As a Year 9 student this year, I am planning to pursue 3 Unit maths in Year 12. My school has offered me an accelerated program to undertake Year 10 math this year. Should I accept the offer?
This means I will be sitting the Advanced math HSC exam in Year 11, completing 2 units ahead of schedule, and in my Year 12 HSC year, I will only need to focus on Extension 1 math. Is this advantageous or disadvantageous?
If I don't perform well in the Year 11 Advanced math HSC exam, will I have the opportunity to retake Advanced math in Year 12? How does that work?
Please share your thoughts . Thankyou
idk if im too late or not but if you need any more advice and stuff im here
i am accelerating adv math this year (in yr 10 i did both yr 10 math and prelim adv, and this year in y11 i am doing prelim ext 1 and hsc adv) and im expecting to do ext 2 math in yr 12. so basically the difference between me and you is that i didnt do y10 math in y9. im not even sure what the point of accelerating in y9 is? maybe im missing smth.
my only reason for accelerating in this way is because it gets advanced math out of the way in year 11 and allows me to focus on extension in y12. i have around 10 ish extra study periods per fortnight in y12 because of this and this will help me handle the subjects im doing because they are all hard loll
my mindset toward adv math is to obviously not flop it (im at a band 6 level) but also to just cruise by and focus on my extension 1 in y11. the reason is bc my ext 1 marks determine whether or not i go on to do ext 2. and also if i do ext 2 advanced math wont even count anyways.
but it seems like you won't have the luxury to do that since you said you wanted to do 3u math in y12. so what this means is that you have to put a substantial amount of effort into adv math and ext 1 as well. the things you should be considering should be stuff like: can i handle my current year level's work alongside this extra commitment, am i comfortable with advanced math concepts (often those that accelerate advanced math cover content well ahead of time in tutoring so they struggle less in school, you don't have to do this but having an idea could help), do i have extra time to invest in study, do i feel that i can do well despite accelerating the subject, how will i keep on top of my workload, who can i go to for support if i need it etc.
and finally, yeah you should be able to retake advanced math if you do badly, your school shouldn't be able to say no but if they do then you should discuss that further bc you def should be able to.
but the real question is: even though you could, why would you depend on the fact that you could repeat it? at that point how would the extra effort you put into accelerating be different to if you just went the normal route with less effort? of course it would be your decision to make but i would either double down with the mindset that im going to get adv done well in y11 and focus on ext 1 in y12 or choose to go the normal route if i feel like i can't do advanced math justice in y11.
the reason why i say that is because acceleration naturally causes some content to be skipped over a bit if you're doing 2 years worth of content in one, and to some extent you aren't given the same privileges as a hsc student if you are an accelerant. for example, in my school, the accelerants are all in one class and therefore isolated from y12, so even through we get the same past papers and resources we don't have collective study groups or senior study periods and all that helpful stuff available to us as we still count as y11 students overall. also we often have our y11 and y12 exam blocks very close to each other and no additional support/days off school for study are provided for us. you should look into how this might affect you in your specific situation or whether or not it affects you.
The bottom line is that i'm not discouraging you, but do it only if you feel like it's worth it for you, and don't be afraid to drop it if you are struggling. math is not the only subject you'll be doing in the hsc so consider your workload and priorities and seek advice from teachers and other people that might have done this same accelerated program (you can dm me with any questions too).
