Do HSC sciences need more maths? (1 Viewer)

[sinophile]

Biology is completely okay.

Chem needs a bit of maths.

Physics is completely raped by the lack of maths in it. Its nothing like actual physics. Bring back the old course, motherfuckers

 

[Deer]

I dropped maths last year because, lets be honest, I find it dull. I can do it, but it's nothing to me, just numbers and squiggles which don't add anything to my knowledge of the world.
Yes of course maths is important, just not for me.

I do however do chem and bio and I quite enjoy them/do well at them.

I am sad that no one actually enjoys the 'impacts' part of science, because that's the part that I am most interested in...What is the point of being able to do hectic chemical equations without having any context to apply it in, without knowing consequences or uses of it? Without the context it's just abstract concepts with no meaning. We need to know that stuff and I think the balance between the two is important.

To answer the question, no, no more maths, I like the courses how they are now.

 

[lynton]

Biology should have no maths at all IMO (which it doesnt really).
Chemistry should have less maths in it, it totally screwed me in the HSC exam. If it didnt have that bread mould question (22) i actually think i would have gone good.

All science should have more written material and less maths. If i wanted to do more maths i would have done Ext 1 or 2 maths, not pick up sciences.

 

[Shadowdude]

Physics needs more maths - when I saw half what should be in the HSC Physics course in the Mechanics section of the 4 unit book, needless to say I was a bit annoyed...

 

[Aquawhite]

The so called 'maths' which you speak of is barely even maths. The level of understanding in Physics or Chemistry can get difficult to understand a concept well, but the maths in working something out is always a formula and you never learn how to derive it.

However, there is so much of this pointless plugging into a calculator to see how competent you are at pushing buttons? that it irritates me to say "no more maths" in sciences. Because, I know that the BOS would simply just put in more formulae and more junk to put into the calculator - waste of time.

 

[pman]

Physics esp needs more maths.
by making english a compulsery subject, you remove the need for comunication skills in the science degrees...
Analysis of concepts and their effects on society is completly irrelevant and further harms the maths/science oriented students that the subjects are aimed at.

 

[nonsenseTM]

Biology should have no maths at all IMO (which it doesnt really).
Chemistry should have less maths in it, it totally screwed me in the HSC exam. If it didnt have that bread mould question (22) i actually think i would have gone good.

All science should have more written material and less maths. If i wanted to do more maths i would have done Ext 1 or 2 maths, not pick up sciences.

it's called science for a reason, instead of social science

yep, so people can go to university with awesome marks in hsc sciences and then fail at uni science because there is a ridiculous amount of maths in it.

no - hsc sciences should be relevant to university science, at least partially.

+1

 

[Schoey93]

haha yeah I've wondered about that

At the moment I'm finding the Physics course pretty boring, however don't wanna restrict myself as to what I can do at uni by dropping it.. but I've sorta realised that 4U mechanics seems to be more pure physics anyway, so hopefully I should be alright doing uni physics with just 4U math.

Trust me, I've read about science+engineering at USYD and you will most definitely be fine.

 

[Schoey93]

it's called science for a reason, instead of social science




+1

Yes. Biology DOES have maths in it, too - someone said "it has hardly any maths in it". Well I do Biology and that is not true. Preliminary biology lacks solid maths but Blueprint of Life module in HSC bio requires adding/subtracting/dividing/multiplying for pedigrees and punnet squares... and if you do Genetics: the Code Broken? as your option, you will need to be strong in mathematics to do well in it.

So please keep your ignorant thoughts to yourself... they're unhelpful and give Year 10 students a false notion of biology being "easy as a piece of cake"... it's easy for me admittedly but other people do struggle.

Oh and +1 to Nonsense^TM. Your name doesn't represent your wisdom

 

[Schoey93]

Physics esp needs more maths.
by making english a compulsery subject, you remove the need for comunication skills in the science degrees...
Analysis of concepts and their effects on society is completly irrelevant and further harms the maths/science oriented students that the subjects are aimed at.

Repped!

 

[Schoey93]

The so called 'maths' which you speak of is barely even maths. The level of understanding in Physics or Chemistry can get difficult to understand a concept well, but the maths in working something out is always a formula and you never learn how to derive it.

However, there is so much of this pointless plugging into a calculator to see how competent you are at pushing buttons? that it irritates me to say "no more maths" in sciences. Because, I know that the BOS would simply just put in more formulae and more junk to put into the calculator - waste of time.

Well if you speak to your science teachers, you could always convince them to complain to the BOS... their say would be taken more seriously than yours, plus BOS is changing their syllabi for 2012/2013 HSC

 

[Schoey93]

Physics needs more maths - when I saw half what should be in the HSC Physics course in the Mechanics section of the 4 unit book, needless to say I was a bit annoyed...

Understood. I chose not to do HSC physics myself because I thought Bio would be more interesting. I just did the 2009 HSC Biology paper yesterday and boy I do NOT regret my decision

So fucking easy
60% of it is School Cert science
and it's super interesting modules for Year 12 too.

So in short, biology is easy marks and interesting...physics is degrading because maths-oriented people do it and feel like "where's the maths I wanted?"

 

[Aquawhite]

You could have multi-quoted them.

 

[Ishynooshy]

Chemistry and physics needs more maths. The syllabus is littered with those annoying longer response questions on impacts on society. They do nothing to prepare us for university science. TBH, a more American approach to teaching these sciences (esp. chem) would probably be more appropriate (though the IB does offer something similar, it's a bitch to organise)

I ended up dropping physics halfway through the year because I was pissed off at the lack of physics content I was learning. The MAG and ITI modules were turning into history lessons and I loathe astronomy so didn't see the point of continuing.

 

[BeDifferent]

I'm a physics teacher and maths teacher (I'm using my brothers account) and I personally don't think the physics course needs that much of an overhaul.

Originally the physics course was predominately mathematic based but many of the student's didn't understand the concept behind the mathematic equations so mathematically gifted students were favoured. However I personally believed that I should be rewarding marks to students we could explain Faraday's Induction and it's effect on an electric motor than a student who could plug in a few numbers and solve the Force of the motor effect by the F = BILSin theta rule. Many of the things you learn in the HSC course makes up the basis of University physics, especially the 3rd Module and Quanta to Quarks. If you understand the concepts behind those topics you are set for understanding first year university.

Most mathematics in physics is basic algebra anyways you don't use any complex mathematics (say 2 unit calculus) until second year university. Many subjects like statics (a university engineering course) are just more complex vector addition/subtraction style questions, which you learn the foundations for in your preliminary course.

 

[nonsenseTM]

I'm a physics teacher and maths teacher (I'm using my brothers account) and I personally don't think the physics course needs that much of an overhaul.

Originally the physics course was predominately mathematic based but many of the student's didn't understand the concept behind the mathematic equations so mathematically gifted students were favoured. However I personally believed that I should be rewarding marks to students we could explain Faraday's Induction and it's effect on an electric motor than a student who could plug in a few numbers and solve the Force of the motor effect by the F = BILSin theta rule. Many of the things you learn in the HSC course makes up the basis of University physics, especially the 3rd Module and Quanta to Quarks. If you understand the concepts behind those topics you are set for understanding first year university.

Most mathematics in physics is basic algebra anyways you don't use any complex mathematics (say 2 unit calculus) until second year university. Many subjects like statics (a university engineering course) are just more complex vector addition/subtraction style questions, which you learn the foundations for in your preliminary course.

+1
well, how about the contributions made by some random dudes? and chem? effects on society?

 

[tommykins]

as you get into your field, you'll start realising the 'asses the impact' etc. etc. isn't THAT stupid seeing as there is often a hefty emphasis on code of ethics amongst your colleagues.

 

[Schoey93]

as you get into your field, you'll start realising the 'asses the impact' etc. etc. isn't THAT stupid seeing as there is often a hefty emphasis on code of ethics amongst your colleagues.

LOL good point

BUT ethics comes from within yourself, not from some memorised rules in a textbook

 

[nonsenseTM]

lol good point

but ethics comes from within yourself, not from some memorised rules in a textbook

+1

 

[bob fossil]

calculas should be done in year 10 maths so it can be used in physics.