Comparison of Maths Ext 2 books (1 Viewer)

[bos1234]

what are good books for 4 unit? our school is using terry lee and fitzpatrick...
is cambridge any good for 4 unit?

Edit: I (jetblack2007) am going to progressively add everyone's statements to the original post, so the thread is easier to navigate.

Terry Lee: Advanced Mathematics
Pros:

• Harder challenge questions
• Worked answers
• Good explanations of concepts

Cons:

• More suitable once the theory is established and you know what you're doing
• No truly 'simple' questions. (One user said he "jumps straight into the deep end")

Arnold and Arnold: Cambridge 4 Unit Mathematics
Pros:

• Good quality questions which range from easy to challenging, allowing for better development of your skills
• Considered more "systematic" and "mathematical" than the others
• Better typesetting (perhaps more a matter of personal preference )

Cons:

• Can get quite difficult at times
• Answer section is not as good as it should be
• Worked examples tend to skip steps
• Don't reflect the exam questions as well as they should

Fitzpatrick: New Senior Mathematics (4 Unit)
Cons:

• Unreliable, unworked answers
• Some of the questions are ridiculous, and unrelated to the main topic

Coroneos: Revised 4 unit Maths
Pros:

• Excellent coverage of different question types

Cons:

• Does not include harder 3 unit
• Layout and typesetting (to be taken with a grain of salt )
• Not always relevant

S. K. Patel: Maths Extension 2
Pros:

• Good for complex numbers
• Provides a large number of questions for practice

Cons:

• Teaches material beyond the requirement of the course
• Solutions aren't very good, skip some answers, and others are wrong

 

[pLuvia]

Re: what are good books

Cambridge is pretty good, but Terry Lee in my opinion has harder questions such as those Challenge Questions and it also has worked solutions which is a bonus.

 

[Riviet]

Re: what are good books

Fitzpatrick has unreliable, unworked answers, BUT the questions are decent and vary in difficulty. I like Cambridge as well (good questions).

 

[housemouse]

Re: what are good books

Terry Lee is pretty easy and comes with good worked solutions so its good for those who have teachers who arent really 4 unit teachers like mine.

Cambridge is pretty good as well however I found it hard to get into it at first when i started 4 unit.

 

[vafa]

Re: what are good books

I guess I said this n times and this is the n+1 time that I am saying Coroneos is more than an excellent book in opinion because the author considered everysingle possibility of questions and taught all of them. When you look at conics,complex numbers,polynomials,integration, furthur calculus and especially mechanics in coroneos you then feel the difference between Coroneos and other text books. but the only thing is that coroneos does not have 3 harder unit maths questions. I used coroneos for 4 unit this year and then I used Bill pender's harder 3 unit booklet. If you even study coroneos, then you do not have to do any past papers because all examples of coroneos are taken from past papers and the good thing is that the author explains everything clearly. But I know that a lot of people do not like coroneos book because they think it is boring but my belief is that corones book is much more stronger than text books such as cambridge,fitzapetrik and etc

 

[Affinity]

Re: what are good books

The more I think of it, the more I find cambridge the best out of the common ones. It's subtlely alot more systematic and mathematical than the other ones.
Most of the questions contained are very classic - those not necessarily long/difficult, but often illustrates an interesting point or elicits some ingenuity from the reader, unlike the other books whi have long exercises which are often not that enlightening

Also, I think it has the best typesetting, Coroneous is.. erh.. not that pleasant to read.. fitzy feels like one of those year 10 books I useds.. some other books feels like year 7/8 books.

 

[Sir Loin]

Re: what are good books

Cambridge is good, but will have you ripping your hair out, guaranteed, unless you're an uber maths freak who can think in different dimensions.
Terry Lee - Good explanations, decent questions - very good answer section.
Cambridge - Will have hair ripping, all nighter, annoy teacher-over-one-question-for-three-periods sessions. Questions pwn though, and will have you feeling that fuzzy feeling, encouraging more solving questions. Craptasic answer section.
Fitzpatrick - Never tried, but apparently it's good for a few select sections that other textbooks don't go into enuff detail, i dunno don't trust me on this.
Coroneos - Very good questions, but i've gone and done something else half the time cuz the layout isn't so motivating.

 

[jessbess34]

Terry Lee is pretty confusing but that's onl when the worked solutions skip the 'obvious' parts. I'm finding this course a bit hard because theres no hand out and we have terry lee and two other 4 unit books from the 90s or something and they all use different language.

 

[muttiah]

yeah they use all these weird symbols.!!!

 

[pLuvia]

Try to get your hands on Cambridge or Fitzpatrick

 

[dr baby beanie]

I read somewhere on the forum that Terry Lee has heaps of mistakes, is this true?

 

[pLuvia]

I have the 6th edition and I haven't encountered any mistakes, but as the book updates there is less mistakes, so depends which edition you have

 

[Affinity]

1 - Ask your teacher
2 - Ask your tutor
3 - Refer to the only copy in the hands of a student from Ruse teachers fully worked solutions!

4 - Sit there till you figure it out.

 

[buchanan]

Option 4 is best.

 

[jyu]

Learning the solution to a problem is just that, the solution to that particular problem. It does not really help you to solve problems. The only way to learn is by trying.

5. Try and try again. If you are unsuccessful after a few trials, find out why from the worked solutions.

 

[buchanan]

Answers are important. But so is the struggle.

For example most mathematicians were confident they knew Poincare's conjecture is valid - and this constitutes the answer. Perelman proved it which constitutes the struggle. It was announced today by Science magazine that his proof is the discovery of the year for 2006:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/314/5807/1848.pdf

 

[ann123]

Hi all,

I'd like to clarify one thing, ofcourse the struggle is more important than that final combination of numbers obtained at the end of a question. That is implied in my post; "if you don't know the solution", which implicitly implies deliberation without success.

So, if you're continually deliberating down the wrong paths what good is struggling?

I think that HSC Maths is such that the questions are usually predictable if you trend the types of questions that have been asked in previous years. So, wouldn't it be "playing the game" if the student memorised the method through which to solve that type of problem?

My tutor in year 11 wrote part of the 4 unit maths paper, his advice to me was to memorise methods and formulae, after all, why do we have so much repetition in our maths problems, to memorise not the numbers, ofcourse, but the methods and formulae!

We aren't all mathematical geniuses and frankly, the HSC isn't about testing that. They don't expect you to find the greatest thing since sliced bread in that exam room - most (note how I don't say all) of it is about robotically solving problems; really not that hard at all, if though about in perspective.

The way I see it, you could study hard or study smart; which factors into it ALOT of struggling, time, dedication and perseverance but EVEN MORE foresight about the bigger picture.

So, my advice is to study smart. Do your homework, ::understand:: the concepts and what solving different problems entails and then move on to solving harder problems. That way you won't feel stressed come exam time because you will know what to do when a question type is thrown at you.

I whole-heartedly agree with jyu, option 5 is the wisest option.


Merry Christmas everyone!

 

[buchanan]

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If Perelman did maths like that, he would never have proved the Poincare conjecture.

Likewise, other mathematicians worth their salt do not do maths like this. Real maths has no published worked solutions or answers in the back of the book.

Learning maths like a robot gives only a superficial understanding of maths. After the exam is over students forget everything they've learnt. If it is seen that it's all about marks, will there be any advancement of mathematics in any way whatsoever in Australia if this is the way it is taught? Not likely. Australia will be irrelevant and certainly not a centre of excellence for mathematics. You may as well believe in fairies!

 

[ann123]

Personally, buchanan [btw, are you referring to the AFL player?], I would suggest you read my post before replying to it.

When I say "playing the game" I am referring to the many HSC students who don't consider themselves pure mathematicians and just want a good UAI to get into the Uni course of their choice.

We are a product of the system - a PRODUCT OF THE SYSTEM - which values marks, answers, correct methods.

How can you expect every 4 unit maths student to be at the level of the best mathematicians, when many many mathematicians certainly "worth their salt" (as you put it) spent decades obsessively trying to prove this conjecture, with no success?

That's exactly the ideolistic attitude that mirrors your analogy; yelling out "i do believe in fairies".

We don't live in a perfect world, the maths syllabus is not perfect and not all students studying 4 unit intend to become pure mathematicians, arguing anything else would be like arguing for the existence of fairies!

~*~
So, I'll say it again - I think Option 5 is the wisest given the time constraints imposed on us as HSC students.

Btw, if anyone is interested in the Cambridge Solutions, they are still available so tell me if you're interested

 

[Affinity]

I didn't think of mathematicians when I suggested it. Not looking at solutions might frustrate someone at the beginning, but will pay off quite soon. It's apparent from those I tutor. The ones who do the exercises themelves tend to be slow at the beginning but eventually better than their peers who asks me at the first sight of difficulty