Maths Honours - How to study?

ninebeanrows

Hey folks, gonna have to start "knuckling" down now.

Any tips on what the best way to cover the course would be?

Im looking for the least time consuming method to cover the course, want to spend like 6-7 hours per week over the next 11 weeks.

Where to start, what to focus on? Just Exam Paper after Paper?

Cheers;)

exam papers. More exam papers, do every single question there's ever been. Get sample papers.

thats it. If you can do every question thats been asked before without needing a book for reference, you're sorted.

Hopkirk

Simply Do a load of questions, Practice Questions for hours,

Got this book from http://www.leavingcertsolutions.com/mall/leavingcertsolutions/products/product-16234.stm

Its truly great, Every solution back to 96,

ninebeanrows

Yea but like should i go over the chapters first and then hit Exam papers or dive straight into Exam papers?

We've finished the course but thats not to say i know half of what we've covered..

btw thanks!

Hopkirk

Weathercheck wrote:

Yea but like should i go over the chapters first and then hit Exam papers or dive straight into Exam papers?

We've finished the course but thats not to say i know half of what we've covered..

btw thanks!

Usually I just skip over my copy, just to familiarise myself with the Questions and Techniques in answering them, Then I just jump into the Exam Questions, For the First Year or so of the papers your going to struggle and need help off the Marking Schemes, But you pick it up after awhile, After that its just trying to do as many questions as is possible, I usually find the more I do the better.

Laurielou

I would say go over them first as there is little point trying to do a question u dont understand. I would go over one chapter, try a few of the harder q from the book and then do the exam q for that section

ninebeanrows

Laurielou wrote:

I would say go over them first as there is little point trying to do a question u dont understand. I would go over one chapter, try a few of the harder q from the book and then do the exam q for that section

Yea yea so im thinking... Go over the chap in book, answer a few of the excericise q's then move on and do a number of Exam Q's..

Now question is do i have enough time in 3 months to do that with every section!!

I'll do Complex Numbers and Matrices, (Q3) over the next 3 days and tell ya how i got on .. see if it worked..

More opinions welcome also!

Thanks alot

Re. Hopkirk, yea that would work, but to be honest, i couldn't say i actually have a maths copy as such!! Just lots and lots of sheets of paper..

Hopkirk

Unfortunately i'm a sad individual who likes to organise his work:(

But It pays off for maths.

Laurielou

Yea well there is about 25 chapters but some are relatively easy and so you could spend like 6 hours one week to get two of them done and then other weeks with harder topics spend all your time...i would say its manageable and iu have set by a realistic amount of time per week. What did iu get in ur mocks?

ninebeanrows

Laurielou wrote:

Yea well there is about 25 chapters but some are relatively easy and so you could spend like 6 hours one week to get two of them done and then other weeks with harder topics spend all your time...i would say its manageable and iu have set by a realistic amount of time per week. What did iu get in ur mocks?

eh well about that........................... can't be telling now can i:D

Lets just say very poorly.. but they'll never push me down to Happy Maths, NEVER;)

I 'did me' a timetable today... 6-7 hours of maths, i should have time for if i follow the timetable strictly but in the actuality of it all i'll probably only get 4-5 hours a week. I think i'll be hitting the topic in exam paper order. so there will be 12/13 topic to cover.

Laurielou

Yeah...i let them push me down to happy maths and as happy as i am with how easy it is im not so happy that iv lost out on 40 points!!! Id say the fact ur not that prepared prob means u should learn ur proofs real well tho cos theyre easy marks ya know!

md99

I'm in a similar situation to you... got 47% in my pre, though it was corrected very harshly...

Basically, familiarise yourself with the questions you find easier first, do plenty of years' worth of them... Then move on to the ones you're less familiar with/find harder.

That's what I'm doing... I'm finding Algebra relatiely easy, and trig and prob. are okay too...

Mushy

I'm gonna have to do the same now, from once these Mocks are over. Im gonna fail the exam quite badly, but I really dont want to drop, cos I saw the Happy Maths paper and was actually quite shocked of how easy it was. Just gonna spend quite a lot of time on that, cos I really want to get an honour in it. If I've managed greater than 30%, I'll be quite shocked tbh!

Tomlowe

i dive into the exam questions, and if i dont understand/can't do it, i look back over the topic in my notes copy/the book

md99

Weathercheck wrote:

I'll do Complex Numbers and Matrices, (Q3) over the next 3 days and tell ya how i got on .. see if it worked..

More opinions welcome also!

Hard enough section to start on there mate... I wouldn't!

While Matrices is delightful, Complex is severely hit and miss... A lot less stable than many other sections, such as Algebra or The Circle.. maybe they'd be a more appetising hors d'œuvre?

Just my opinion, you may find Complex simple, but I couldn't do the part c's for the life of me...

nick23

Buy this http://www.studentxpress.ie/ The essential revision guide
I got a copy in grinds and found it amazing. Bring it to class every day and just use it to do past papers, past papers, past papers, past papers, past papers, past papers, past papers, past papers, past papers, past papers, past papers, past papers, past papers, and then a few more past papers.

Donald-Duck

Tomlowe wrote:

i dive into the exam questions, and if i dont understand/can't do it, i look back over the topic in my notes copy/the book

That's what I did for my leaving cert, It worked pretty well for me. I found most of the book questions pointless, and nothing like exam paper questions.

Nehpets

I like understanding what I am doing first, then the exam papers take less time to do and you can focus and the tricks etc.

md99

Got a solution book to refer to today and it's really doing miracles for my maths! Your mistakes highlighted in seconds..... Thank the Lord. Dunno why I didn't think of this before.

Phaedrus25

I just bought Essential Revision Guide to LC Higher Maths. This is going to save my life. Both papers are included in 130 pages. All the proof and formulae are listed. It links into a website with every solution from the last 6 years. The perfect way to study. I think its written by 2 teachers from the Inst. and Ashfield.