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Textbook recommendations (1 Viewer)

icycledough

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Pearsons is a pretty good shout ... that's what I used anyway during HSC. Jacaranda, In Focus and Surfing are also pretty good but I didn't use them as much last year as Pearsons, which was the main one our school advised us to use.
 

icycledough

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There’s a jacaranda textbook?
Yep, but the thing is they're all quite expensive. We were lucky due to the fact that our school gave us access to 3 or 4 textbooks, some schools don't have the luxury for that and so buying textbooks on your own can get quite expensive (they can be around 60 each I think), which isn't cheap
 

icycledough

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No like link the shop. I want to see if it’s exists or not. Since whenever I google search it VCE books come up
Oh yh true, it does link to the VCE website. That's my bad, Jacaranda must be only used for VCE, not HSC. Not sure why my teacher mentioned it to us
 

BLIT2014

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Biology is in focus, but some topics will need to be supplemented.
 

SweatyAsian#1

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For Chemistry, In Focus or Pearson?
From what I know and experienced, Pearson goes too much into depth but gives really good questions, whereas In Focus provides good explanations but not enough in-depth questions.
 

icycledough

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For Chemistry, In Focus or Pearson?
From what I know and experienced, Pearson goes too much into depth but gives really good questions, whereas In Focus provides good explanations but not enough in-depth questions.
Based on what you mentioned, I'd probably go Pearsons. I also used Pearsons last year and it was really good. I agree that it goes into depth, but at the end of the day, there's nothing wrong with going into too much depth, I guess
 

SweatyAsian#1

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Based on what you mentioned, I'd probably go Pearsons. I also used Pearsons last year and it was really good. I agree that it goes into depth, but at the end of the day, there's nothing wrong with going into too much depth, I guess
I'm probably going to borrow both In Focus and Pearson then lol. My teacher and class use In Focus so we can get a better grip on the ideas learnt, then if I have spare time or need consolidation, I'll use Pearson questions.
Appreciate that icycledough 👍
 

SweatyAsian#1

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I have:

chem in focus 12
person chem 12
pearson bio 12
chem in focus 11
bio in focus 11
pearson bio 11

unfortunately i dont have pearson chem 11 and bio in focus 12

YOOO My guy! Specificagent1, you made my day bro.
Also just curious but, do you have textbooks for HSC Physics?
And you seem to know your stuff pretty well, so as a Year 11 Student, can I ask how much more difficult HSC Chemistry gets after Preliminary? As well as your study techniques/methods if that's fine as well.

Thank you!
 

specificagent1

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YOOO My guy! Specificagent1, you made my day bro.
Also just curious but, do you have textbooks for HSC Physics?
no unfortunately as I dont do physics

And you seem to know your stuff pretty well, so as a Year 11 Student, can I ask how much more difficult HSC Chemistry gets after Preliminary? As well as your study techniques/methods if that's fine as well.
HSC chemistry will be fine as long as you know your year 11 stuff well. HSC chemistry is built so much on year 11 knowledge that it is vital that you know them well, if not you will struggle to understand some stuff. I think the most challenging aspect of the chem in year 12 would be some of the organic chemistry stuff but with practice and familiarisation you'll get used to it.
 

SweatyAsian#1

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no unfortunately as I dont do physics



HSC chemistry will be fine as long as you know your year 11 stuff well. HSC chemistry is built so much on year 11 knowledge that it is vital that you know them well, if not you will struggle to understand some stuff. I think the most challenging aspect of the chem in year 12 would be some of the organic chemistry stuff but with practice and familiarisation you'll get used to it.
Damn bro, thank you very much. Also, I just realised but why is the Pearson Chemistry Textbook such a GOSH DANG HUGE FILE! Like, even google drive can't open it 🤣

If you have a more compressed file or a good reason for that, much appreciated bro.
 

specificagent1

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Damn bro, thank you very much. Also, I just realised but why is the Pearson Chemistry Textbook such a GOSH DANG HUGE FILE! Like, even google drive can't open it 🤣

If you have a more compressed file or a good reason for that, much appreciated bro.
no clue honestly lmao
 

ExtremelyBoredUser

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I have gotten all the known textbooks for Maths over the past week and I can confidently say, Cambridge just feels overall more better. I'm not sure if I can share the PDFs with you guys since its copyright but if theres a way I can, I'll try.

The textbooks that do seem good regardless would be Terry Lee's and possibly Fitzpatrick's? Maths in Focus is decent as well but I feel the quality of questions isn't up there, definitely more beginner friendly. Grove's textbooks look good but I still don't feel comfortable with it, its not bad though. If there's anything good I find about these textbooks, I'll just update, but so far they don't seem to be as helpful as Cambridge initially was.
 

SweatyAsian#1

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I have gotten all the known textbooks for Maths over the past week and I can confidently say, Cambridge just feels overall more better. I'm not sure if I can share the PDFs with you guys since its copyright but if theres a way I can, I'll try.

The textbooks that do seem good regardless would be Terry Lee's and possibly Fitzpatrick's? Maths in Focus is decent as well but I feel the quality of questions isn't up there, definitely more beginner friendly. Grove's textbooks look good but I still don't feel comfortable with it, its not bad though. If there's anything good I find about these textbooks, I'll just update, but so far they don't seem to be as helpful as Cambridge initially was.
Yeah, Cambridge is THE one. From rumours and teachers, most selective schools use Cambridge.
 

SweatyAsian#1

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I have gotten all the known textbooks for Maths over the past week and I can confidently say, Cambridge just feels overall more better. I'm not sure if I can share the PDFs with you guys since its copyright but if theres a way I can, I'll try.

The textbooks that do seem good regardless would be Terry Lee's and possibly Fitzpatrick's? Maths in Focus is decent as well but I feel the quality of questions isn't up there, definitely more beginner friendly. Grove's textbooks look good but I still don't feel comfortable with it, its not bad though. If there's anything good I find about these textbooks, I'll just update, but so far they don't seem to be as helpful as Cambridge initially was.
Any SPECIFIC recommendations for Chemistry?
From experience I guess.
 

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