S2.. how difficult?

Being fairly modest, I am not amazing at Maths. I understand most things, and do quite well (averaging a strongish A).. I have a dilemma.

I have an S2 exam on the 25th and due to HEAVY exam schedule, I can only start the book, for the FIRST TIME, on the night of the 21st. I am unlikely to put more than 6 hours a day in at best, but can I cover all the book in that period... I was quite good at S1, but of course had 4 months to do that, not 3 days...

I want to know if its realistic, or if I should not waste the invigilators time, and just pull out.

Im not certain I want the stress, if it isnt achievable, realistically.

Reply 1

!Laxy!

RobbieC

Being fairly modest, I am not amazing at Maths. I understand most things, and do quite well (averaging a strongish A).. I have a dilemma.

I have an S2 exam on the 25th and due to HEAVY exam schedule, I can only start the book, for the FIRST TIME, on the night of the 21st. I am unlikely to put more than 6 hours a day in at best, but can I cover all the book in that period... I was quite good at S1, but of course had 4 months to do that, not 3 days...

I want to know if its realistic, or if I should not waste the invigilators time, and just pull out.

Im not certain I want the stress, if it isnt achievable, realistically.

I am doing that exam too! S2 is really quite easy. There are a couple of hard bits in there bu its not too bad. It depends on what sort of mark your hoping to get.

What were your AS UMS marks?

Reply 2

Gauss

11

RobbieC

Being fairly modest, I am not amazing at Maths. I understand most things, and do quite well (averaging a strongish A).. I have a dilemma.

I have an S2 exam on the 25th and due to HEAVY exam schedule, I can only start the book, for the FIRST TIME, on the night of the 21st. I am unlikely to put more than 6 hours a day in at best, but can I cover all the book in that period... I was quite good at S1, but of course had 4 months to do that, not 3 days...

I want to know if its realistic, or if I should not waste the invigilators time, and just pull out.

Im not certain I want the stress, if it isnt achievable, realistically.

S2 is a very short module, only 4 chapters if I remember. My teacher taught the whole module to us in two days and all of us did quite well on it.

Plus, during your revision of S2, you can always post problems here if you have troubles so your not alone :biggrin:

Euclid.

Reply 3

kikzen

14

ah i think youll be fine.

its quite a bit to remember, but you forget LOADs if you dont do it for ages. youll be fresh from teh book on the day of your exam :smile:

Reply 4

RobbieC

OP

15

My AS UMS were 251 before retakes, and 264 afterward...

Is it easier or harder than D1, cos the hard bits in D1 are AWFUL, whereas the easy are a piece of PISS. Id like something more... averagey...

Reply 5

kikzen

14

S2 is binomial, poisson (and approximations), no probability, continuous random variables, continuous distributions, hypothesis testing.

so pretty average in all.

Reply 6

RobbieC

OP

15

Alright, thanks... I will review the book on friday night and make my decision in time for monday.

Reply 7

posh_git

1

u just need 2 remember when to use what distributions lol and the continuity corrections!!!!! lol im retaking S2 on tuesday with OCR........

Reply 8

amo1

14

i think in s2 the hardest thing are the wordy questions like 'what is a statistic' and mayb setting out the hypothesis tests

Reply 9

MdSalih

As amo1 has stated.. the hardest thing is getting the definitions bang on... other than that.. the rest is easy.. hypothesis.. binomial.. poisson... approximations.. just need to remember v. basic rules and apply them

It seems a fairly reasonable task to do in 3 days - if you timetable it correctly and stick to your timetable.

MdSalih

Reply 10

iluvcheesecake

When we did it in school, we literally spent 2 weeks on it, compared to up to a term on some of the more challenging pure/mech modules, so I'd say it's definately do-able, and as for ability, none of the actual Maths theory is too complicated, all pretty average really I'd say, but like someone else said the hardest bits are probably the wordy questions.

Reply 11

Jump

18

I hate hypothesis testing, I always make a stupid mistake and end up with a crazy answer. Other than that it's quite straight foward, I guess you'd need a sound knowledge of s1 but you probably do so I'd go for it.

Reply 12

davidreesjones

its amazing how much shorter s2 is - the material is a bit harder but theres lots less, so if you did well at s1 it shouldn't be a problem - you may as well sit it anyway since you can always resit in summer

Reply 13

John Porcella

RobbieC

Being fairly modest, I am not amazing at Maths. I understand most things, and do quite well (averaging a strongish A).. I have a dilemma.

I have an S2 exam on the 25th and due to HEAVY exam schedule, I can only start the book, for the FIRST TIME, on the night of the 21st. I am unlikely to put more than 6 hours a day in at best, but can I cover all the book in that period... I was quite good at S1, but of course had 4 months to do that, not 3 days...

I want to know if its realistic, or if I should not waste the invigilators time, and just pull out.

Im not certain I want the stress, if it isnt achievable, realistically.

I suggest that you do yourself a favour and give it a miss and prepare properly.

JP

Reply 14

John Porcella

kikzen

S2 is binomial, poisson (and approximations), no probability, continuous random variables, continuous distributions, hypothesis testing.

so pretty average in all.

"No probability?" What do you think that the p in Bin(n,p) stands for?