Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides for Preliminary HSC? (1 Viewer)

[pritnep]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

All good book stores.

 

[pLuvia]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

where do u buy study guides/excells from?

In my opinion Excel aren't that good, for maths their ok to learn the basics as they mostly/all have worked solutions but for science subjects they aren't the best, you should look for Macquarie study guides

My recommendations

Maths - Cambridge, Excel (for basics), Fitzpatrick and Terry Lee
Chemistry - Conquering Chemistry, Chemistry Contexts, Macquare study guide

 

[Sofstar]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

Yea, excel chem isn't that good. Conquering chem is good. Our school made us get Spotlight Chem and it isn't that great.
Photocopying pages that you think are important/relevent from other textbooks, even better if your school has free photocopying.

 

[dr baby beanie]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

For chemistry you can't go past kiss notes for skills.

 

[cs01001]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

For chemistry you can't go past kiss notes for skills.

Kiss notes?

 

[dr baby beanie]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

Kiss notes?

Keep It Simple Science

Your school shoud give you these in biology, chemistry and physics but although I do chem and phys we only ever got given them for chem...lazy teacher.

 

[Rekkusu]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

Yeah don't rely on the Library when it reaches pre-exam periods it'll totally blow you away, by that I mean the frantic re-newing and "Queueing" for books from another guy who's borrowed it off the library.

When you get to University, it's even worser!!

As for the books lets see, I'll assume its all Year 11:

- 2U Advance English
This one is slightly harder it'll depend upon what your teacher wants to teach you. It may be a good time to get ahead of the other students by focusing on your weak points, such as Comprehension skills: Five Sense’s Contemporary English Reading & Writing For Year’s 11 & 12 , or even Essay Writing (Excel's easy guide to essay writing).

- 3U Maths
I would STRONGLY advise you to buy: Cambridge's Mathematics 3 Unit – Year 11 (Bill Pender), if you're slightly struggling with Maths I would suggest: Accelerated Maths Learning – (2 & 3 Unit Course) – Understanding Year 11 Maths.

- 2U Chemistry
Macmillan Chemistry Pathways 1 is the way to go, it might be slightly expensive, Brand New is almost $62, but it explains all the technical aspects. Though if you're a person who gets somewhat sleepy reading words more than pictures it may be hard, but it definitely helps.

- 2U Economics
I can recommend no other book but Leading Edge's Year 11 Market Economy (Does not really matter which year it's published since the core material is always the same, the only difference the newest editions have are a few Statistics Tables)

The Rest I'm not sure, since I didn't take those. All of the books I suggested I still have selling. To be honest I'm not saying all this just because I'm selling these, but it really helped me in Prelimary, depending on Government Teachers these days are about as good as going to Charles Sturt University and reading the notes and syllabus dot points for every subject.






Accelerated Maths Learning – (2 & 3 Unit Course) – Understanding Year 11 Maths

 

[cs01001]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

Keep It Simple Science

Your school shoud give you these in biology, chemistry and physics but although I do chem and phys we only ever got given them for chem...lazy teacher.

Can you tell me a little more about KISS notes? Is it in a book or what? Who publishes them?

 

[dr baby beanie]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

Can you tell me a little more about KISS notes? Is it in a book or what? Who publishes them?

I'm not sure if it's a book coz I only ever get photocopies. It might be a publication made to be bought by schools made for photocopying. I've looked throught the booklet but I can't seem to find a publisher.

~The kiss notes contain a very good, straight foreward summary of the concepts (basically it makes hard concepts easy to undersand) with pictures and diagrams and arrows explaining things
~They have a practice section at the end of each part of the syllabus with a cloze passage, and when it's completed they basically are your study notes
~Practice chem equations eg writing chem equations, calculating moles, molar heat, etc, physics questions, and there are answers in the back with worked solutions
~An excellent concept diagram at the beginning of each topic.

(I've written this mainly from my chem KISS, I have 2 KISS phys topic which I had to scab and practically beg the teacher forn them, highly recommended from my friends are the bio KISS notes)

So bug your teachers for these
Hope this helps

 

[cs01001]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

I'm not sure if it's a book coz I only ever get photocopies. It might be a publication made to be bought by schools made for photocopying. I've looked throught the booklet but I can't seem to find a publisher.

~The kiss notes contain a very good, straight foreward summary of the concepts (basically it makes hard concepts easy to undersand) with pictures and diagrams and arrows explaining things
~They have a practice section at the end of each part of the syllabus with a cloze passage, and when it's completed they basically are your study notes
~Practice chem equations eg writing chem equations, calculating moles, molar heat, etc, physics questions, and there are answers in the back with worked solutions
~An excellent concept diagram at the beginning of each topic.

(I've written this mainly from my chem KISS, I have 2 KISS phys topic which I had to scab and practically beg the teacher forn them, highly recommended from my friends are the bio KISS notes)

So bug your teachers for these
Hope this helps

Thanks a lot, will certainly bug them for it when school starts!

 

[jaaaaay]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

for maths... i recommend cambridge, fitzpatrick...
and chemistry, i'd say conquering chemistry...

for engilsh... just borrow study guides from the library for the texts you are doing... ^^;;

 

[dr baby beanie]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

Thanks a lot, will certainly bug them for it when school starts!

Not a problem, happy to help!

The concepts are really well explained within KISS however the KISS books are not intended to be used as a very complete textbook, they're designed to be more of a supplement.

 

[cs01001]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

for maths... i recommend cambridge, fitzpatrick...
and chemistry, i'd say conquering chemistry...

for engilsh... just borrow study guides from the library for the texts you are doing... ^^;;

Thanks a lot for the advice. Do you know roughly how much Conquering Chemistry is?

 

[Kujah]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

I think they're around $60-70 at Dymocks

 

[cs01001]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

I am really annoyed. I bought an excell book for chemistry. All the critics are right (they could have told me before I paid for it, rrr!) it is way too simple and doesn't seem to have any practice questions. (Well a few but not enough)
Are there any books out there with just practise questions?

I also got a maths excell study guide and I like that one.
I find the text books we use at school (I think we use New century maths or something like that) don't give very detailed explanations. So if you happen to not be listening during class you are screwed.
I wouldn't use it alone, but i find it works as a good back up to my school text book.

Are you talking about the Execl Prelim Chemistry by C.M.Roebuck? That book has gotta be the worst one out there... I was recommended by the Science HT to get Chemistry Contexts 1 2nd Edition, maybe you can go check that out. It's around $6x in Dymocks.

 

[~shinigami~]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

I don't knwo if anyone has mentioned this but for Yr 11, you shouldn't buy many or any textbooks at all. There are a few reasons for this:

1. Preliminary doesn't count and you'll do decent enough without extra textbooks.

2. Your school should provide sufficient material in order to pass or even ace the preliminary.

3. Buying textbooks costs a hell of a lot and unless you have cash to burn, better off saving it for Yr 12.

4. The BOS resources & google would suffice.

5. Yr 12 is harder and more important than Yr 11.

6. You probably wouldn't even use all those study guides anyway.

They're just my personal opinion so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[cs01001]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

I don't knwo if anyone has mentioned this but for Yr 11, you shouldn't buy many or any textbooks at all. There are a few reasons for this:

1. Preliminary doesn't count and you'll do decent enough without extra textbooks.

2. Your school should provide sufficient material in order to pass or even ace the preliminary.

3. Buying textbooks costs a hell of a lot and unless you have cash to burn, better off saving it for Yr 12.

4. The BOS resources & google would suffice.

5. Yr 12 is easier and more important than Yr 11.

6. You probably wouldn't even use all those study guides anyway.

They're just my personal opinion so take it with a grain of salt.

Very true, I agree with the points above, though I am not quite sure if Year 12 is any easier than Yr 11, lol.

The reason I set up such thread is to get some advice as to which textbooks (mainly Chemistry)people recommend using, because my school uses the shittiest resource, and often get people to hand write their brief, summarised notes. Teachers often miss the major points, so that's why i need an extra textbook to self study, reinforce concepts etc. Plus, we can always get second hand books for dirt cheap prices!!

 

[Kujah]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

Yeah, you can wait to see what textbook your school supplies you first, or alternatively borrow textbooks at crucial times from your local or schoool library. Second-hand books are alright, you get them for very cheap prices with the book having an excellent state. You can check the Sell forum to see what books they have for sale

 

[dr baby beanie]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

I didn't really find I needed many textbooks for year 11 too. Except for eco but only coz then DE note were horribly old and wrong. Excel maths is pretty good with practice questions and worked solutions etc. They're pretty accurate and realible too

 

[SoulSearcher]

Re: Recommended Texbooks/Study Guides?

1. Preliminary doesn't count and you'll do decent enough without extra textbooks.

Maths is the exception there