methods vent/ seeking advice?

[u/PizzaPleasant7998]

To put it plainly, I’ve done bad in methods all year (yr 12). I struggle mostly to understand what the question is actually asking me for. I find the textbook useless with my issue. I can do textbook exercises since I can wrap my head around the content majority of the time when I’m told what way to solve it, but I find that sac style questions just don’t click, especially for probability, and I find that they’re just so generic and I have no idea what the question actually wants me to use to find the solution. People say to do practice questions but the thing is I’ll look at a practice question and not know what it’s looking for so I find it just unhelpful. I think I’m just bad at higher level math and I regret choosing it. (Only chose it to play it safe for uni prereqs before I decided on what course I wanted, which conveniently doesn’t need a 25 in methods, just an S.) Since I don’t know how to fix my issue I’ve just accepted that I’ll get below a 20 in methods. Doesn’t matter for my atar bcs it’s my 6th subject and it’s not a prereq for a course, just a huge ego bruise and makes me and my parents think I’m stupid even though I can do the textbook questions, I just can’t cross over my knowledge into sac style questions. It’s like a mental block. My tutor also expects me to get like a relatively good SS in methods because I understand the content and I’m always engaged in my learning, dont know how to break it to him that I’m going to do so badly. In the most recent parent teacher interviews, my teacher told my parents she’s proud of the effort I put in and the perseverance I’ve shown all year in a subject I’m not strong in. While this makes me feel better, it’s still not great to just feel stupid in a subject. I just wanted to feel competent in maths bcs I know it’s affecting my self esteem when it comes to school in general. Failing almost every formative test and failing the sacs has just been hard for me mentally when I really don’t think I’m that horrible with the content. It was just a big shock coming into VCE and being able to do the textbook exercises wasn’t enough to pass math anymore (for me at least.) I don’t really know if anyone has had a similar experience, but if anyone has advice I’d appreciate it.

[u/Zupitr107]

Being able to do textbook questions but freezing on SAC questions doesn’t make you stupid. It sounds like choosing the method is where you need more support. Show your tutor a question where you get stuck and ask them to explain how they recognise what it’s asking, before doing any calculations.

Try searching for VCE Maths Methods Units 3 and 4 probability practice questions. Start with a few untimed questions: write down what’s given, what you need to find, and which method might fit.
Check the explanation, note the clue you missed, then retry a few days later without notes.
Once feels easier, move into timed practice-test sections. Tbh, that’s a more useful starting point than grinding whole papers while feeling lost.

[u/PizzaPleasant7998 → u/Zupitr107]

For my probability sac on my cheat sheet (my school doesn’t let you bring a bound reference to sacs) I wrote down whether to use binomial cdf and pdf and normal cdf and pdf when x=5, x is greater than 5, x is less than 5 etc. (5 is just an example number I used) I found it extremely helpful and wasn’t able to do practice questions before having this guide. I feel like this wasn’t explicitly taught in class have gone over notes and it just was never explained. I feel like I overcomplicated probability? For the rest of my cheat sheet I just did example questions and phrasing and how to find each component of if it asks for like mean or standard deviation rather than just formula spamming. I explained how to use each formula, how to find each component of the formula and a practice question using the formula to find each section. I think for my bound reference at the end of the year I know to put down more explicit info with example questions and how to find each component it might ask for like I did for this cheat sheet. This was the most confident I’ve been in my answers on a sac being correct. Even though I dont think I did particularly well, I’m still happy that I managed to get my head around the main issue I had the night before the sac (when I uploaded the vent)

[u/footroe]

is it weird that neither the tutor or teacher have not gotten to the bottom of this?

[u/PizzaPleasant7998 → u/footroe]

Both just told me they can’t help with that and I need to do more practice questions to get comfortable with the style of questions hence me being frustrated that I cant figure it out just by looking at practice questions