Best Text Book/Study Guide (2 Viewers)

[Sparcod]

Discuss!! Discuss!!!
What textbooks do you use for school??
Which do you use to study??

I usually go for revision guides or those Excel 'Revise in a month' but they are too simplified and they are sometimes basically a bunch of 'fill in the missing word' paragraphs for sciences.

For maths: HSC maths topic by topic exam questions are good; the step-by-step guides have very hard questions with examples and on the answer page, they have good explanations and working out.
At school, we use maths in focus but the questions aren't hard compared to typical exam questions.

For Sciences: stick to Excel or macquarie (to be simpler); spotlight books are nice but not simple and things out of the syllabus are thrown in there, they have good questions.

Sometimes I trust pocket guides, sometimes i don't.

 

[Dreamerish*~]

I can't stand Excel. They make me fall asleep.

For everything, I do as many past papers as I can. Sometimes when I have trouble in a particular area I look in textbooks for some exercises. I also try to do the questions that other BoSers put up because they're usually somewhat challenging.

I use Conquering Chemistry. It's the best - as long as you know where the errors are... But I'm serious. From my posts it might sound like I work for them or something but I just really love the set-out, and the lack of irrelevant ramblings.

 

[mitsui]

i believe leading edge r the best for business studies and economics.
macquarie is pretti good for phy, chem and eco generally. conquring chemistry is the best, but context is realli gr8t too.
tried excel in yr11, but found them VERY VERY simple and pretti much summarised everything i alreadi know and some of the Qs they asked r realli irrevalent. I am tryin gto not to buy excel for yr12, but apparantly legal studies and modern history in excel r super.
past papers r best for maths, we use math in focus, which i dont realli like. new senior maths is fab. =]


as for english, i have no idea. suggestions welcome. =D

 

[Sparcod]

How do you get your text books?
Buy?? borrow??
From School??

For English, it's best to go over past papers.

 

[mitsui]

past papers? but wouldn't them be all so different?
we get them from school,but of coz buy the rest for ourselves
i find the books so expensive~~ !

 

[HamuTarou]

if u have older brother/sister(s), use their resources...(scrabbing my sis chem/maths stuff) i just bought macquarie and excel HSC phy, the excel includes palm cards with formulae and stuff...hope that's useful in the near future

maths go for fitzpatrick 2u/3u..not sure about 4u though

 

[pLuvia]

At school

Chemistry - chemistry context absolutely hate it
Biology - Heinnemann "good"
Maths - fitzpatrick

Home

Chemistry - conquering chemistry
biology - excel, try to buy macquarie books
maths - understanding maths, various excel books, going to look for cambridge if my school doesnt use it next term

 

[HamuTarou]

chem context is actually alrite, y do u hate it so much?

 

[mitsui]

yea i think chem context is pretti good actualli. =]
neva used conquering but every1 said it is fab
maths in focus is alrite.. =\..we use that for maths at skool

 

[pLuvia]

It sometimes goes out of the syllabus and when i try to find some answers to the dot points there not there but the good thing about it is that after every unit i.e. 14.1 they have unit summaries at the end

 

[HamuTarou]

using conquerin next year, strange cuz i used context this year. i heard that the new edition of conquerin is good (whitish cover?), better than the older one blue 3th edition. i dont like the blue theme in chem context 2.. green is better

 

[pLuvia]

but all books have their weaknesses , oh yeh one more thing about chem contexts or any science book or any book with no answers. It's so frustrating you don't know if you got the answer wrong or not

 

[mitsui]

context does have answers in a cd at the bak. which ur teacher should give it to u. =P..
i hope conquering is good..
but sometimes i get a bit confused if i got too many books for one subject
coz each book got diff explainations..and sometime u r learning more/less than u shoudl
(take economics in excel.. ggrrrr)

 

[HamuTarou]

the shit thing about context 2 is not all the modules are in the actual textbook. they are in the included CD (art of chemistry...all the least popular options). it well be a pain in the ass if u have to study of the CD or print them out

 

[pLuvia]

wah?? cd?? teacher must of kept it and are too cheap to give it to us ><" no wonder lol

 

[HamuTarou]

i'm gonna make my own notes from all the info i gather from textbooks, teachers, tutors...then i will know wats goin on..

 

[HamuTarou]

more likely the students

 

[mitsui]

oh wow.. everythin is gona b on cd soon.
wat is good book for eng? or u cant realli buy one for it?
it is useful to do past eng papers? Oo

 

[Sparcod]

chem contexts??
It's really colourful but it has a lot of useless stuff.

 

[pLuvia]

oh wow.. everythin is gona b on cd soon.
wat is good book for eng? or u cant realli buy one for it?
it is useful to do past eng papers? Oo

i don't understand what you are trying to say here lol

i'm gonna make my own notes from all the info i gather from textbooks, teachers, tutors...then i will know wats goin on..

same, i'm am going to do this with biology as well so i am more prepared for tests in the long run.