Best Preliminary Text Books (1 Viewer)

[ripit]

Hi,

I am studying Physics Prelim course this year and I am looking for a good textbook to give me lots of HSC style practive questions. I have the Success One book but that's for the HSC course......is there an equivalent book?

Same question for Chemistry......

Also, which text is better:

# Jacaranda Physics OR Spotlight Physics?
# Conquering Chemistry OR Spotlight Chem?

Cheers

 

[A l]

I have the Success One book but that's for the HSC course......is there an equivalent book?

There is no equivalent book that is popular for the preliminary course as far as I'm aware.

# Jacaranda Physics OR Spotlight Physics?

Jacaranda Physics would be my recommendation. There is a syllabus map in that book in the contents which makes it especially useful for answering syllabus dot points in detail.

# Conquering Chemistry OR Spotlight Chem?

Conquering Chemistry would be my recommendation. The book provides a clear explanation of the topics involved and does not go too far beyond the relevent information required in the syllabus.

 

[Riviet]

I agree with A l, also Conquering Chemistry is concise and is fairly compact in size. I also have the Jacranda physics book and it's very good as a main text, with definitions of words in a separate collumn. I've never seen the Spotlight books before. Does anyone know if they're any good?

 

[Cobra]

conquering chemistry is definately a good book. You also may consider acquiring an Excel Prelim/HSC chem or physics books. I find when i study, they really help, or when trying to get ahead.

 

[Riviet]

Excel Chem is poorly written, it's not worth buying. The physics one might be worth getting, although I didn't use it much in year 11 myself.

 

[Wooz]

For Chem: Conquering Chemistry 4th Edition would be the best, dont get excel its so crap, 2nd bast would be chemistry contextx its more detailed than conquring chemistry but alost of it is harder to understand.

Physics, Excel is alright but really dill and boring, jacaranda physics and physics in contexts are probably the best. Macquarie is better then excel but not as good as jacaranda or contexts.

 

[insert-username]

Jacaranda Physics for both Prelim and HSC is excellent. I don't like Conquering Chem, but it's my main text and everyone else loves it, so stick with it.


I_F

 

[felixcthecat]

jacaranda is good for physics, gives a good overview of all the key concepts.. can't tell u about chem tho cuz i used chemistry contexts2.. which wasn't too good...

and if you want practice questions you shouldn't be looking in textbooks... although they do have some HSC style questions... just go to a large dymocks store and browse through all the study guides... they have plenty of questions in them (a lot more than text books) so just choose the one with the formatting that suits you best ^0^ and if you still don't like those there are always trusty 'hsc style questions' study guides which i don't realli like cuz they don't split stuff up into sections i think..

 

[A l]

To search for the right textbook, you have to know what you are specifically looking for. There are textbooks which provide a summary of each topic, there are some that provide exercises to do for each topic and there are those that go into large amounts of detail for each relevent section of the course. From my experience, Excel Physics and Excel Chemistry are more like summary textbooks, Surfing Physics and Surfing Chemistry are plentiful with exercises, while Jacaranda Physics and Conquering Chemistry are relatively abundant with information for each section of the course.