Maths vs. English (2 Viewers)

[hopeles5ly]

yep. not so much in general maths i guess (we just did a prac on surveying so i guess that's kinda useful) but from 2u upwards they do do a lot of quite useless stuff, from my point of view. i can remember back in the beginning of yr 12 doing 2u (before i dropped) and wondering how in hell differentiation/calculus was going to help me in the future. all it did was give me a headache. they ought to stick to what students really need to know, and if you wanna do all the funky stuff, stick it in the extension course instead.

from what i heard, a lot of the things you learn in high school are useless after you finish. i think the english skills you develop and probably even religion will help you in the later stages of your life though

 

[housemouse]

English is just messed up, especially with journeys.
Girls like english.

 

[Mongke]

I dont think the system sucks...its great for people that actually want to do maths and enjoy it...as when you do the higher level maths it actually gets good...fair enough general maths is the most filthy shit of a subject on the planet with the stuff they come up with to put in that course...but still a lot of the reasons why they would rank the maths in highschools as a bad system through surveys is because of the preconceived aura that maths is boring and crap etc. etc. etc. with people just not caring or even bothering to try...you can't like maths if you don't try, so no wonder people vote it as such a shit system. but yeah thats just my view

i cant stand the way Maths was taught to me, so i agree with the survey. some European country came out on top... trust!

 

[ScottyG]

English Ext 2 > Maths > English Ext 1 > English Advanced.

 

[Sparcod]

English Ext 2 > Maths > English Ext 1 > English Advanced.

LOL I don't know why I found that funny.

 

[Sparcod]

English is just messed up, especially with journeys.
Girls like english.

Everybody says that journeys is their favourite part of English.

Girls like english? What kind of a stereotype is that?

 

[Mongke]

Everybody says that journeys is their favourite part of English.

never! we did "My Place".

Jihad on "My Place"!!

 

[luscious-llama]

Here I am again, yet again replying.

I think that maths is quite beautiful, in some weird way even though I sucked royally at it. I wish I could have understood it as there is no grey area when it comes to solving problems, unlike in english where you have to appeal to the particular subjectivity of the marker ...bah.

I am happy to say though that in this debate that we must add in EATING as a subject as I seem to top that...

So I guess ....English yeah all the way baby, but only extensions.
Whoever set the Journeys topic should be burnt along with that endearing picture of the burning journeys booklet.


Eating > everything

 

[luscious-llama]

Everybody says that journeys is their favourite part of English.

Girls like english? What kind of a stereotype is that?

FUCK NO! JOURNEYS IS HORRID!
Yes I like English but prefer history and art and eating.

 

[Trebla]

i dont know where i read it, so dont ask me to quote it but they did a survey of Maths and English and various other subjects a few years ago (cant remeber the specifics) and Australian Maths was ranked in 10 worst Maths teaching countries in the survey. bit shocking so if youre struggling with Maths it may be because our system sucks! thats reasuring any one else heard of this?

Australian Mathematics is not that bad. Most of the Asian countries such as China and Hong Kong dominate Mathematics.
NSW is currently the leading state in terms of performance and assessed skills in the area of advanced Mathematics. The students in NSW are generally more talented in Mathematics than the other states and advanced level Mathematics is much harder and much more academically rigorous in NSW than in the other states. So if anything, the other states would probably be dragging the nation down. Sorry, for making those generalisations but these are based on national and international statistics.

 

[Mountain.Dew]

and i shall add in a favourite picture as well...(though you probably have seen it before...but that's great! english rotting in hell should be publicised!

BRILLIANT! *and thus signals the end of journeys* LOL

im my opinion, i think that extension 1 english should replace advanced english. ext 1, as ive heard from a lot of people, is so much easier and more interesting. there is more of a 'creative' side to it. but then again, if that were the case, females would dominate. LOL they are dominating english atm neway.

what we need is not analysing texts and writing lengthy discussions. IFEnglish was compulsory, it should be based upon building the fundamentals of the english language, such as grammar, vocab, comprehension, perhaps add "literature" as a small module itself. that way, the advanced english we do now shouldnt be mandatory, but as another seperate 2U subject.

but maths...maths is eternal. a lot of the stuff taught at high school is useless in later life, but the skills, methods and logical thinking developed from doing all those maths questions and exams is invaluable.

 

[Sam.]

what we need is not analysing texts and writing lengthy discussions. IFEnglish was compulsory, it should be based upon building the fundamentals of the english language, such as grammar, vocab, comprehension, perhaps add "literature" as a small module itself. that way, the advanced english we do now shouldnt be mandatory, but as another seperate 2U subject.

but maths...maths is eternal. a lot of the stuff taught at high school is useless in later life, but the skills, methods and logical thinking developed from doing all those maths questions and exams is invaluable.

I had an argument with one of my friends about this subject. He's a maths nerd - lives and breathes the stuff - but couldn't write an analytical essay if his life depended on it. He thinks that maths should be compulsory, as it's just as important as english. I think english is more important on a different level. English, you are certainly going to use for the rest of your life; you have to communicate - verbally, physically and in writing. The skills you learn in english you will use every day for the rest of your years. Maths on the other hand (while essential at a basic level) I don't think is as important. Yes, I agree with students having to learn those "skills, methods and logical thinking" practices, but you don't need the level of maths that we study in Year 12 to lead a practical life. Most of those are developed in the lower years. Those who do not have a mathematically functioning brain find it impossible to comprehend a lot of the maths courses, and depending on the career they wish to follow, find it useless.

I actually did an assignment (in Year 8 or something) on the aspects of maths that different people used later in life. I think about 80% of people never used the maths studied in Year 11 and 12. The other 20% were mathematicians, doctors, scientists and vets. BUT, 100% of them have to use the english skills they learnt in high school. Probably not the actual "themes and techniques" and literature that they studied, but the skills they developed from writing and discussing these concepts are always being used.

Anyway, I agree with the idea that Mountain.Dew had - to create a basic course that is based primarily on vocabulary and grammar, not on analysis and creativity. Maths on the other hand, I don't think should be mandatory. Not everyone's brain works in a mathematical manner, so they should not be made to force it to.

 

[Pubert]

I find the aspect of maths being either right or wrong being rather useful as it is easier to prepare and get close to full marks for.

 

[Riviet]

I agree, english is subjective, math is not. Therefore it is harder to get full marks in english than in maths.

 

[joesmith1975]

Thats right teachers always skew you in english but in maths its either right or wrong. Also in english markers look to take off marks when maths marker look to give you marks.

Therefore 2U, 3U, 4U maths> shitty Adv. English

 

[YBK]

Vectors in complex numbers? Vector geometry is typically 3D geometry done with matrices. Are you sure you don't mean complex polar forms?

Part 2.3 from cambraidge claims to have something to do with vectors. "Geometrical representation of a complex number as a vector" But it's not 3D I guess

 

[airie]

Part 2.3 from cambraidge claims to have something to do with vectors. "Geometrical representation of a complex number as a vector" But it's not 3D I guess

Yeah, isn't it just that complex numbers can be geometrically represented by a point in the plane or a position vector? Wait, so that's how you solve geometry problems using complex numbers x.x Gee I'm always too dumb to fiddle with that stuff

 

[Sparcod]

Thats right teachers always skew you in english but in maths its either right or wrong. Also in english markers look to take off marks when maths marker look to give you marks.

Therefore 2U, 3U, 4U maths> shitty Adv. English

English markers give you marks based on how correctly you've answered the question and maybe a bit on how good your imagination is. It's all based on how you view the text.
To be more technically correct, markers don't take off marks, otherwise we'd have negative scores. The more proper term is 'don't give marks for wrong answers'.

 

[melaniemelanie]

I had an argument with one of my friends about this subject. He's a maths nerd - lives and breathes the stuff - but couldn't write an analytical essay if his life depended on it. He thinks that maths should be compulsory, as it's just as important as english. I think english is more important on a different level. English, you are certainly going to use for the rest of your life; you have to communicate - verbally, physically and in writing. The skills you learn in english you will use every day for the rest of your years. Maths on the other hand (while essential at a basic level) I don't think is as important. Yes, I agree with students having to learn those "skills, methods and logical thinking" practices, but you don't need the level of maths that we study in Year 12 to lead a practical life. Most of those are developed in the lower years. Those who do not have a mathematically functioning brain find it impossible to comprehend a lot of the maths courses, and depending on the career they wish to follow, find it useless.

I actually did an assignment (in Year 8 or something) on the aspects of maths that different people used later in life. I think about 80% of people never used the maths studied in Year 11 and 12. The other 20% were mathematicians, doctors, scientists and vets. BUT, 100% of them have to use the english skills they learnt in high school. Probably not the actual "themes and techniques" and literature that they studied, but the skills they developed from writing and discussing these concepts are always being used.

Anyway, I agree with the idea that Mountain.Dew had - to create a basic course that is based primarily on vocabulary and grammar, not on analysis and creativity. Maths on the other hand, I don't think should be mandatory. Not everyone's brain works in a mathematical manner, so they should not be made to force it to.

Maths shouldn't be compulsary, but English shouldn't be either.
It is ridiculously unfair in the UAIs, where a person could be doing say 4u maths, physics, chem, economics, english adv (12units) and get a band six in all these subjects, except english which may be low band 5 or so, and it drags their UAI down because english has to be counted.
This is compared to someone who is awesome at english and does 4u english, maths 2u, physics, chem, economics (12 units) and gets band sixes in all these subjects except for a low band 5 in maths. In this persons case, they get all their band 6 subjects counted leading to a nice decent high uai, whilst the person that dominates in maths, but had to get their english counted, uai is less. It should be looked at, because its helping those kids that are good at english, over the ones that aren't.

 

[ScottyG]

Thats right teachers always skew you in english but in maths its either right or wrong. Also in english markers look to take off marks when maths marker look to give you marks.

Therefore 2U, 3U, 4U maths> shitty Adv. English

Wow. Nice generalisation there. Do the english markers have horns to cap it off?