Repeating Maths Extension 1 Course (1 Viewer)

[mathelete71]

I am currently in year 11 (year 12 2022) at school and have been accelerated for my extension 1 and advanced maths course with the vision that I will only have to do extension two classes in my final year. At the moment I am ranked approximately 30th out of 70 for extension 1 with an internal average of 86%, however I recently achieved a 97% on my unweighted trial after quite a bit of hard work and came equal 3rd out of 70, hence I am looking likely to achieve a much higher mark than my internal assessment mark on my HSC.

My goal for ext 1 is a 95+ final mark, but assuming best case scenario in which I get a 96+ on my hsc exam, is this even achievable with my current rank which will inevitably result in a lower assessment mark? (my school finishes around 50-75) If it is not achievable, should I consider repeating my maths extension 1 and enter the normal streamed extension 2 class (this class does adv, ex 1, ex 2). I feel by repeating I am almost guaranteed around a 98 final mark given the work I have done.

Factors to take into account:
- I am aiming for a 99.6+ Atar
- I would have to take around 10 periods extra a fortnight, some including advanced maths periods for a course I have already done and have no intention repeating
- I am going to sit the UCAT and aspire to do quite well
- My school doesn't allow students to drop to 10 units before term 2
- Out of my subjects english adv, chem, phys, music 2 and maths ext 2, my english adv and physics are considerably weaker at the moment
- I essentially have more time if I don't repeat

 

[jazz519]

I would wait and see what you get in the HSC mark for it. If you end up getting close to the 95 then I wouldn't probably risk it because they don't take your best mark out of the 2 years. If you repeat whatever you get the 2nd time will be your mark, so it won't be worth it for gaining maybe 2 marks more. If it's lower than the 95 like a low 90 then yeah I would probably consider it. Repeating for the maths if you know you can do better you might as well do it. The study won't be that much the second time around you will just have to do practice papers consistently like 1 a week to keep up the skills and make sure you don't forget things. If you do that should be able to do well 2nd time around if you improved that significantly.

From experience I repeated the advanced maths HSC exam the 2nd time after accelerating it and it was beneficial, went from like a 96 HSC mark (which had a 99 external so that's why I repeated 2nd time) to 98 HSC mark. I had to put very minimal amount of work in comparsion the 2nd time, as I didn't have any classes for it and just had to stay up to date myself by doing 1-2 papers a week throughout the year. So it can work out well if you are going to actually dedicate some time consistently.

 

[mathelete71]

I had to put very minimal amount of work in comparsion the 2nd time, as I didn't have any classes for it and just had to stay up to date myself by doing 1-2 papers a week throughout the year.

Thanks for the excellent advice, I think will definitely wait and see how close I get to 95 before making my final decision. You mention that you didn't have to go to any classes for your maths and I'm just wondering, would have made the same decision if you did have to sit through all the classes again? Was the time that you saved from not going to your maths adv classes beneficial to your other subjects and ultimately your final atar?

I'm interested because in my situation the expectation from the school is that I would be placed in a class which learns adv, ext 1 and ext 2 but couldn't just attend ext 2 lessons even though I have already learnt all the content for the other courses. If I wasn't to resit I would be placed in a class that only has to do extension 2 maths, and would have 10 periods less a fortnight.

 

[vishnay]

Thanks for the excellent advice, I think will definitely wait and see how close I get to 95 before making my final decision. You mention that you didn't have to go to any classes for your maths and I'm just wondering, would have made the same decision if you did have to sit through all the classes again? Was the time that you saved from not going to your maths adv classes beneficial to your other subjects and ultimately your final atar?

I'm interested because in my situation the expectation from the school is that I would be placed in a class which learns adv, ext 1 and ext 2 but couldn't just attend ext 2 lessons even though I have already learnt all the content for the other courses. If I wasn't to resit I would be placed in a class that only has to do extension 2 maths, and would have 10 periods less a fortnight.

r u sure ur school can't make any exceptions?

 

[jazz519]

Thanks for the excellent advice, I think will definitely wait and see how close I get to 95 before making my final decision. You mention that you didn't have to go to any classes for your maths and I'm just wondering, would have made the same decision if you did have to sit through all the classes again? Was the time that you saved from not going to your maths adv classes beneficial to your other subjects and ultimately your final atar?

I'm interested because in my situation the expectation from the school is that I would be placed in a class which learns adv, ext 1 and ext 2 but couldn't just attend ext 2 lessons even though I have already learnt all the content for the other courses. If I wasn't to resit I would be placed in a class that only has to do extension 2 maths, and would have 10 periods less a fortnight.

I would probably make the same decision, because in my school a lot of the practice we did anyways was from exam questions rather than using the textbook that much. Since the teachers put together documents and stuff of HSC questions or assigned exams for homework. Because of that it would still be useful revision I guess.

I didn't really save much time because the way my school did accelerated maths was a bit different. You do only your advanced maths HSC in Year 11 and no extension 1 class at all. Then once you go Year 12 you do the whole ext 1 syllabus in the one year, so there was extra classes for it to make up for that Year 11 content.

In your case then yeah if you get close to the mark it's probably not a good idea to do it, since 10 periods a fortnight is a lot that you can dedicate to improving multiple subjects, which will have a bigger impact to your ATAR than gaining a few marks in 1 course.