Subject: Gratz on being almost 17!
Author:
Posted on: 2012-06-28 22:58:00 UTC
So in the first year of A levels you can take only AS courses, and then in the second you can take A courses based on your first year of AS courses and/or more AS courses? Interesting and a new tidbit! I like knowing more about the different ways school is set up in different places.
Due to various factors, I'm doing high school by correspondence courses. (This is really annoying when I'm procrastinating everything under the sun... yay, I'm 16 and still in grade 10 due to my own laziness.) When I was doing grade 9 courses I had a choice between applied, applied, or applied, so just for a change of pace with my maths I did applied. (The other option's academic, which is what I want if at all possible but it wasn't available then.) This didn't look like a problem until last December. Then I wanted to enroll in a new grade 10 course, specifically academic maths, and the gorram thing required specifically academic grade 9 maths where all the other academic grade 10 courses had a prerequisite of the grade 9 course but didn't care if it was academic or applied.
I was annoyed. This, for the unaware, is pronounced shriekingly furious.
Okay, a little backstory. I've been going to a monthly/weekly (depends on the level) enriched maths thing since I was 10, learning maths we wouldn't get taught at our grade level, or at all until university, and getting past contests as homework so we can do well on the yearly ones and impress people and get scholarships and whatnot. In November I did a contest for grade 9/10 called the Canadian Intermediate Mathematics Contest (CIMC) and got 41/60, which is apparently a really good score because I got a certificate of distinction.
Since I really, really didn't want to settle for grade 10 applied maths because I'd be in the same gorram boat with course-taking come grade 11, I went to the main instructor for the enriched maths, told him my problem, and asked if he'd write a letter saying I was good enough to do the grade 10 academic since I'd heard he did that sort of thing. He agreed, suggested sending a photocopy of my CIMC certificate would help make my case (The phrase 'definitely enough' was used. He was pretty emphatic about it.), and I sent off my request to enroll and the various things to make my case.
Cue a wait, and then a [BLEEP]ing boilerplate letter saying (paraphrased) "[Apology], [student name here]. [Course name here] is unavailable because: out of textbook copies." Yeah, I was back to being annoyed, because I didn't even know what level refusal this was so I had no idea if a second request would be met with 'you don't have the prerequisites' when the first request had been entirely 'Yes. Yes I do. I'm serious about this, too.'
I sighed, enrolled in grade 10 science, and went on my merry way until I sent off my first unit of science about a week ago and could enroll in another course. Grade 10 academic maths, you guess? You would be correct!
Guess what e-mail I got in my inbox today. Go on, guess. I'll give you a hint: I'm finally enrolled in grade 10 academic maths yes yes yes yes yesssss!!!!!
... that was five exclamation points, wasn't it. Oops. -takes the underpants off her head-
Anyway, I've already burst the eardrums of my nearest and dearest, so I've come to babble at you, oh PPCers. To make this more than a congratz party, I've a question: what sort of courses do you like to take, for whatever reason? Or liked to take, if you're no longer in any sort of schooling?
I would have liked to have done more math, but I date back to when teachers could get away with telling all the female students that we were genetically incapable of learning it (instead of, you know, actually explaining things). This wasn't exactly an incentive to take more than the minimum requirements. If I had bothered to remember the names of all my junior high and high school math teachers, I might be tempted to photocopy my math-check credits in a few Hero System books and send the copies off to them.
I couldn't get into "Physics For Poets" in college, that course always filled up fast. And yes, that was the real course name, in the catalog and everything. It was a 100-level physics course meant for non-science majors. I did get into the equivalent chemistry course and a 100-level astronomy course, both of those were fun.
I've also enjoyed history since grade school.
I date back to when teachers could get away with telling all the female students that we were genetically incapable of learning it
That stinks several different ways. Eugh, why, why, why, why, why...? Aren't teachers supposed to teach?! rackumfrackumbuggrembuggrit that's so STUPID. Good for you for doing math anyway.
Physics... For Poets. I don't know whether to laugh or get annoyed. I write poems when the mood strikes me, I suppose that makes me a poet, but that doesn't mean I'm not also a scientist at heart! Hell, I'll write sonnets about physics, just give me some time to decide what specific topic it'll be on.
I've only decided history can be awesome recently, mostly because my mum noted that it's a goldmine for story ideas.
Congratulations on getting your Maths course! It always feels good to get the subject you most wanted...especially after having to go through bureaucracy beforehand.
I hope it works out well for you!
I should be getting the stuff... hmmm... on the... 32nd? Wait no that's stupid. July second, I think. That assumes the lower end of 5-10 days, though considering how fast I got the second package of my science I might see it on Saturday or Sunday. If the post works on weekends, I can't remember. Probably next week, though.
Ouch. I didn't actually know that bravo changed its ending - I thought it was just one of those words the English language had adopted (without its accompanying grammar as per usual). I daresay I am also unfamiliar with modern Italian, although I did Latin once.
Well, well, I shall enjoy using this new knowledge. Thanks for the heads-up. Now I can improve and avoid making the same mistake again.
Meanwhile, I hope your postal service is running on top efficiency delivering your Maths books.
The reason I ended it with -/nitpick- is because 'bravo/brava' is one of the things English ganked without accompanying grammar but I've seen/heard the grammar sometimes used anyway. Sometimes. So in English I think it's more of a personal choice, whether to use 'bravo' indiscriminately or to use the masc/fem version depending on who you're talking to, and either way is correct.
I hope so tooooo -impatient bouncing-
New knowledge is always useful and I appreciate it.
Sorry about the late reply - I've been a bit busy.
Have you got your books yet?
Ffff, I'd completely forgotten about those. No, no math texts on the horizon, but I did get 99% on my second unit of science. Whooooo!
Nice one! 99% is one off perfect, and that's not bad at all (extremely good in fact). Good luck with the rest!
Art. Art. I really like art courses. Screw accounting (my major; bleh, but it'll pay the bills later), I want freakin' art!
I'm not in the same boat as you as far as classes are going, but I can't take any practical application art courses until next year. It annoys me. *sighs*
Have some cake. It has sprinkles. :)
Heh, art. My score in the required art course is a blight on my average (71%. Next lowest is 87%. Aaaai) but once I got that over with I remembered that I actually liked art and am occasionally even good at it.
I've still got to wait until the actual texts for math arrive, aaargh. And I'm waiting on the mark for my second unit of science - come on, guys, what's the hooolduuuup... okay so it took them about three days to mark the first unit too, I'm still going to bounce off the walls until I see if I got another 100.
It's always good to get news like that. :D
I remember back when I was doing my A-levels, I had to go through a bit of an annoying wait to find out what courses I could do.
In my first year at college, I'd wanted to study German as an AS level. Sadly, due to my high school teacher being an utter incompetent, I didn't have the required grade and was instead told to try a fast-track Spanish GCSE and do a fast-track Spanish AS/A level the next year instead so I'd still have two languages on my record (I was taking French too, and was rather better at that). I was kinda gutted, but agreed.
For various reasons, that year of college was rather a disaster. I pretty much failed all my AS courses (French, Sociology and Business Studies) but got a pass on the Spanish GCSE. I ended up requesting to re-sit my first year of college and swap Business Studies (which I loathed and had taken only because I thought I should) for Drama and Theatre Studies. They weren't too keen on me doing either - in England resitting an entire year isn't something that's done very often - and tried pointing out that I had no previous Drama qualifications.
I had a bit of a tussle with them over it, but eventually they relented and allowed me to re-register as a first-year, on the proviso that I'd only get into the subjects I wanted if there was room after all the "legitimate" first-years had got what they wanted.
The phone call saying I'd got into all four of the AS levels I wanted was awesome. I think I deafened my mum and her friends when I got off the phone.
I've had a love for drama activities since I was in my teens and my friends gently bullied my extremely shy and withdrawn self into taking part in the annual school musical. (I say bullied, they just dragged me along to auditions, got me to practice the songs with them - no hard thing given I love singing - and then poked me through the door when it came time to actually audition.) It did a lot for me, and it was fun, so I rather fell in love with the idea.
Bleh, incompetence on the part of others is never fun, and bureaucratic nonsense is worse.
My mum thought I'd got another 100% on something when she heard me shrieking in glee about getting enrolled into maths... nnnnnope! :D
Mathematics has always been my favourite subject, along with physics and chemistry. This might explain why I'm enrolled in physics at the University this year...
So, grade 10 math, eh? I think you're going to take on trigonometry this year. A word of advice: SOHCAHTOA. Let it be burned into your soul. If you've got that down, then most trig problems aren't going to pose any problems... unless you've set your calculator to radian mode, which one of my friends did for an exam. Answers come out very differently if you enter things in radians.
Oh, that reminds me... if you're considering taking physics in the future take calculus first. Seriously, I took IB physics without the power of calculus, and realized one year later that I could have simply differentiated and integrated my way though 70% of the problems (darn you, simple harmonic motion!).
I've no idea what I want to do in university... but it'll probably be sciencey, and more probably mathematical.
Oh, I know SOHCAHTOA :D Last year or the year before in the enriched maths I learned it, the levels are 5/6 7/8 9/10 11/12 so at 9/10 I learned about both grade 9 things and grade 10 things, including a bit of trig. Sine, opposite and hypotenuse; cosine, adjacent and hypotenuse; tangent, opposite and adjacent. Right?
Calculus... calculus... Oh dear. I'll be taking my first physics-on-its-own course in grade 11, but my first definitely-got-calculus course won't be until grade 12... Eeeh, I can always fiddle around with the exact order I take the courses, start in on grade 12 math before I do grade 11 physics... except the calculus course requires another grade 12 course... exactly how much more of a pain was physics without calculus?
If you've got a good teacher, they can show you how to work out a problem without using calculus, but that's the "long way around". For example, instead of calculating bit by bit the total displacement of a moving object when given its velocity equation, you can just differentiate the entire thing and obtain the answer in one go. Simple harmonic motion problems become ridiculously easy when you can differentiate the position equation to find the velocity equation (differentiate again to find acceleration) but become a nightmarish tangle if you haven't memorized certain relevant equations.
But don't worry. Everything gets a whole lot more interesting when you talk about nuclear physics... THAT unit was made of pure awesome.
I don't exactly have teachers to talk to for the correspondence courses, but by the time I get around to the physics courses I should be having the 11/12 level enriched maths sessions every week so I can pick the instructors' brains about calculus... and I think I need to go read up on calculus anyway so I can tell what you're talking about, my eyes are starting to cross. What exactly is differentiating?
Nuclear... physics... ehehehe yes I agree already and all I know is that I'll probably be dealing with it at some point.
All right then, mini calculus lesson.
Differentiating is essentially finding the slope of a line or curve. Suppose you've plotted Y = 9X on a graph. You will get this nice straight line with a slope of exactly 9. That slope is an indicator of how fast your Y-value is changing: in this case, it is increasing at a rate of 9.
Now plot Y = X^2 and take X=2. Your coordinate pair is (2,4). You want to find the slope of X^2 at X=2. The first time I saw this, I thought: "But it's a curve! How am I supposed to find the slope of a curve?"
Now, the interesting stuff starts: try finding the slope of the line between X=3 and X=1. The answer is a slope of 4. Repeat it again using smaller increments closer to X=2: X=1.5 and X=2.5, X=1.75 and X= 2.25, etc... Now, you'll realize that you can't find it precisely at X=2 because the values would cancel each other out (a single point cannot have a slope), but you can get really, really close to the exact value, and that value is 4. If I take X=3 and do the same thing to it, I'll always end up with a slope of 6. If I take X=4, I'll get a slope of 8.
Do you see a pattern emerging here? The slopes of X^2 are determined by the function 2X. I have just differentiated X^2 and can predict the slope of any point on the X^2 curve! This means that I know how fast the Y-value is changing at a precise X-value, and it applies anywhere within the function's domain.
If I take X^3, I'll find that the slope of the X^3 curve is predicted by 3X^2. If I take X^4, I get 4X^3. See another pattern?
I have just demonstrated the power rule to you: the derivative of any function raised to a power can be represented as such:
Derivative of X^n is nX^(n-1).
This is but one of the many rules of differentiation but just as long as you remember that you are looking for the slope of an equation, it'll make a lot more sense.
A practical example: a car's position can be plotted using D= t^2. Find velocity and acceleration at any time t if speed at t=0 is 0 m/s.
1st derivative of position is speed: d/dt= 2t m/s.
2d derivative of position is acceleration (differentiate speed): d^2/dt^2= 2 m/s^2.
...
This will make perfect sense to me as soon as I have an actual graph to look at and can play with the numbers myself, I'm sure of it. I'll bookmark this so I can refer back to it...
In England I've just finished my first year of AS Levels. I'm going to be seventeen by the end of the year aka four days and did my GCSEs last year.
The subjects I took were English Literature, Drama and Theatre Studies, Film Studies and History. Next year I'll drop Drama and Theatre and if I don't get good enough grades to continue the other three as A Level, do an AS in something like Media.
The first year of A Levels is known as AS and three or four subjects is typical. The second year is known as A and three subjects is typical. You have to do a subject at AS to continue it at A.
So in the first year of A levels you can take only AS courses, and then in the second you can take A courses based on your first year of AS courses and/or more AS courses? Interesting and a new tidbit! I like knowing more about the different ways school is set up in different places.
It's so frustrating when bureaucratic nonsense gets in the way of school like that. I definitely had a bit of that in college.
Let's see, courses I liked to take. Once I had the backbone of requirements-for-my-major set up each year, I would usually grab an extra life science course and a literature course for fun. Then, for a few extra course credits, I would grab an elective that felt interesting to me, like Anthropology or Psychology.
At NAU, I also volunteered to help reorganize the jarred animals in the Invertebrate Zoology specimen collection, which netted me three credits over three semesters! (It also taught me that it was possible to talk to girls like normal people.)
I'm chafing about the new 34 high school credit limit just because it means I actually have to pick and choose instead of getting all my required courses, all twelve electives, and then going crazy with everything else. I mean, only four extra over the diploma requirement? Are you crazy? How can I learn everything in 34 credits??
I've got all my courses planned out, and the four that I can deal with not doing, I suppose, if I haaaaave to, are all social sciences. Anthropology/Psychology/Sociology introduction, world religions, philosophy, and something called Challenge and Change in Society that's about how what people know and believe changes over time and following these trends.
Talking to the opposite gender? Like they're... also human? Shock! Horror! Where's my fainting couch? What sort of jarred animals?
We had lots and lots of preserved octopi and squids, and starfish, and all kinds of crabs and lobsters. (Including our mascot, Skippy the slipper lobster! So named because he had been stored in a former peanut butter jar.) Also a few insects and spiders, one of which was a disturbingly large tarantula found in a local garage, according to the label. Also, bedbugs from actual students' dorms! There was also a dry collection of seashells, which a Native American cleaning woman once stopped me to tell me about their significance in her culture. Very cool!
Most of the collection was from the seventies, and had fallen into disrepair before my Invert Bio teacher inherited it. Two girls and I volunteered to help him out with cataloging and re-preserving things that had run out of formaldehyde. There were some sad sights. Crabs that had dissolved into a puzzle of limbs and carapace bits. Sea slugs that had lost all their formaldehyde and shriveled into teeny little raisins (although amazingly, adding new formaldehyde actually restored some of those to the point where they almost looked living again). Also, we finally figured out why the room smelled just a bit worse than it should: a bucket of squids whose lid had never quite been fastened on all the way had been sitting behind the door under a pile of other buckets since about 1990.
. . . That kind of got long-winded. Sorry!
A... bucket of... squids. Sitting there. Since 1990. What.
Also, hee at the mascot stored in a peanut butter jar. And the locally-found bedbugs.
Why did the crabs dissolve?
Without any formaldehyde, the fleshy bits rotted away, and then the exoskeleton was too brittle to stay together. *shrug*
Aaah. Using the word 'dissolve' instead of 'rot' threw me off.
Well, I've just finished school – in fact, I had my last final today. Now, the system here in Israel works this way: You have to take some mandatory subjects (other words: English, Math, PE, History, Bible AKA Reading Comprehension, Literature AKA Mostly Horrible Poetry, Civics, and Grammar), as well as at least two optionals.
English and Math you get to choose the level – three points is the easiest, five the hardest. I took five English (though it's still, like all other levels, three finals and a project, which I wrote on JS Bach) and four Math.
My optionals were Cinema – three points theoretical, which is pretty fun (if the movie is good) and laughably easy (100s with no preparation at all, ho!), and two points practical, which is really hard (especially if, like me, you've an incompetent editor and a lazy cameraman. Oh, and irresponsible actors) but fun and satisfying; and Philosophy, which is really fun, but hard – I think the philosophy tests were the hardest I had ever. Sad thing is, I wrote eight pages for each of the last two tests (the semi-final and the final) and probably I was the most laconic person in the classroom.
Also, instead of doing a test in Grammar, I decided to do a project in Linguistics (it ended being Discourse Analysis, which is slotted between Linguistics and Sociology, but eh). It was supposed to be large, but not university-large, highschool-large. It ballooned to the 25-page area (with the appendices, it is a whopping 61 pages) and is large enough (and has enough material, original research etc), AFAIK (and so my mom tells me), to be a BA project. It's in its closing stages; I've just some small fixes to make. Hopefully I'll make it to the deadline (it's a long story, but the project's belatedness can be chalked down to three major factors: the Ministry of Education's bureaucracy – other words, the Grammar department head taking weeks to read a page-and-a-half-long research proposal, communication problems between my advisor and me and her accursed perfectionism).
PS: I live in Israel. Here is a link to a Wikipedia article that gives some background info.
Congratulations on finishing school!
Mandatory subjects are also something I have to do. Four English credits, one per grade; three math, one in either 11 or 12; 2 science... ah screwit have a link that says the requirements for a high school diploma. I'm going with the highest level courses I can (academic in 9 and 10, university prep for 11 and 12) and I'm only not taking every single math, science, and English course because taking anything not in the most academic stream would be a waste of my time. I'm also taking 4 extra courses to take shameless advantage of the 34-course maximum which incidentally was only added recently. Boo, hiss, my options are already limited and I still had to flip coins to decide on my final courses.
Among my 12 planned whatever-you-want elective courses are pretty much all the science, most of the math, a course on Canadian law because it sounded interesting, and two history courses (world history to 16th century and world history from 16th century to now) to follow on from the required one (Canadian history since World War 1). For my first group of limited electives I'm going with the Writer's Craft, which I am very happy about having available because creative writing is my lifeblood.
There's also a provincial literacy test, supposedly to be taken at the end of grade 9, that as a student outside of a school I can't actually take until I've got eight credits. There are only 6 available grade 9 courses so even though I'm already done with those I can't do the durn thing yet! >:( [Bleep]ing bureaucracy. All the more reason to just get my schoolwork done, though, I know I can do things both incredibly fast and very well...
Thank you. I am really glad this is behind my back. Next thing is either university (if I can get into the Academic Reserve) or Army service, preferably in the Air Force (both my father and his father were in the Air Force; granddad was a technician and dad dealt with computers).
Regarding bureaucracy: Just when you think a bureaucrat can't get more incompetent, he will. Example: I got a new mobilisation order today (it's for October 21st, though, so no rush). The only difference from the last one, sent three months ago? The ink's hue.
Or take this for an example: They sent me an invitation to a conference. The conference was four days ago, at the 25th. I got the invitation three days ago, at the 26th. >.
Good luck on getting where you want to go!
-sigh- Seriously? Just... just the ink? Oi vey. And that invitation thing boggles the mind.
Though, the jewel in crown is this: I tried to get into the IDF Spokeperson Unit. I passed the first sorting easily enough, and waited for them to summon me to the second stage. Usually, they send a summons by mail. They didn't do so. They informed me twelve hours before the second stage, by SMS, that I have to be at a certain army base. Just... eh.
At least I live two hours' car-ride away. Someone I know lives in a hole in the middle of nowhere in the Golan. Got the same twelve-hour warning; they had to wake up in the middle of the night and rush to the car.
D: Twelve. Hours. Warning. By SMS. What in the Glaurunging Glaurung of Glaurungs. I think the right word here is 'unprofessional'...
-Chuckles bitterly-
Well, at least it explains how Hezbollah beat the IDF in the Second Lebanon War. If the IDF can't even get things to their recruits on time...