Ext maths hard??? (1 Viewer)

jaywu

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hey i was just wondering if anyone is finding ext maths hard? I am understanding the concepts well but when it comes to test i get poor marks. To makes things even worse, the class performs poorly as well. The class average is between the 30% & 40%, which i think is quite low. The top mark is like in the 70% range, and only two people in the class actually pass the exams. So is it difficult or is my class and i just stupid people????
 
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kazan

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well most of my class get between 30 and 60 percent in tests, we have 2 kids that get high 80's and a few that get low 20's but i find it to be pretty hard, if i pass a test its only just passed, i have never got more than 55 percent
 

A l

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jaywu said:
hey i was just wondering if anyone is finding ext maths hard? I am understanding the concepts well but when it comes to test i get poor marks. To makes things even worse, the class performs poorly as well. The class average is between the 30% & 40%, which i think is quite low. The top mark is like in the 70% range, and only two people in the class actually pass the exams. So is it difficult or is my class and i just stupid people????
Did you do Advanced Mathematics in year 10? Those who did Intermediate Mathematics in year 10 and went for Mathematics Extension in year 11 tend to struggle a lot.
Mathematics Extension is not just about learning and understanding the concepts, the most important part is to know how to APPLY these concepts into your answers. The Higher School Certificate examination consists mainly of application of Mathematical concepts and a deeper understanding of them as well. There is also the occasional logical reasoning and harder problem solving to break down first to find your way to the solution. The best way to use applications of a concept in problem solving and reasoning is by doing a lot of exercises as practice and go for some past papers. Even try to have a go at relevent topics in past HSC exams. At least one whole question in the exam should be relevent to the Preliminary course.
However, there is also a chance that your school makes difficult examinations.
I know that in my school that the mid-course exam was so easy that 5 people got 100% and the course average for it was something like 70-80%.
 

kazan

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A l said:
Did you do Advanced Mathematics in year 10? Those who did Intermediate Mathematics in year 10 and went for Mathematics Extension in year 11 tend to struggle a lot.
Mathematics Extension is not just about learning and understanding the concepts, the most important part is to know how to APPLY these concepts into your answers. The Higher School Certificate examination consists mainly of application of Mathematical concepts and a deeper understanding of them as well. There is also the occasional logical reasoning and harder problem solving to break down first to find your way to the solution. The best way to use applications of a concept in problem solving and reasoning is by doing a lot of exercises as practice and go for some past papers. Even try to have a go at relevent topics in past HSC exams. At least one whole question in the exam should be relevent to the Preliminary course.
However, there is also a chance that your school makes difficult examinations.
I know that in my school that the mid-course exam was so easy that 5 people got 100% and the course average for it was something like 70-80%.

i swear you really are a teacher, i think i might drop down, i dont need extension maths for what i want to do, and i put alot of effort into it which could be going into chem or bio, but im not sure wether to stay or not...... :( , i have a problem with the teacher, so i have to teach myself pretty much as i dont want to talk to him at all let alone ask him for help.........
 
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jaywu

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A l said:
Did you do Advanced Mathematics in year 10? Those who did Intermediate Mathematics in year 10 and went for Mathematics Extension in year 11 tend to struggle a lot.
Mathematics Extension is not just about learning and understanding the concepts, the most important part is to know how to APPLY these concepts into your answers. The Higher School Certificate examination consists mainly of application of Mathematical concepts and a deeper understanding of them as well. There is also the occasional logical reasoning and harder problem solving to break down first to find your way to the solution. The best way to use applications of a concept in problem solving and reasoning is by doing a lot of exercises as practice and go for some past papers. Even try to have a go at relevent topics in past HSC exams. At least one whole question in the exam should be relevent to the Preliminary course.
However, there is also a chance that your school makes difficult examinations.
I know that in my school that the mid-course exam was so easy that 5 people got 100% and the course average for it was something like 70-80%.
Yeah i did advance in yr10. Thanks for the tips. I think my teacher is making the exam papers difficult. There are definitely some people in my class who are capable of doing ext maths.
 

kami

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Don't decide yet, see how you go for a tad longer. And don't base your expectations neccesarily on what your getting, your school could set really hard exams, don't base decisions on past experience either-its all what you are willing to put into it from now, I went from the equivalent of standard maths in year 10 to extension maths later on, and in year 11 my marks dipped as low as 30%..just recently I got 100% with the person coming 2nd getting 60%. So it all depends on how much you can work at it, and you have soooo much time to work at it, till October next year in fact. So keep on trucking for a while longer and see what happens.
 

rama_v

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kami said:
Don't decide yet, see how you go for a tad longer. And don't base your expectations neccesarily on what your getting, your school could set really hard exams, don't base decisions on past experience either-its all what you are willing to put into it from now, I went from the equivalent of standard maths in year 10 to extension maths later on, and in year 11 my marks dipped as low as 30%..just recently I got 100% with the person coming 2nd getting 60%. So it all depends on how much you can work at it, and you have soooo much time to work at it, till October next year in fact. So keep on trucking for a while longer and see what happens.
Yep..You should also find that as you do more and more 2 unit work this will increae your maths skills greatly and help you in 3 unit :)
 

mel4dan

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Ha ha. Im in Jaywu's class and im at the top (i.e one of the people actually going "OK"). Personally i felt the paper was way too hard and i only got 81% and that was the top mark?!?! There were questions in there like this circle one which the teacher had not addressed before in class, and when we did circle stuff, our teacher just skipped right through it.

Also do you guys think its weird for a 2unit person to be beating us in the 2unit paper, because we do do extension and are expected to be ahead?? I mean like this "person" got 99% in the 2U prelim half-yearly paper and Jason and I followed behind her with 96% and 97% respectively. But then i suppose she could be doing ext, but she chose not to because she was doing ext english. i made the same choice, just in reverse.

So overall, how are other people going in the maths half-yearlies??
 
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HarryKozy said:
Ha ha. Im in Jaywu's class and im at the top (i.e one of the people actually going "OK"). Personally i felt the paper was way too hard and i only got 81% and that was the top mark?!?! There were questions in there like this circle one which the teacher had not addressed before in class, and when we did circle stuff, our teacher just skipped right through it.

Also do you guys think its weird for a 2unit person to be beating us in the 2unit paper, because we do do extension and are expected to be ahead?? I mean like this "person" got 99% in the 2U prelim half-yearly paper and Jason and I followed behind her with 96% and 97% respectively. But then i suppose she could be doing ext, but she chose not to because she was doing ext english. i made the same choice, just in reverse.

So overall, how are other people going in the maths half-yearlies??
I dont think its weird that a 2unit person is doing better than the ext people in the 2unit exam because they hav to do less work so they have more time to review. Plus i also find that being in ext u tend to overthink easy questions and look for the most difficult solution, well i do anyway lol. I always get the easy questions wrong and the harder ones right. But i did crap in the ext half-yearly, i got 40%. However the majority failed.
 

lourai*87

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Argh...3unit...worst subject ever.

I am so far behind because i get to where i dont understand something and just give up. If you dont need it, dont enjoy it and arent doing all that great in it, i would reccommend not doing in in year 12.

On the plus side, when it comes to exams there are less topics to revise :p
 
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Fruitcake05

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Yeh extension maths......I got 30% in the half yearly

But now I actually do the homework and dont get distracted so hopefully i could get over 30% next time
 

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I failed my first exam in yr 11 for ext1 maths... i think it was 40%... my teacher decided to start the year off with circle geometry ... and out of 5... 3 ppl failed 2nd was 54 (i think) and 1st was like 75%

anyways... the rest of the year my lowest mark was 80%..... (except for the end of yearly exam... let's not worry about that for now- i didn't study for it... i studied for chem instead)...


anyways... never let a bad mark in extension put u down... just keep working and working and working... as soon as u come across a question or concept u don't understand go directly to ur teacher/tutour/friend and ask... that's something i wasn't doing... and eventually i found i was covered with a mountian of uncertainties...

keep working hard- 3 unit is quite alot of work for a 1unit subject.... and so if ur really capable work hard now... and maybe u can take up 4 units of maths for yr 12... then ur 3 unit course will count as 2units... and getting high marks in 3 units and 4 units maths will do wonders for ur UAI.... NEVER GIVE UP...

oh yeh.. one more thing....

3 units will dramatically help u in the 2 units course....
i was about to drop 3 units maths before my yr 12 half yearly... i figured i could spend valuable time on my other subjects... however my teacher made me realise just how much 3 units was helping me towards 2 units... so even if ur not going so well in 3 units... keep it.. at least until the end of yr11... it helps soooooo much...

good luck guys...
 
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wrong_turn

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i failed my first exam as well. i think it was 47%. but again, i averaged 52% throughout the whole year. but now im coming above average with an average of 68%
 

Pace_T

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i didn't do anything in 3 unit preliminary (I'm in year 12 at the moment), so let's just say I just done the 2 unit course for year 11 :p
I was getting about 50-60% in 2 unit for year 11, that's what i got for minimal effort. I got <30% for year 12 extension maths.

When year 12 started, I really put in a lot of effort in 3 unit, still doing very little for 2 unit. My average mark for 2 unit assessments shot up pretty high, and I still don't do any 2 unit work lol.... So as someone else suggested, 3 unit will help 2 unit SOOO much, more than you could imagine! lol..
Oh and by the way, my 3 unit average assessment score is higher than 2 unit lol, so its not too late!

To sum it all up, there's two very good things about doing 3 unit;
1. it helps 2 unit sooo much; and
2. it doesn't matter if you didn't go well in year 11, you can still go very well in the HSC course!
 

mel4dan

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insanelysane said:
I dont think its weird that a 2unit person is doing better than the ext people in the 2unit exam because they hav to do less work so they have more time to review. Plus i also find that being in ext u tend to overthink easy questions and look for the most difficult solution, well i do anyway lol. I always get the easy questions wrong and the harder ones right. But i did crap in the ext half-yearly, i got 40%. However the majority failed.
ha ha yeah i do the same. or then i make a silly error like when cancelling or something so i lose a mark!!! its so annoying!! :mad:
 

slix_88

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Extension isn't that bad. I don't know what school you guys go to, but I reckon its good (not easy). All you've got to do is put the effort in and STUDY!STUDY!STUDY! Whenever my teacher tells me to just do Q1-7 and 10, I go ahead and do Q1-25 and if I have any problems I alsways ask, never leaving any question out (BTW, i work from the Cambridge text books). I know it takes a lot of time, but it will certainly reflect your final result. MORE WORK = HIGHER %.

So far, I've only done 2 2U tests and 1 3U Half-yearly.

MARKS-->
2U --- 98%, 94%
3U --- 98% (1/121).
 

illmtl

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slix_88 said:
Extension isn't that bad. I don't know what school you guys go to, but I reckon its good (not easy). All you've got to do is put the effort in and STUDY!STUDY!STUDY! Whenever my teacher tells me to just do Q1-7 and 10, I go ahead and do Q1-25 and if I have any problems I alsways ask, never leaving any question out (BTW, i work from the Cambridge text books). I know it takes a lot of time, but it will certainly reflect your final result. MORE WORK = HIGHER %.
You do not have to put effort in. I do very little outside class and in 2u I got 95 topped the grade, where the grade average was somewhere in the low 70s or high 60s, and in ext. got 89 where the top was 90 and the average was somewhere down in the 60s I think.... studying has little to do with it. It all depends on aptitude. If your just good at maths study won't neccissarily help... whereas if you don't studying might help... I wouldn't know. I've been near the top of my grade at school for four years(ish) without doing homework or even paying attention in maths.
 

babiisapphire

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illmtl.. you might not find is necessary to study but it doesnt apply to everybody.. if you're doing well then thats good for you keep at it
 

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