Comparison of Maths Ext 2 books (3 Viewers)

[Yamapi]

In my experience i found cambridge to be the best book for a large portion of subjects but yeah diffrent books diffrent sections which are decent. Well here is a list of the books i used and the topics i found them useful in

Complex numbers:
Patel (great for complex)
Cambridge
Terry Lee

Conics:
Cambridge (best book you'll ever find)
Terry Lee (if you're struggling and need worked answers)
and Fitzpatrick if you want to fuck with your mind... those questions when you get past around about 17 are ridiculous.

Integration:
Cambridge (enough said)
Terry Lee (again good guide to everything)
Coroneus (100 questions at the back do them all and you should be set)

Volumes:
TEST PAPERS
Cambridge (good for methods)
Fitzpatrick (methods are slightly diffrent)
Terry Lee
Patel
I just recommend all of them since volumes is a subject where you have to use your mind a bit more and not just solve the question but complete it in the least amount of time possible, so you have to know how to take the proper slice and what not. There are multiple methods they use and they name it diffrently i.e. washer method, cylinder method and the method where they unfold the cylinder into a rectanglular prism.

Graphs:
Terry Lee (this book is the best graphing book ever, in my opinion)
Side note. Don't make your graphs look pretty or anything aim for efficency, two straight lines label the axis and the origin mark and mark any noteworthy points.

Mechanics:
Patel(has an extraneous section)
Cambridge(slightly difficult)
Terry Lee(if you're lost)

Polynomials:
Terry Lee
Patel

Harder 3U:
Terry Lee ( i liked it cause harder 3u was my worst subject and this explained Perms and combs as well as harder binomial really well)
Cambridge (for the circles very nice circles)


All in all the 2 essential books i think you can't do without would be
Terry Lee (covers everything in full detail with worked solutions, the worked solutions were always a saviour.)

Cambridge (it'll take you a while getting used to, don't beleive all the crap that people say about how it's too difficult and dosn't cover everything in full detail. I beleived that when i first started 4u and didn't buy it until just before trials, and boy how wrong were my preconceived notions.)

The best practice you can ever get is PAST PAPERS, if you do enough of these you can beat anyone, there used to be a site where they had hundreds of papers from numeous schools but i can't find it anymore. Well good luck and if you fail your school marks dw ( i got 90 school mark and still ended up with 96 exam mark)

 

[buchanan]

Here's some papers:

http://www.angelfire.com/ab7/fourunit

http://4unitmaths.com/exams.html

 

[gypo king]

cambridge is good enough for me, but sometimes the questions arnt clear enough. i reckon having both cambridge and terry lee is the way to go

 

[bell531]

We're using Cambridge and Coroneos, both are pretty good btw, but I'm thinking of getting a Terry Lee book cos i've heard his has good worked solutions. Where should i pick up a new copy?

 

[annabackwards]

We're using Cambridge and Patel at school, but my teacher gets us questions from other books if she deems it necessary.

I'm using Coroneos for Extension 1 and i used it for 2U and my only problem with it is that it doesn't have worked answers so i'm glad i'm not using it for Extension 2.

I use Excel for Extension 2 when i'm a bit lost doing homework because the fully worked answers are excellent and i like the questions there; great revision.

 

[ahhliss]

We use Fitzpatrick plus the sheets the teacher gets from various sources. If I did all those sheets and Fitzpatrick would it be enough?


Also I bought Cambridge 3U for the 3U course, should I continue doing and revising it even though I'm done with 3U? (hopefully I'm done with 3U) Harder 3U is examined in Extension 2 isn't it?

 

[Aerath]

We're using Cambridge and Coroneos, both are pretty good btw, but I'm thinking of getting a Terry Lee book cos i've heard his has good worked solutions. Where should i pick up a new copy?

Pretty much any book store.

 

[Dragonmaster262]

I'm going to start 3 unit maths in about a month but I'm worried because my school uses Maths in Focus. I've read on some other forums that it's not a good book. I'm thinking on buying Cambridge and Terry Lee. Do those books cover the entire stage 6 syllabus or only Year 12 work? I usually shop at the Mount Druitt shopping mall. Do any of you know if I can buy Terry Lee and Cambridge there?

 

[Timothy.Siu]

ok,

i think fitzpatrick is definitely the best textbook for its size. its slack to fitzpatrick if u compare books double its size!!! (especially 3unit cambridge)
so fitzpatrick is the best size to quality ratio
have fun guys

 

[kevda1st]

I dont know about you guys but while i was working through conics in flitzpatrick, i found flitzpatrick just ridiculous. Pages and pages of pointless algebra, by the end you cannot even recognise the original question was related to conics.

I found that Patel was best for conics.

 

[gurmies]

^^Agreed. If anybody has the time, check the ridiculousness of exercise 32 (c) question 8.

 

[thenuker6]

I would say Patel is probably the best book by itself. The questions vary in difficulty and unlike fitzpatrick, patel actually has the graphs drawn.
Arnold & Arnold (Cambridge) is also a good book to study off, but some of the sets are a bit short

 

[MC Squidge]

i have

fitzpatrick; pretty basic, a gud starting point tho
cambrige; harder sort of questions
terry lee; a sad joke at best

 

[Michaelmoo]

I rekon Fitzpatrick has quite long, repetitive and mechanical exercises. Cambridge are much shorter, to the point and with various types and difficulties.

 

[MC Squidge]

is Patel the Excel book? does that have good questions?

also i recently got Coroneus which is good, but not always relevant

 

[lyounamu]

is Patel the Excel book? does that have good questions?

also i recently got Coroneus which is good, but not always relevant

Well Patel wrote his own 4 Unit Maths textbook but he also wrote 4 unit Excel

 

[study-freak]

is Patel the Excel book? does that have good questions?

also i recently got Coroneus which is good, but not always relevant

No, it's true that Patel is the author of MX2 books for excel series, but there is a separate blue-coloured book by Patel. It was also published by the same publisher (i.e.Pascal Press).

It is very thorough but sometimes, like in graphs chapter, it isn't so good.

 

[MC Squidge]

yea i found it on the internet "Foundations of 4 Unit". i never thought of buying patel becuase when i saw the excel book i thought that was it and the excel book looked useless. so is this other Patel a good book compared to Cambridge, Coroneus, Lee and Fitzpatrick? and is the excel book anything like it and does anyone like the excel book for any reason? it didnt seem to have many questions let alone any ones that arent in other books

 

[study-freak]

yea i found it on the internet "Foundations of 4 Unit". i never thought of buying patel becuase when i saw the excel book i thought that was it and the excel book looked useless. so is this other Patel a good book compared to Cambridge, Coroneus, Lee and Fitzpatrick? and is the excel book anything like it and does anyone like the excel book for any reason? it didnt seem to have many questions let alone any ones that arent in other books

I think Foundation of 4 Unit is an old edition. Be sure to buy the '2nd edition' if you are going to get one. (Btw there are two different versions of book cover for the 2nd edition, one being older than the other. But as long as it's the '2nd edition,' the contents are exactly the same.)

I'm using Patel, Fitzpatrick, and Cambridge and I don't know anything about other books. Within those three, I think Cambridge is the best in terms of quality of questions, but Patel is a little more thorough and provides many more questions (But I cbb to do them since there are too many). Fitzpatrick was alright, but it wasn't thorough enough to be used alone.
Overall, Camb>Patel>Fitz IMO.

 

[iRuler]

yea i found it on the internet "Foundations of 4 Unit". i never thought of buying patel becuase when i saw the excel book i thought that was it and the excel book looked useless. so is this other Patel a good book compared to Cambridge, Coroneus, Lee and Fitzpatrick? and is the excel book anything like it and does anyone like the excel book for any reason? it didnt seem to have many questions let alone any ones that arent in other books

From what I know... the book Patel has on his own is a good book, and provides good questions