Need Honest Advice (1 Viewer)

[nottellingu]

Hey guys, at the moment i have 12 units including ext 2 math’s and having just finished complex numbers im finding it pretty easy. I was just wondering if it is safe to drop one of my other subjects giving myself extra time for all my subjects particularly maths ? Keep in mind i am not a brilliant math student i got mid to high 70's throughout yr 11.
Btw does the level of difficulty increase or does it stay relatively same throughout the course in comparison to complex no's.

All advice is appreciated

 

[powerdrive]

Hey, I was in pretty much the same situation as you, I was doing 12 units at the start of yr 12- 4u maths, adv eng, chem, physics and bio. I started doing 4u with complex numbers, and i thought hey this is pretty easy, then my teacher told me it's the easiest topic. A few of my friends who already did the course told me 4u gets much harder from then on. So my situation turned out to be the same as yours, i was pondering whether it was safe to drop a subject, namely bio, so i could focus more on 4u. From my experience over the year, 4u takes a lot of time and effort, and dropping bio was a good decision for me. When i was making the decision though, i was wondering what if i did bad in 4u, then i'd be stuffed. So i guess if you're confident in your maths ability, it would be alright to drop the extra subject. My final marks in yr 11 were 99 for 2u and 96 for 3u, so i thought i would be alright, but it definitely gets harder as you go along the course in yr 12. You still have a lot of time, so maybe you could leave it for a while with the 12 units, see how you go, how you cope with the workload, then maybe make the decision. Remember, 4u scales pretty well. Which textbook are you using for 4u? We used Cambridge, pretty good one imo. Good luck

 

[nottellingu]

Thanks for the advice.
At school we use fitzpatrik and we get photocopies from cambridge but i also do some additional questions from terry lee when i get time.

Another question, say i want to get around 95 uai wat raw marks would i need to get and if complex no. is the easiest topic does that mean i need to get a higher mark in that for the test this term ?

 

[nottellingu]

My final marks in yr 11 were 99 for 2u and 96 for 3u,

FREAK !!!

 

[pLuvia]

Just keep your other subjects for the moment maybe until the end of term 1 next year and see how you go. It does get harder especially when you encounter Mechanics and conics and not forgetting Harder 3u which is HARDER 3u

 

[IMTB]

yeh def keep the other subjects as back up cos 4u does get harder and the work load gets heavier once u r into the year...but then again, nothing scales as high as 4u maths...so unless u r doing well in the other subjects, the 4u would probz yield the highest uai mark...

 

[vds700]

I' d wait till next term, to make a decision. I'm in a similar siruation , doing 13 units including ext 2 maths, physics, chem, eco, 2u eng, SOR.

I'm planning to drop eco next term if i do OK at the assessment on complex numbers + polynomials this term.

 

[powerdrive]

Haha, my yr 11 marks did scale up a bit cos my ranks were pretty good (equal 1st in 2u, 3rd in 3u), and while i found yr 11 pretty easy, yr 12 got tougher. Im hoping for final hsc marks of around 93 in 3u, any mark in the 80s in 4u.

My understanding is that to get 95+ uai, you should aim for an average of 85 in each subject. Try to get good ranks too, like in the top 10-15. Then you can also consider scaling in each subject. You should aim to do as well as you can in all your assessments that you do. All these assessment tasks/exams that you do each term, well you know, they have different weightings towards your final assessment mark. Then the trials are usually 40 or 50%, which is pretty much worth all the exams you did before that combined, so they are really important.

With 4u, it generally scales really well. You should aim to get a good rank, a higher rank will scale your mark up more. In our 4u trial, which was a pretty hard exam, my raw mark was 63/120 (although i could have done better), but my rank was 4th, so that was a big boost, and my final mark on my report was 79. It's not a bad thing to get low marks in 4u exams, just as long as your rank is good.

Complex numbers is an easy topic, yes. But you should look at the weighting of the exam, how much percent of your overall assessment mark it's worth. It might only be worth 10-20%. If it's not worth that much, if you screw up, you're still alright cos you have the other exams to catch up on. But since the topic is easy you should ace it, cos it gets harder from there on.

As for the final hsc exams, ive seen in some places, a raw mark of about 90/120 in 4u has usually led to a band 6. In 3u, high 60s-70/84 gave a band 6. Ive seen you do physics as well, this scales pretty good too, anything over 80, to mid 80s will give you a band 6. But the scaling depends on how hard the exam is.

Oh yeh, ive got worked solutions from most chapters in the Cambridge book, if you ever need em just tell me.

 

[tommykins]

Do you have them as a PDF? I've pm'd you.

 

[Kujah]

Oh yeh, ive got worked solutions from most chapters in the Cambridge book, if you ever need em just tell me.

Definitely.

 

[nottellingu]

Powerdrive please post up the solutions

 

[kony]

Here is a ranking of the difficulty of topics:


Hardest ---------------------------------------------------- Easiest

Harder 3unit, Complex numbers ............................ Everything else



However, this is complex numbers combined with polynomials.

This may seem weird, and contrary to popular opinion, but trust me on this one.

 

[nottellingu]

So ur saying complex is easier than mechanics, conics ect

Oh yea btw hows volumes. Its a topic u dont hear much about

 

[Trebla]

Wtf, that's the first time I've seen anyone say Complex Numbers is the easiest topic lol.
I reckon the easiest topic by a long shot is Integration...
Question 1 of the HSC exam is nothing but routine integration...so it's meant to be relatively simple.

 

[undalay]

He's saying complex numbers is the second hardest, behind harder 3unit.

The complex questions in cambridge are very easy. I could do every single one without a problem.

It depends on which source u gather questions from.

One of our teachers was going to put "simplify i^i" in our test. Not exactly a difficult problem, but you need to know how to do it...

 

[Mark576]

The only way I could think of simplifying i^i:

i^i = (cos(pi/2) + isin(pi/2))^i = (e^(ipi/2))^i = e^((i^2)(pi/2)) = e^(-pi/2)

Is that the correct answer undalay?

Just curious

 

[kony]

try it without Euler's identity.

 

[buchanan]

No way. It's much better with Euler's identity.

The only way I could think of simplifying i^i:

i^i = (cos(pi/2) + isin(pi/2))^i = (e^(ipi/2))^i = e^((i^2)(pi/2)) = e^(-pi/2)

Is that the correct answer undalay?

Just curious

It's almost right. But you are assuming the answer is only one number. It isn't. It's an infinite set of numbers.

iⁱ={(e^{πi/2+2πik})ⁱ}_kεZ={e^{-2πk-π/2}}_kεZ.

 

[Mark576]

Bah, of course! I see now, thanks

 

[tommykins]

Okay..I had no idea what to do with that question