luck in Maths.

You can always post here for help if you're stuck on a question or you don't understand something.

You might like to try Cambridge or maybe Fitzpatrick for tougher questions. My teacher mentioned today that Maths In Focus is not very challenging.
 

fishingoretachi

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In a similar situation rn i guess. I'm tryna weigh up on the right decision on whether or not to drop accelerated maths or not. A test a week ago, I got like 60%, and I reckon I scraped through the prelim course last year with 75% tops. I do feel there are a quite a number of gaps in prelim knowledge, and other fellas in the class are racking marks in the 80-90% range (and even they feel that they have gaps in learning).
Should I just use that flopped test as a wake up call, or should I drop?
 

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