Comin near last in 2U maths, should i drop down? (1 Viewer)

swagster0906

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Hey guys, sooo im coming like 89th out of 108 people in 2U maths, should i drop down? I know people say general is a lot easier but im worried whether i'll be able to catch up on all the work i missed and people also say that general has a lot of wordy problems which i absolutely despise soo idk, i'm very confused
 

MilkyCat_

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I think the questions you should ask yourself are
Am I interested in going to uni and doing a degree where mathematics is assumed knowledge? If yes then keep maths
Am I willing to work hard to improve my rank? If yes then keep maths
Do I enjoy maths and genuinely think it could contribute positively to my atar? If yes then keep maths
 

WrittenLoveLetters

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What MilkyCat_ said. But also, what is your assessment mark, may I know?
I don't know your circumstance, but maybe you're assessment mark is actually alright and even better than you think :)

Also, how are you going in your other subjects? If you drop 2 units, you'll have 10 units, and how strong are you in those subjects?
 

DatAtarLyfe

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What MilkyCat_ said. But also, what is your assessment mark, may I know?
I don't know your circumstance, but maybe you're assessment mark is actually alright and even better than you think :)

Also, how are you going in your other subjects? If you drop 2 units, you'll have 10 units, and how strong are you in those subjects?
I'm pretty sure that he was considering dropping from 2u maths to general, so you would still have 2 units of maths
 

WrittenLoveLetters

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I'm pretty sure that he was considering dropping from 2u maths to general, so you would still have 2 units of maths
Yeah I know, but I was also thinking, if you aren't strong in your other subjects, a lower level maths might not even help that much.
 

Kaido

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I think the questions you should ask yourself are
Am I interested in going to uni and doing a degree where mathematics is assumed knowledge? If yes then keep maths
Am I willing to work hard to improve my rank? If yes then keep maths
Do I enjoy maths and genuinely think it could contribute positively to my atar? If yes then keep maths
Dang son, that's pretty deep from a Y11 student.
 

WrittenLoveLetters

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Oh btw, sorry that I'm having this conversation in this thread, but its Maths-related right :D

@Enigma_1 Currently, I'm having some trouble balancing time out for each subject, so how would you allocate time for finishing MIF homework then working on Cambridge? I only do past papers about a week or two before exams
 

enigma_1

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Oh btw, sorry that I'm having this conversation in this thread, but its Maths-related right :D

@Enigma_1 Currently, I'm having some trouble balancing time out for each subject, so how would you allocate time for finishing MIF homework then working on Cambridge? I only do past papers about a week or two before exams
If your teacher doesn't check your maths homework, then I'd strongly recommend sticking to Cambridge exercises instead of MIF. Because that way you're able to save time since MIF questions are not reflective of exam difficulty. By doing Cambridge, you'll be able to allocate more time to it and the trickier questions in the development section of the exercises. Once you have finished a topic in class, regardless of whether you know the topic well enough or not, transition to past papers for that topic immediately. You will find that there may be some things/concepts you may have forgotten in that topic and by doing past papers you are effectively revising at the same time. The bulk of your maths preparation should be like this so that when maths exams come, the week before you would literally be casually doing papers/the harder questions towards the end in papers (Basically do the papers backwards). You would then also have time to complete timed papers rather than worrying about what concepts you understand or not. It's important to do timed papers throughout the year to ensure that you can effectively answer all the questions and are not making silly mistakes which is basically throwing away easy marks.

So during exam period your maths study will be quite minimal if you take time to do Cambridge exercises daily as well as past papers regularly. If you are doing past papers, attempt all the questions of the topics that you have learnt already. Eg if you learnt like circle geo at the start of the year and you see questions on it in past papers, don't neglect them but actually do them so that you don't risk forgetting that chapter. And even if you do forget, look at the worked solutions and it will probably trigger the method etc.

Since you're in year 11, you still have lots of time to improve time management for year 12. However if you are currently in a situation where an exam is approaching and you haven't done too many past papers, then firstly review the concepts of the topics to be tested and then dive straight into past paper questions and don't worry about timed papers for now.
 

WrittenLoveLetters

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If your teacher doesn't check your maths homework, then I'd strongly recommend sticking to Cambridge exercises instead of MIF. Because that way you're able to save time since MIF questions are not reflective of exam difficulty. By doing Cambridge, you'll be able to allocate more time to it and the trickier questions in the development section of the exercises. Once you have finished a topic in class, regardless of whether you know the topic well enough or not, transition to past papers for that topic immediately. You will find that there may be some things/concepts you may have forgotten in that topic and by doing past papers you are effectively revising at the same time. The bulk of your maths preparation should be like this so that when maths exams come, the week before you would literally be casually doing papers/the harder questions towards the end in papers (Basically do the papers backwards). You would then also have time to complete timed papers rather than worrying about what concepts you understand or not. It's important to do timed papers throughout the year to ensure that you can effectively answer all the questions and are not making silly mistakes which is basically throwing away easy marks.

So during exam period your maths study will be quite minimal if you take time to do Cambridge exercises daily as well as past papers regularly. If you are doing past papers, attempt all the questions of the topics that you have learnt already. Eg if you learnt like circle geo at the start of the year and you see questions on it in past papers, don't neglect them but actually do them so that you don't risk forgetting that chapter. And even if you do forget, look at the worked solutions and it will probably trigger the method etc.

Since you're in year 11, you still have lots of time to improve time management for year 12. However if you are currently in a situation where an exam is approaching and you haven't done too many past papers, then firstly review the concepts of the topics to be tested and then dive straight into past paper questions and don't worry about timed papers for now.
Problem is, homework is checked, so, thats why I'm wondering how. Maybe I should learn to be faster and more productive to finish homework tasks as quick as possible so I can have time. Or maybe I'll take a day to dedicate time to Cambridge and just do a column of the harder questions?
 

enigma_1

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Problem is, homework is checked, so, thats why I'm wondering how. Maybe I should learn to be faster and more productive to finish homework tasks as quick as possible so I can have time. Or maybe I'll take a day to dedicate time to Cambridge and just do a column of the harder questions?
you could possibly confront your teacher, or see if she/he doesn't mind you using Cambridge instead of mif. After all, they are not the embodiment of mif so they have no reason to be offended lol

my teacher used to check our work initially but what I did was do the Cambridge exercises but write the mif equivalent exercise on top so that it would look like I did mif, but sometimes I'd do the mif exercises so it wouldn't look too suss. If your teacher just skims through your work then I guess you could try it too.

worst case scenario, whizz through mif (don't do every single questions, just like every 2nd or third) and then do harder Cambridge questions later. Just ensure you spread out the study and don't cram it all in one day
 

BLIT2014

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Problem is, homework is checked, so, thats why I'm wondering how. Maybe I should learn to be faster and more productive to finish homework tasks as quick as possible so I can have time. Or maybe I'll take a day to dedicate time to Cambridge and just do a column of the harder questions?
Try explaining that you use Cambridge instead,and you still do ''homework''. If that fails maybe try getting your parents to speak to them?
 

DatAtarLyfe

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you could possibly confront your teacher, or see if she/he doesn't mind you using Cambridge instead of mif. After all, they are not the embodiment of mif so they have no reason to be offended lol

my teacher used to check our work initially but what I did was do the Cambridge exercises but write the mif equivalent exercise on top so that it would look like I did mif, but sometimes I'd do the mif exercises so it wouldn't look too suss. If your teacher just skims through your work then I guess you could try it too.

worst case scenario, whizz through mif (don't do every single questions, just like every 2nd or third) and then do harder Cambridge questions later. Just ensure you spread out the study and don't cram it all in one day
I love how enigma is just straight up like "don't do MIF hw" no holds barred. You crack me up every time
 

sourmilk

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As much as what people make it out to seem, general maths isn't the end of your world. I know a senior who graduated who did general and he manage to get a decent atar and is now doing business. If you definitely don't need maths, then drop.
General also consists a shit-load of wordy questions, which is pretty annoying to read during exams since you're trying to be time conscious (and sometimes they add useless information or are really worded badly)

A lot of General's content is assumed knowledge you would have learned from year 8-10, the only think I recall only learning in General were new ways to graph and absolute error. It's not hard to pick up if you haven't learned it, so don't fret :)

I was conflicted whether to drop down to 2U, I ended up dropping down because the highest I could achieve in 2U was maybe 70% and with General I could definitely achieve 95%+

Good luck with your choices~
 

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