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S4 difficulty?

So I'm just wondering how hard S4 is in comparison to the other statistics modules, is it significantly more difficult than S3?

Personally, I've found that with stats the modules get easier as they increase. Does S4 follow this trend?

And what is S4 like in comparison to D2?

Thanks in advance

Reply 1

TheKingOfTSR

Original post by Nehemia

I did Edexcel.

IMO, S4 is one of the easiest maths modules at A2 Maths. S3 was for me the most difficult. S4 is smaller and easier. Very less thinking is required and if you know all the methods then you're okay.
I self studied both modules. S3 took a week and a half. S4 just took 2 days. Which shows the length and difficulty of S4 is so less!

As for D2... its massive. But it's like S4 in the sense you've just got to be robotic and apply algorithms. For me D2 was very very tougher than S4, more difficult to grasp and annoying to apply. I took three weeks to study D2. Just see the size of that D2 text book! :zomg:

. IMO, only FP3 was more tougher.

Hope this helps. Highly subjective though. It's a good idea to go through the textbooks of maths modules and try them yourselves before choosing which module to do. :smile:

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Reply 2

QuantumDuckling

I found S4 was certainly the hardest of the modules, though not prohibitively so. The content requires more difficult mathematical manipulation and flexibility than the previous modules, the exams for which follow a pretty prescriptive format. It may also require a closer understanding of what different random variablrs represent and how to manipulate the, but that depends on the sort of question you get.
So yes it's harder, but also much more fun and interesting. I'm on OCR MEI, though, so I can't be sure about other boards.
Haven't done D2 so I can't compare, but from what I've heard D2 is pretty straightforward.

Reply 3

newblood

Completely depends on your examboard

On MEI i would say S4 is the hardest module available, a lot of it is 1st year uni stuff that other boards dont cover. There is (moment and probability) generating functions. Estimation theory and on top of this, MLE's (maximum likelihood). There is a chapter on hypothesis tests but you choose 3 out of 4 options so i avoided this so i cant really commwnt on its difficulty. There is also ANOVA testing which isnt covered on other boards and techniques of experimental design (surprisingly interesting).

On edexcel it seems to be the complete opposite...just a mashup of a lot of hypothesis tests, though i do believe there is a section on some basic estimation theory so its not too dull (perhaps someone else would care to weigh in)

Normal OCR seems to be somewhere inbetween edexcel and MEI. It contains generating functions i believe and goes into further theory of distributions.