Anyone else in a small class for MX1 / MX2?? (1 Viewer)

[vinlatte]

I'm wondering if anyone else is in a similar situation. My school is ranked incredibly low with at least half of the grade opting out of maths. So my MX1 class has 3 students and I'm the only person in MX2.

Is having a smaller class easier? What are your experiences in a tiny class??

 

[Drongoski]

Aren't you lucky. You have the ideal Socratic learning situation: 1 student & 1 teacher!

 

[TheOnePheeph]

I was the only one in my X2 class and we got through the syllabus by halfway through term 2 this year. Its so much easier having just a one on one teacher/student situation as it allows for the teacher to also work on your own individual weaknesses as opposed to everyone else in the class, and you tend to move through the content a lot faster. The only problem is that there is a much higher weighting on your external mark, being all that matters, as you have no way to rely on other students dragging you up, but if you are a solid student this should honestly not make a difference at all.

 

[vinlatte]

I was the only one in my X2 class and we got through the syllabus by halfway through term 2 this year. Its so much easier having just a one on one teacher/student situation as it allows for the teacher to also work on your own individual weaknesses as opposed to everyone else in the class, and you tend to move through the content a lot faster. The only problem is that there is a much higher weighting on your external mark, being all that matters, as you have no way to rely on other students dragging you up, but if you are a solid student this should honestly not make a difference at all.

So far I started one lesson last week, and my brain wasn't working. It was on the last period of an early start day and the topic of imaginary numbers broke me. I understand it now after resting and studying further.

I did remember hearing my teacher saying that they were a little behind than expected. I'm not sure if they are trying to accelerate the topics since they were already teaching the lesson more quickly than usual. Hopefully my brain is functioning by my next lesson.

I'm wondering if you also felt unusual being in a class that's one-to-one. I'm used to larger classes and I've never done tutoring so I'm still trying to get used to being the only student in the class.

 

[TheOnePheeph]

So far I started one lesson last week, and my brain wasn't working. It was on the last period of an early start day and the topic of imaginary numbers broke me. I understand it now after resting and studying further.

I did remember hearing my teacher saying that they were a little behind than expected. I'm not sure if they are trying to accelerate the topics since they were already teaching the lesson more quickly than usual. Hopefully my brain is functioning by my next lesson.

I'm wondering if you also felt unusual being in a class that's one-to-one. I'm used to larger classes and I've never done tutoring so I'm still trying to get used to being the only student in the class.

I have also never done tutoring, but I have always gone to a relatively small school with an overall cohort of about 60 kids, so I'm used to smaller classes. 1 on 1 did feel a bit weird initially, but me and my teacher got along as well so that helped. You will get used to it eventually though - If I can recommend anything it would be self teaching. I tried to self teach myself most of 4u which sped the pace of the course up even more, and then the teacher would reinforce topics in our lessons. I literally only just sat the 4u exam the other day, so I can't really give you evidence of how one on one teaching combined with self teaching has helped, but it certainly feels like it was beneficial to me.

 

[vinlatte]

I have also never done tutoring, but I have always gone to a relatively small school with an overall cohort of about 60 kids, so I'm used to smaller classes. 1 on 1 did feel a bit weird initially, but me and my teacher got along as well so that helped. You will get used to it eventually though - If I can recommend anything it would be self teaching. I tried to self teach myself most of 4u which sped the pace of the course up even more, and then the teacher would reinforce topics in our lessons. I literally only just sat the 4u exam the other day, so I can't really give you evidence of how one on one teaching combined with self teaching has helped, but it certainly feels like it was beneficial to me.

Thank you for the advice. I guess I would have to stop napping after school so I can study throughout the week. I'm used to teaching others to reinforce my knowledge but I can't really do that without other classmates.

Do you have any textbook recommendations for self study? Currently I'm using the New Senior and Maths in Focus.

 

[TheOnePheeph]

Thank you for the advice. I guess I would have to stop napping after school so I can study throughout the week. I'm used to teaching others to reinforce my knowledge but I can't really do that without other classmates.

Do you have any textbook recommendations for self study? Currently I'm using the New Senior and Maths in Focus.

I did the old syllabus, but I found cambridge pretty good for problems. New senior mathematics was possibly better for learning new content though.

 

[Arrowshaft]

I'm wondering if anyone else is in a similar situation. My school is ranked incredibly low with at least half of the grade opting out of maths. So my MX1 class has 3 students and I'm the only person in MX2.

Is having a smaller class easier? What are your experiences in a tiny class??

I was also part of a very small ext 2 cohort (4 people). I hundred percent agree with TheOnePheeph in that self teaching is THE WAY TO GO! I taught myself the whole 4u course, although I did go to one on one tutoring to do past paper questions and rigorous reinforcements of my knowledge, and my tutor did help a lot! So my advice would be to not wait for your teacher, if you're doing 4u I highly recommend you teach yourself the topics (they're all very short anyway so its easy to self teach) and just grind out past papers as much as possible. I personally started with past papers early on and continuously did them throughout the year along with James Ruse, Syd Gram as well as CSSA and independent trial papers, improving my raw mark from an 80 all the way to 90+ just by learning exam techniques. If I were to have started past papers later on, I wouldn't have been able to learn those exam techniques and surely would've performed worse.

 

[vinlatte]

I was also part of a very small ext 2 cohort (4 people). I hundred percent agree with TheOnePheeph in that self teaching is THE WAY TO GO! I taught myself the whole 4u course, although I did go to one on one tutoring to do past paper questions and rigorous reinforcements of my knowledge, and my tutor did help a lot! So my advice would be to not wait for your teacher, if you're doing 4u I highly recommend you teach yourself the topics (they're all very short anyway so its easy to self teach) and just grind out past papers as much as possible. I personally started with past papers early on and continuously did them throughout the year along with James Ruse, Syd Gram as well as CSSA and independent trial papers, improving my raw mark from an 80 all the way to 90+ just by learning exam techniques. If I were to have started past papers later on, I wouldn't have been able to learn those exam techniques and surely would've performed worse.

I've been reading ahead in the textbook and it really is helpful. I don't have much prior math knowledge to fully understand the MX2 concepts since I'm learning as I go. I also don't do tutoring so I'm still relying on the teacher for extra assistance in the subject.

Although, I really can't do past papers because of the new syllabus. The topics are different so would you suggest any other way to practice my exam techniques?

 

[TheOnePheeph]

I've been reading ahead in the textbook and it really is helpful. I don't have much prior math knowledge to fully understand the MX2 concepts since I'm learning as I go. I also don't do tutoring so I'm still relying on the teacher for extra assistance in the subject.

Although, I really can't do past papers because of the new syllabus. The topics are different so would you suggest any other way to practice my exam techniques?

Honestly most of the new syllabus is the same as the old, so everything relating to complex numbers, polynomials, integration and parts of mechanics/harder 3u in older papers can be used for revision. The vector stuff is a bit new, but from what I've seen reading the syllabus it looks fairly basic, mostly only centering around dot products as well as like norms of vectors and their applications. Maybe try looking through some first year uni papers for questions relating to this, I don't know how hard the questions can get with it though. Plenty of first year papers can also be looked at for the exponential representation of complex numbers, which isn't in the old syllabus.

 

[Arrowshaft]

I've been reading ahead in the textbook and it really is helpful. I don't have much prior math knowledge to fully understand the MX2 concepts since I'm learning as I go. I also don't do tutoring so I'm still relying on the teacher for extra assistance in the subject.

Although, I really can't do past papers because of the new syllabus. The topics are different so would you suggest any other way to practice my exam techniques?

Isn’t the new syllabus pretty much the same except less harder and more breadth in terms of vectors and proofs? In that regard past papers should be more than sufficient. Also you are lucky in the sense you don’t get to do the most tedious topics of circle geometry and conics, so everything should just flow nicely and there’s a greater focus on knowledge rather than aptitude. So you can ace this course simply by investing a lot of time and hardwork, and yes PAST PAPERS as well (sorry to be that guy that always puts an emphasis on past papers, but it is extremely important that you do them ). Regardless, you’ll smash it!

 

[Arrowshaft]

Honestly most of the new syllabus is the same as the old, so everything relating to complex numbers, polynomials, integration and parts of mechanics/harder 3u in older papers can be used for revision. The vector stuff is a bit new, but from what I've seen reading the syllabus it looks fairly basic, mostly only centering around dot products as well as like norms of vectors and their applications. Maybe try looking through some first year uni papers for questions relating to this, I don't know how hard the questions can get with it though. Plenty of first year papers can also be looked at for the exponential representation of complex numbers, which isn't in the old syllabus.

It’s just basic first year uni linear algebra, yeah. Dot and cross products honestly should be taught from maths 2u upwards, along with other matrix mathematics, i.e. determinants, eigen values, etc. By curiosity, are eigenvalues and eigenvectors part of the new syllabus?

 

[TheOnePheeph]

It’s just basic first year uni linear algebra, yeah. Dot and cross products honestly should be taught from maths 2u upwards, along with other matrix mathematics, i.e. determinants, eigen values, etc. By curiosity, are eigenvalues and eigenvectors part of the new syllabus?

Lol no. Matrices aren't even in the syllabus. I suspect they couldn't go as far as determinants and eigenvectors/values due to the geometrical intuition behind it, and also just how different linear algebra is to the rest of highschool mathematics, but yeah I agree that at least basic matrices should be taught in hs, and introducing stuff like the invertible matrix theorem would be a fantastic way to introduce the different style of logical thinking required in a lot of university mathematics

 

[vinlatte]

It’s just basic first year uni linear algebra, yeah. Dot and cross products honestly should be taught from maths 2u upwards, along with other matrix mathematics, i.e. determinants, eigen values, etc. By curiosity, are eigenvalues and eigenvectors part of the new syllabus?

I'm not familiar with any of those words so I guess they're not in the new syllabus.

I don't know much about more complex maths until I started my MX2 classes. For uni maths, I'm interested and more knowledgable in financial and statistical mathematics. What type of courses would contain the type of maths you mentioned?

 

[Arrowshaft]

Lol no. Matrices aren't even in the syllabus. I suspect they couldn't go as far as determinants and eigenvectors/values due to the geometrical intuition behind it, and also just how different linear algebra is to the rest of highschool mathematics, but yeah I agree that at least basic matrices should be taught in hs, and introducing stuff like the invertible matrix theorem would be a fantastic way to introduce the different style of logical thinking required in a lot of university mathematics

Agreed. But wow no matrices??? How do they do dot and cross products without matrices??? Also, geometrical intuition for linear algebra isn’t that hard, most of it just uses basic linear transformations that can be explained quite simply. While I do agree that maybe eigenvalues are stretching it a tad too far.

 

[Arrowshaft]

I'm not familiar with any of those words so I guess they're not in the new syllabus.

I don't know much about more complex maths until I started my MX2 classes. For uni maths, I'm interested and more knowledgable in financial and statistical mathematics. What type of courses would contain the type of maths you mentioned?

You’re probably looking at any basic calculus course that has the stuff we talked about as a pre-req for most statistic/ financial/science/engo course id say. But I don’t know if all of them do linear algebra. For the statistical/finance aspect you seem interested in, I’d suggest actuarial studies or data science - two fantastic courses for your interests!

 

[TheOnePheeph]

Agreed. But wow no matrices??? How do they do dot and cross products without matrices??? Also, geometrical intuition for linear algebra isn’t that hard, most of it just uses basic linear transformations that can be explained quite simply. While I do agree that maybe eigenvalues are stretching it a tad too far.

I mean you can do dot products without matrices, using just the vectors thesmelves, which I believe is done in multivariable calc courses if linear algebra is for some reason not taken, but yeah its a bit weird to introduce only the concept of vectors without expanding further into transformations and matrices. Also I agree that the intuition isn't that difficult, but its hard to talk about determinants intuitively without the understanding of span/linear dependence/invertible matrix theorem combined with linear transformations, which in itself is more conceptually demanding and content heavy than what is in the 4u syllabus, as well as requiring a different style of proofs if taught properly that a lot of students would have never seen before. I guess basic matrix algebra with finding the determinant could be taught without all this background theory, but it really makes the beautiful area of linear algebra fall flat in my opinion.

 

[Arrowshaft]

I mean you can do dot products without matrices, using just the vectors thesmelves, which I believe is done in multivariable calc courses if linear algebra is for some reason not taken, but yeah its a bit weird to introduce only the concept of vectors without expanding further into transformations and matrices. Also I agree that the intuition isn't that difficult, but its hard to talk about determinants intuitively without the understanding of span/linear dependence/invertible matrix theorem combined with linear transformations, which in itself is more conceptually demanding and content heavy than what is in the 4u syllabus, as well as requiring a different style of proofs if taught properly that a lot of students would have never seen before. I guess basic matrix algebra with finding the determinant could be taught without all this background theory, but it really makes the beautiful area of linear algebra fall flat in my opinion.

Well, I mean they teach us limits and chain rule without real analysis and the rigour of the proofs that yield the results we use today in high school maths courses, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they added some elements of linear algebra without delving into intuition too much.

 

[Arrowshaft]

You know what’d be really cool, if they added tiny bits of set theory, graph theory, etc. into the 4u course as a proper taste of maths at uni

 

[TheOnePheeph]

Well, I mean they teach us limits and chain rule without real analysis and the rigour of the proofs that yield the results we use today in high school maths courses, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they added some elements of linear algebra without delving into intuition too much.

Yeah you have a point there. I personally wish in 4u we looked at the epsilon delta definition of the limit, but conceptually thats definitely above the course. I guess linear algebra is more proof based and rigorous than calculus though, and not a whole lot can be done with it without this rigour, whereas various applications of calculus can be assessed without the strongest foundation.