How many advanced units in 1st year? (1 Viewer)

[Obvious]

Hey everybody, I'm planning on studying the following subjects in my 1st year (BSci adv):

Semester 1:

MATH1001
MATH1002
BIOL1903
BIOL1911
CHEM1901

Semester 2:

MATH1003
MATH1005
BIOL1902
CHEM1902
MBLG1901

Since I'm not aware how difficult the advanced units are, I'd like to hear your opinions on whether doing these subjects is advisable or not. My goal is to learn as much as I can + get a HD average so that I can get into the TSP in my second year.

(Also if you're reading this studyfreak thanks for helping me decide between 1004/1005. Discrete maths sounded interesting on paper but if stats really is a lot more useful in the long run I'll do it instead).

 

[study-freak]

Hey everybody, I'm planning on studying the following subjects in my 1st year (BSci adv):

Semester 1:

MATH1001
MATH1002
BIOL1903
BIOL1911
CHEM1901

Semester 2:

MATH1003
MATH1005
BIOL1902
CHEM1902
MBLG1901

Since I'm not aware how difficult the advanced units are, I'd like to hear your opinions on whether doing these subjects is advisable or not. My goal is to learn as much as I can + get a HD average so that I can get into the TSP in my second year.

(Also if you're reading this studyfreak thanks for helping me decide between 1004/1005. Discrete maths sounded interesting on paper but if stats really is a lot more useful in the long run I'll do it instead).

lolol, and yes, I happened to be the first to reply to this thread lmao.
and no worries! Good decision imo.

In general, there aren't huge differences between normal and advanced units except for MBLG and MATH units in 1st year. Since you aren't doing adv maths anyway, that doesn't matter but about MBLG, I just replied to another thread: http://community.boredofstudies.org/showthread.php?t=275347

For chem, adv means different lectures to normal but since I didn't do normal, I have no idea on how easy/hard normal lectures are. But adv ones are doable. But one note: 1st year chem for me was possibly the hardest science course for me to get HD in. I did SSP chem (which is better than adv because you get bludgey labs and you can play around well lol - or if not more space at least).

For BIOL1903, the only difference is the adv independent project thing, I believe. And some seminars. I did the normal one so idk about how hard they are but from what I hear, seminars=free marks for exams (you only need to know the absolute basics to answer questions on them) and independent project is the time consuming one. That's all I know.

 

[Carrotsticks]

If you can, do ALL the Maths advanced.

It really isn't that much more difficult. You learn the same content as Normal, except in more depth and perhaps at a bit of a faster speed.

Many people QQ about how 'hard' the advanced units are. It really isn't that bad.

However in Normal units, basically everything is given to you. You have a few lecturers for 1 subject so you can go to any time slot you like, you have 3 sets of lecture notes etc. I think this is to cater for the fact that so many people do Normal.

I didn't really enjoy Discrete Maths. It was too.... strange.

 

[Obvious]

lolol, and yes, I happened to be the first to reply to this thread lmao.
and no worries! Good decision imo.

In general, there aren't huge differences between normal and advanced units except for MBLG and MATH units in 1st year. Since you aren't doing adv maths anyway, that doesn't matter but about MBLG, I just replied to another thread: http://community.boredofstudies.org/showthread.php?t=275347

For chem, adv means different lectures to normal but since I didn't do normal, I have no idea on how easy/hard normal lectures are. But adv ones are doable. But one note: 1st year chem for me was possibly the hardest science course for me to get HD in. I did SSP chem (which is better than adv because you get bludgey labs and you can play around well lol - or if not more space at least).

For BIOL1903, the only difference is the adv independent project thing, I believe. And some seminars. I did the normal one so idk about how hard they are but from what I hear, seminars=free marks for exams (you only need to know the absolute basics to answer questions on them) and independent project is the time consuming one. That's all I know.

Wow, thanks a lot for typing all that up lol. I'm also curious about one more thing... I'm taking you did quite a few advanced units yourself in 1st year. How'd the whole experience turn out for you? Could you keep up with all the information/assessments/etc, were you stressed out a lot?

If you can, do ALL the Maths advanced.

It really isn't that much more difficult. You learn the same content as Normal, except in more depth and perhaps at a bit of a faster speed.

Many people QQ about how 'hard' the advanced units are. It really isn't that bad.

However in Normal units, basically everything is given to you. You have a few lecturers for 1 subject so you can go to any time slot you like, you have 3 sets of lecture notes etc. I think this is to cater for the fact that so many people do Normal.

I didn't really enjoy Discrete Maths. It was too.... strange.

I only did 3U (bad, bad choice on my part . Really wish I could go back in time and do 4U) and I ended up getting 48 (stayed up the entire night studying for SOR so I could have done better if I wasn't so damn tired during the exam) but I'm not kidding myself. Compared to people in ruse/SBH/other selective schools I may as well be a total noob. Assuming these are the people who I'll be competing against for ranks in the advanced classes I'd probably have a higher chance of getting HD's in the lower levels (correct me if I'm wrong).

 

[Carrotsticks]

I only did 3U (bad, bad choice on my part . Really wish I could go back in time and do 4U) and I ended up getting 48 (stayed up the entire night studying for SOR so I could have done better if I wasn't so damn tired during the exam) but I'm not kidding myself. Compared to people in ruse/SBH/other selective schools I may as well be a total noob. Assuming these are the people who I'll be competing against for ranks in the advanced classes I'd probably have a higher chance of getting HD's in the lower levels (correct me if I'm wrong).

If you only did 3U, best to just take Normal Units.

 

[study-freak]

Wow, thanks a lot for typing all that up lol. I'm also curious about one more thing... I'm taking you did quite a few advanced units yourself in 1st year. How'd the whole experience turn out for you? Could you keep up with all the information/assessments/etc, were you stressed out a lot?

Yeah, all my subjects were advanced unless they didn't have adv units for that course.
I know sci fac website says that it's not advisable to take more than 24cp of adv units per year, but imo, don't trust it. Advanced units are mostly overrated in terms of difficulty.
Keeping up with assessments and all that wasn't too hard; it's only first year anyway. Quite a bit of the 1st semester content (or even 2nd sem for some) are revisions of HSC science, although they do take it a little further. My advice is to try advanced units first and you can choose to drop to normal level if you feel it's too hard for you until whenever usyd website tells you is the last date you can.

I only did 3U (bad, bad choice on my part . Really wish I could go back in time and do 4U) and I ended up getting 48 (stayed up the entire night studying for SOR so I could have done better if I wasn't so damn tired during the exam) but I'm not kidding myself. Compared to people in ruse/SBH/other selective schools I may as well be a total noob. Assuming these are the people who I'll be competing against for ranks in the advanced classes I'd probably have a higher chance of getting HD's in the lower levels (correct me if I'm wrong).

If HD is what you're aiming for, normal units would indeed be better. But adv units should still be doable and they are more interesting!

Normal unit exams are almost jokes for people who've done 4U (they give the easiest sets of questions ever), but I can't speak for 3U.

and since you'll still get compared to people in adv units, you'll need to get very high marks in the exam to get HD, I think.

 

[Obvious]

If HD is what you're aiming for, normal units would indeed be better. But adv units should still be doable and they are more interesting!

Normal unit exams are almost jokes for people who've done 4U (they give the easiest sets of questions ever), but I can't speak for 3U.

and since you'll still get compared to people in adv units, you'll need to get very high marks in the exam to get HD, I think.

I was just having a look over the maths handbook and it says that MX2 is required for the advanced units in semester 1. Damn. I guess I'll have to stick with the normal units but I'll seriously consider doing advanced stats/int & modelling in semester 2. In your opinion how difficult were these subjects in comparison to 4U?

 

[study-freak]

I was just having a look over the maths handbook and it says that MX2 is required for the advanced units in semester 1. Damn. I guess I'll have to stick with the normal units but I'll seriously consider doing advanced stats/int & modelling in semester 2. In your opinion how difficult were these subjects in comparison to 4U?

I actually think 4U was a pretty difficult course and adv maths didn't feel that bad after doing 4U. So it could mean that in terms of learning the first time, adv units are easier OR 4U just improved my maths by heaps so that now I can understand things better. I'm not sure which so can't really tell. But at least adv integral calc and modelling was the easiest adv maths unit I've ever done at uni.

 

[Carrotsticks]

I was just having a look over the maths handbook and it says that MX2 is required for the advanced units in semester 1. Damn. I guess I'll have to stick with the normal units but I'll seriously consider doing advanced stats/int & modelling in semester 2. In your opinion how difficult were these subjects in comparison to 4U?

Required a bit of intuition but in terms of difficulty, not that much more difficult.

Some questions can get extremely difficult, but generally it's okay.

If I were to give the Integral Calculus test to a good 4U student with them having no prior Uni knowledge, they would probably get ~ 20% with a bit of playing around.

Mind you, this is assuming they haven't learnt things like:



Which are really easy to learn, but not really easy to just know intuitively.

 

[Obvious]

I actually think 4U was a pretty difficult course and adv maths didn't feel that bad after doing 4U. So it could mean that in terms of learning the first time, adv units are easier OR 4U just improved my maths by heaps so that now I can understand things better. I'm not sure which so can't really tell. But at least adv integral calc and modelling was the easiest adv maths unit I've ever done at uni.

Well that's a bit of a relief. Last question for the night (I've got to be at the uni to enroll tomorrow morning so I need to get to bed soon) - How'd you find adv stats?

btw I've seen you help out a lot of people on this forum in the past couple of days and on behalf of all of us I just want to say that we really appreciate it lol.

 

[study-freak]

Well that's a bit of a relief. Last question for the night (I've got to be at the uni to enroll tomorrow morning so I need to get to bed soon) - How'd you find adv stats?

btw I've seen you help out a lot of people on this forum in the past couple of days and on behalf of all of us I just want to say that we really appreciate it lol.

lol no worries! I'm kinda bored of these holidays so I'm killing my time haha

Adv stats is different to other maths in that university stats is not something that's taught in high school. That's why many people give very diverse responses to it - some people say it's ridiculously hard and some others say it's easy as shit. I found it okay and certainly quite interesting. The most difficult part of the course is understanding concepts and once you've done so, questions are easy to do so I'd say it's quite doable in general. The relief for you may be that it's not even taught in 4u so you'll be on almost if not equal grounds with people who've done 4u!

 

[Carrotsticks]

lol no worries! I'm kinda bored of these holidays so I'm killing my time haha

Adv stats is different to other maths in that university stats is not something that's taught in high school. That's why many people give very diverse responses to it - some people say it's ridiculously hard and some others say it's easy as shit. I found it okay and certainly quite interesting. The most difficult part of the course is understanding concepts and once you've done so, questions are easy to do so I'd say it's quite doable in general. The relief for you may be that it's not even taught in 4u so you'll be on almost if not equal grounds with people who've done 4u!

Some of the proofs of formulas use methods taught in 4U or higher (such as the least squares regression line, which requires Partial Derivatives to prove)

 

[study-freak]

Some of the proofs of formulas use methods taught in 4U or higher (such as the least squares regression line, which requires Partial Derivatives to prove)

Partial derivatives are taught in MATH1001 and not in 4u anyway.

 

[sinophile]

I know sci fac website says that it's not advisable to take more than 24cp of adv units per year, but imo, don't trust it. Advanced units are mostly overrated in terms of difficulty.

Says the guy who got 99.95 for his ATAR

 

[study-freak]

Says the guy who got 99.95 for his ATAR

lol, but still. If you read course descriptions for many of those adv courses, there aren't that many things that are more 'advanced' in adv than in normal.

 

[Carrotsticks]

I agree that Advanced is overrated.

It's not that much more different from Normal. The final exam is harder, but the content learnt is basically the same.

 

[Obvious]

Hey guys I don't want to make an additional thread about this, so I'll just ask it here. I've heard many people say that buying course books (even second hand) is inadvisable as they are expensive and you rarely use them. Are there any subjects (out of the five in my original post) for which a textbook would be beneficial enough to spend $100+ on?

 

[Carrotsticks]

Hey guys I don't want to make an additional thread about this, so I'll just ask it here. I've heard many people say that buying course books (even second hand) is inadvisable as they are expensive and you rarely use them. Are there any subjects (out of the five in my original post) for which a textbook would be beneficial enough to spend $100+ on?

Whoever said that you 'rarely use them' was foolish.

I recommend this textbook, which can easily be found at the Co-op Bookstore:



It covers ALL of MATH1001, 1002 and 1003.

Furthermore, it also has all of vector calculus (second year uni) covered.

It costs about $130 for a co-op member (free to join) and $150 for a non-member.

 

[study-freak]

Hey guys I don't want to make an additional thread about this, so I'll just ask it here. I've heard many people say that buying course books (even second hand) is inadvisable as they are expensive and you rarely use them. Are there any subjects (out of the five in my original post) for which a textbook would be beneficial enough to spend $100+ on?

BIOL1903 for sure. There'll be lots of times when you'll have to learn from the textbook.

Whoever said that you 'rarely use them' was foolish.

I recommend this textbook, which can easily be found at the Co-op Bookstore:

View attachment 24291

It covers ALL of MATH1001, 1002 and 1003.

Furthermore, it also has all of vector calculus (second year uni) covered.

It costs about $130 for a co-op member (free to join) and $150 for a non-member.

I reckon you're actually one of the really rare people who ever buy/use textbook(s) for maths.
Vast majority of people either:
1) just take notes from lectures
2) buy Kopystop notes ('official' notes tailored for that course (exception: for MATH1902, it's actually a textbook))
3) or do both 1 & 2.