Have you been looking for HSC maths resources, and want to give up! It can be difficult to find relevant Mathematics resources, simply because there’s so much out there.
Sometimes it’s way too technical and difficult. Sometimes they’re not substantial.
Fear not, I’m going to tell you the best places to look for the three stages of learning!
What Are the Three Stages of Learning?
Top 3 HSC Maths Resources to Use for Study
What Are the Three Stages of Learning?
Stage 1: New Concept
The first stage is the most difficult, it’s where you’re first introduced to a new concept you’ve never seen before. It’s always incredibly challenging to have to wrap your head around a new topic.
That’s what school is for, your teachers explains the new topic, and you have your textbook to refer to for more information.
What happens if you fall behind, and you don’t understand the textbook, you’re screwed.
You start to feel stressed because nothing makes sense, and it’s too late to ask any questions, because the class has already moved on. We need somewhere to go, to relearn concepts. If this sounds like you, our HSC Maths Tutors Sydney or Sutherland Shire might be able to help!
Stage 2: Experimentation
Once you think you’ve wrapped your head around the concept, you start playing around with it to see exactly how it works.
It can be really hard to play around with a concept by yourself if you’re just starting to learn how it works. We need a tool that can help us visualise things.
If you’re just starting to learn calculus, and want to play around with the derivative. Y
ou want to guaranteed the derivative is correct before you play with it. We need a tool that gives us correct answers and allows us to play with them.
Stage 3: Consolidation
Finally when you’ve got the concept sorted, and you know how it works. You’d like to do some problems, and when you’ve done them you’d like to know your answers are correct!
Your teacher can look at your work, and tell you how you’re going, but you don’t have access to your teachers all the time. What do you do at home to check your work? We need a tool that can solve maths problems!
Make sure your Advanced Maths study notes are effective by checking out our step by step guide here.
Top 3 HSC Maths Resources to Use for Study
I’m here to tell you about the perfect Mathematics resources for each of the three stages of learning, to help you conquer your study of mathematics. Here goes!
Resource for New Concepts: Khan Academy
If you need to relearn a topic form scratch, Khan Academy is a great resource.
You will be able to find almost everything covered in the NSW Mathematics curriculum within those pages highlighted above.
- Pre-algebra contains fundamental mathematics ideas covered in early years, such as negative numbers, dealing with fractions, square roots, powers, scientific notation, just the basic ideas. (Covers primary school as well as Year 7–8)
- Algebra I contains basic algebra such as collecting like terms, as well as linear equations, measurement and functions, solving simple equations, intro to quadratics. (Covers year 9–10)
- Algebra II contains more complicated functions, solving equations, polynomials, exponentials and logs, trig etc. Complex numbers. (Covers year 11–12)
After these fundamentals we have some more specialised topics, you may like to look at for revision with specific topics.
- Geometry covers Euclidean geometry (lines), Circle Geometry, Similarity, Congruency
- Trigonometry covers — as you’d expect — all the trig! Basic right angled triangles, general triangles
Resource for New Concepts: HSC Together
HSC Together has over a thousand video resources on specific dot points from the HSC syllabus – including all levels of HSC Maths!
Each video follows the HSC syllabus which means you’ll be able to consolidate your knowledge with ease!
All you have to do is select your level of Maths, select your topic and then the dot point you need help with! Then you’ll be able to access a video resource which will help explain the concept you’re struggling with!
Resource for Experimentation: GeoGebra
GeoGebra is one of the premier Mathematics resources used in schools since it’s so great for visualisation, and super easy to use! If you want to know how shifting graphs works, just mess around with it in GeoGebra, and see if what you expect happens. Here’s a sample of shifting a graph one unit using GeoGebra, I just re-typed my function with a few modification, and we can visualise the changes, it’s that easy!
It’s quite a powerful tool, you can even make animations to visualise calculus, it’s incredible. You can just type f'(x), and GeoGebra will calculate the derivative for you! I’ve also used the tangent tool to make a tangent, I then asked GeoGebra to show me the gradient. Now we can see if the derivative really is equivalent to the gradient of the tangent. Sure enough, our quick little animation confirms it!
Resource for Consolidation: WolframAlpha
The final stage of the learning process is consolidation. Let’s continue with our theme of calculus.
You’ve gone on Khan Academy, and watched the calculus playlist and gotten a feel for the subject. You were than able to visualise it by playing around in GeoGebra.
You feel like you have a strong grasp, but you just need to solve some questions until you’re really sure you’ve got it, and are ready for the exam.
Sounds like a plan! But, how are you going to check your work?
That’s where WolframAlpha comes along. It’s probably one of my favourite Mathematics resources since it can solve a lot of mathematics problems!
You just need to ask the question in a way WolframAlpha understands. You can’t put in word problems into Wolfram alpha, but if you’re able to turn the question into an equation, then there’s a high probability Wolfram alpha knows how to answer it!
As you can see above it can do everything from basic simplification and factorisation, all the way up to Integration by parts and Complex Numbers for you Extension 2 kids!
If you want to know the derivative of something just ask! Simply type: “differentiate” and then type your specific function.
And that wraps up our top 4 HSC Maths resources – good luck!
Aiming for a Band 6 in HSC Standard or Advanced Maths? Check out our guide to achieving one here!
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Vamsi Srinivasan is looking to uncover the next hidden truth of the universe. He was fascinated by the beauty of Physics and Mathematics during his HSC. Now, he’s in his third year of a dual degree in Physics/Computer Science. Vamsi wanted to share his passion for Maths and Physics and has been an Art of Smart coach for the past 3 years. He coaches students in Physics as well as all ranges of HSC Maths from General to Extension 2. In his spare time you can find him watching Tennis or listening to his favourite podcast ‘Hello Internet’.