BlogStudyHow to Write a Study Checklist for HSC Standard Maths Using the Syllabus

How to Write a Study Checklist for HSC Standard Maths Using the Syllabus

The Standard Maths syllabus has 96 pages.

This may sound like a lot of content to sift through, especially when you have other subjects to study for. Did you know that you can turn the syllabus into an easy to follow checklist?

This checklist will help you figure out what you already know and what you need to revise. We’ll teach you all the tips and tricks to simplify prep for your Standard Maths exam and make all those dot points less intimidating!

What are you waiting for? Let’s get started!

What’s in the Standard Maths Syllabus?
Making that Checklist

What’s in the Standard Maths Syllabus?

Let’s get into the Standard Maths syllabus ā€” click here to check it out!

Understanding how it is set out will allow you to break it down into a checklistĀ while not excluding anything important.

Syllabus Structure

On page 65 is a summary of Year 12 Mathematics Standard 2 content ā€” it in itself is a checklist, but it is by topic, so it is won’t be helpful for being able to judge whether or not you know all the content. You’ll also find the Year 11Ā content onĀ page 30!

Let’s break it down:

Both Year 11 and Year 12 have four shared topics, with Year 12 having an additional topic called ‘Networks’:

Remember, Year 11 content is examinable in the HSC years and the final examination, so that’s why I’ve included it. A lot of students miss some of the preliminary content from the shared topics, so keep that in mind.

Each topic is broken down into subtopics. For example, let’s take the Year 12 Financial Mathematics topic.

The subtopics lying under Financial Mathematics are:

  • Investments and Loans
  • Annuities

Pro tip: The topics are given codes which are useful for finding specific pages, detailing the topic, by using the ‘finding’ function (CTRL+F) on the syllabus document. For fun, MS-F4 is simply MathematicsĀ Standard – Financial TopicĀ 4.

Breaking Down Topics

Topics are broad, so when it comes to revision, it doesn’t serve much purpose. I liken knowing the topic to knowing a sport, but the rules and how to play is the content. Our HSC Maths Tutors Sydney know those rules and how to play, so if you’re looking to accelerate your learning, check them out!

So to make sure we are on the same page.

Maths Standard Syllabus Breakdown

This content includes dot points that you are familiar with from other subjects, using terms like investigate, calculate and determine.Ā 

Making that Checklist

Syllabus Layout

Okay. That was a lot to take in.

A little more to go. The Standard Maths syllabus is set out as follows (to keep it short, I only used 3 topics).

Standard Maths syllabus breakdown

The pages for the topics include, as we described in the breakdowns, the content in dot points ā€” the skills you will learn from that topic.

Looking for someone to support you through your Maths revision? Check out our top Maths tutors in Sydney!

How to Set Out Your Checklist

Now that you know how the Standard Maths syllabus is set out, you can now set out your checklist in the same way. The checkpoints are going to include all the dot points below ‘Content’ for each topic.

Here’s an example from the topic Financial Mathematics.

Financial MathematicsĀ 

  1. Investments and Loans
  2. Annuities
    • solve compound interest related problems involving financial decisions, e.g. a home loan, a savings account, a car loan or an annuity
      • identify an annuity as an investment account with regular, equal contributions and interest compounding at the end of each period
      • identify an annuity as a single sum investment from which regular, equal withdrawals are made
      • model an annuity as a recurrence relation and investigate (numerically or graphically) the effect of varying:
        • the amount and frequency of each contribution
        • the interest rate or
        • the payment amount on the duration and/or future value of the annuity
      • use a table of interest factors to perform annuity calculations, eg:
        • calculate the present or future value of an annuity,
        • calculate the contribution amount required to achieve a given future value or
        • calculate the single sum that would produce the same future value as a given annuity

Okay, let’s talk about what I did.

  1. Start with breaking down each topic with the various subtopics.
  2. Create one checklist per subtopic, which includes all the dot point content.
  3. Break dot points down further to make the skills you need to learn much clearer.

Complete the subtopic, Investments and Loans, and you are done with 1/5 of the topics for Year 12 Standard Maths. Then do the same for the rest of the topics and you will be done with the HSC section!

But you aren’t done yet ā€” there is still the Year 11 section, which a lot of students, as I stated before, often forget. It isn’t a lot of work though ā€” the content dot points are a simple copy and paste.

The only real effort put into forming this checklist is creating additional dot points to break the content down further, making it easier to understand.

This requires a little bit of thought and what you include will differ from person to person. It also requires you to have covered the content for you to know what is important enough to include.

You might even want to include formulas or ratios relevant to the subtopic! Remember, it is better to have a longer checklist than a shorter one.

Find video content for the different syllabus dot points in HSC Standard Maths here!

And that’s it!

It may seem like creating a checklist for each subtopic for every single topic is going to take a long time. But remember, you are making this over two years!

As you progress with your content, you are creating this checklist. Fit it in your schedule, in the evening/night, after you learn the content while it is fresh in your mind.

Aiming for a Band 6 in HSC Standard Maths? Check out our tips here!

Are you looking for some extra help with HSC Mathematics?

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Thomas Zheng enjoys using numbers in every aspect of life. So much so that he just had to take Civil Engineering at UNSW, because even Extension 2 in high school did not satisfy that need. Now heā€™s writing (with actual words) for Art of Smart because he understands the importance of balance in life. I guess thatā€™s why he spends most of his time watching TV shows and movies as opposed to doing ā€˜something productiveā€™ as his teachers used to say, because that totally demonstrates how much he understands that balance thing.

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