Studying for Maths

**withoutaface** · 17 Nov 2004, 9:37 PM

1. Pay attention in class. As it is being explained try to understand it. If you don't understand it ask questions, that's what your teacher is there for.

2. Read through the material again when you get home, then do questions from the textbook. If you can't do a question bring it in to class the next day, and get the teacher to explain it to you, or post it on BOS. You only need one textbook, because these questions are just to help you understand the material, not to provide practice.

3. The most important step: do past papers. I cannot stress this enough. Do every past paper you can get your hands on. There are so many people who are extremely capable mathematicians who fall down on exam technique, and/or silly errors. Myself I did 60ish past papers for each 3u and 4u, and boosted my ranking from 15th to 2nd in a class of 17.

While most of this should be stating the obvious, hopefully it will avoid future threads asking how to study.

**mack** · 24 Dec 2004, 5:53 PM

I'm not sure if anyone is going to read this, but when you do past papers, simulate exam conditions as closely as possible, to get the most out of your study. That means putting on the 3 hour time limit, no talking, no looking at answers, until the time is up. Then get someone else to mark it(maths teacher is the best bet) and get them to tell you where you went wrong. My first maths assesment I did in Term 4 2003, I got 50% for. I couldn't work out why, after I had done so much study. Then I realised I hadn't done any past papers. The next assessment was in early February, so I worked through an ankle high pile of past papers, each time simulating exam conditions as closely as possible. I lifted my score each time, then when the assesment came I scored 93% raw and boosted my ranking into the top 10.

**wrong_turn** · 25 Dec 2004, 3:14 PM

is this for 2 unit or extension 1 maths?

because if you don't know how to do a questio in extension 1 it takes too bloody long to work out?!

**acmilan** · 25 Dec 2004, 8:51 PM

Id think the study methods would be the same in all levels of maths

**mack** · 25 Dec 2004, 9:03 PM

Yep, the beauty of maths is that copious repepition will always work, unlike English!

**anialicious** · 9 Mar 2005, 2:26 PM

hey....i got half yearly exams coming up and i was wondering does ne one know the actual HSC topics we do in 2 unit? coz i also do 3 unit n man...pfft i dont no whcih topic is in which course...last yr we just got straight into the HSC course n im not sure what topics we need to no...for 2 unit is it just:
- geometric applications of differentiation
- sequences and series
- applications of series
- probability
- integration and calculus
- logs and ex
- trig functions

**Estel** · 9 Mar 2005, 2:45 PM

Here's my tip: don't split 2u and 3u apart. 3u contains harder 2u, and being better at maths in general will improve your 2u (and 3u mark).

**zenger69** · 9 Mar 2005, 6:53 PM

well yes and no.

You do need to know whats 3U topic and whats a 2U topic and know what specific topic is in the 2U half yearly and 3U half yearly and study for those specific topics for each subject.

But when you studying for something like Trials/HSC you should not really differetiate them apart:
2U topics and 3U with all the 2U topics in mind.

**Estel** · 9 Mar 2005, 7:35 PM

Why different techniques for half yearly and trials?

**princessj** · 13 Jul 2005, 12:41 AM

dont leave things till later.... like if u do a topic at school make sure u do sum questions wen u get home even if its just a few.... i didnt do this for a couple topics coz i was just proccupied with assessments and trying to get things done with little time i had a t home... now that i come to go back its like learning from scratch... i regret not doing just 2 questions on the nite....

so yea dive into it

**bumbo_hippo** · 6 Aug 2005, 12:16 AM

jus cheat...its not dat hard~
sigh...i can't remember anything for maths..
feelz like i hit my head and forgot everything..
buh serious...who da hell is goin to use all dat crap afta high skool~!!!
it useless!!

**nick1048** · 6 Aug 2005, 12:58 PM

um hippo... that's all fine and dandy but please don't corrupt this rather well composed study thread with your own personal antics. It isn't useless and will lead you into many other subject areas; science and IT being just a few. Also we're focusing on a UAI here so if you don't wanna do maths that's great, but the rest of us need our mathematics mark to contribute strongly towards our UAI (whether your studying general, 2U, 3U or 4U. Of course the later extensions implies considerable strength in mathematics.) If you wish to have a little rant and rave about how crap maths is or how you can't remember it, please don't corrupt a study thread with it, do it somewhere else. Thank you.

**acmilan** · 6 Aug 2005, 1:12 PM

Originally Posted by bumbo_hippo

buh serious...who da hell is goin to use all dat crap afta high skool~!!!
it useless!!

If you think so...

**Jago** · 6 Aug 2005, 1:26 PM

yeah, i mean, when are we ever gonna need to know about INTEREST RATES or SUPERANNUATION. It's not like superannuation is compulsory or anything...

Spoiler (rollover to view):

/sarcasm

**ruby88** · 2 Sep 2005, 10:22 AM

for me im really crap at studying so ive worked out this personal, totally ingeneous plan i do the questions that i dont understand from the text book the night before and that gives me about a weeks worth of my previous style of study in one night, it works for me ive been gettin in the 80's! so wow i guess 7 weeks of study for the external exams will do me good!

**-pari-** · 26 Oct 2006, 5:55 PM

i've been wondering though....

when is it advised to start going through past papers?

coz technically, we haven't learnt enough to do them till at least before the trials....so is that when we're meant to do them?

before that its just textbook exercises?

**acmilan** · 26 Oct 2006, 6:17 PM

I didnt touch a past paper until trials (and even then, i only did trial papers). After trials i did only hsc papers. At the very least, wait until you've done all the topics. Theres no point doing a paper when you're skipping questions that you haven't learnt about yet.

pLuvia · 26 Oct 2006, 6:25 PM

I think I started doing past papers and trials around June/July of this year before the trials. It depends if you are ready to tackle the trials, if you've learnt everything etc.

**Shrikar** · 4 Jan 2007, 6:59 PM

Why does it seem like when you thought you did well in an exam, you end up doing crap, is it because of you are over confident etc.? well, what ever it is, it sucks balls, also i am sure many people will agree with me here, Why after so much study does the exam mark end up being crap? It really is a moral destroyer!! I and everyone else who has encountered this problem need help, come trail time we don't have time to worry about such things, we need to get it sorted out now so we can achieve a mark that is true to our ability, so can anyone out there just give us a push in the right direction?

**SoulSearcher** · 4 Jan 2007, 7:06 PM

Just keep on practising questions, making sure you know the topics, the formulas, the methods to do each question, and so forth.

**princesskt** · 4 Jan 2007, 7:07 PM

Originally Posted by Shrikar

Why does it seem like when you thought you did well in an exam, you end up doing crap, is it because of you are over confident etc.? well, what ever it is, it sucks balls, also i am sure many people will agree with me here, Why after so much study does the exam mark end up being crap? It really is a moral destroyer!! I and everyone else who has encountered this problem need help, come trail time we don't have time to worry about such things, we need to get it sorted out now so we can achieve a mark that is true to our ability, so can anyone out there just give us a push in the right direction?

i KNOW the feeling.. through out year 11 after the exams.. i felt like i had done well, i thought they were easy.. well u no, pretty yea.. but then i get the marks back and they were crap as!!

**Riviet** · 4 Jan 2007, 7:09 PM

Originally Posted by Shrikar

Why does it seem like when you thought you did well in an exam, you end up doing crap, is it because of you are over confident etc.? well, what ever it is, it sucks balls, also i am sure many people will agree with me here, Why after so much study does the exam mark end up being crap? It really is a moral destroyer!! I and everyone else who has encountered this problem need help, come trail time we don't have time to worry about such things, we need to get it sorted out now so we can achieve a mark that is true to our ability, so can anyone out there just give us a push in the right direction?

It's likely to be silly mistakes. You may have attempted most to nearly all the questions (feeling confident as a result) but the silly mistakes let you down. To improve on this, be more careful in your working, set things out clearly, try not to skip steps in lines of working and check your working as you write.

**princesskt** · 4 Jan 2007, 7:14 PM

yea that makes sense hey.. trust me to make silly mistakes :P

**Shrikar** · 4 Jan 2007, 7:38 PM

Originally Posted by Riviet

It's likely to be silly mistakes. You may have attempted most to nearly all the questions (feeling confident as a result) but the silly mistakes let you down. To improve on this, be more careful in your working, set things out clearly, try not to skip steps in lines of working and check your working as you write.

Alright, thanks for that Riviet.

**dr baby beanie** · 4 Jan 2007, 8:13 PM

1. Learn the basics and then learn expand and mnaipulate them.
2. Do the question out of a text book and generally the harder ones towards the end will more likely be the exam ones, then compare them to past papers.
3. Learn other methods for doing the same question, if possible, because it will reinforce what you've learnt so you don't keep doing them 'easy way' (also you may find the other way much better-when you've learnt it properly)
4. Read the question carefully.
5. Silly mistakes omgosh yearly, panick, really hard, polynomials, 4/1 =1, 2/1 =1 *woops* try and think clearly if you can. I hope I never make that one again.

Wow I should really start taking my own advice.