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Paper 3 Options


Slovakov

  

52 members have voted

  1. 1. Which option for Paper 3 are you taking?

    • Statistics and Probability
      18
    • Sets, relations and groups
      11
    • Series and differential equations
      20
    • Discrete mathematics
      3


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There've been plenty of topics about P3, so I just wonder which options are most often chosen for this exam? Which one you think is the easiest and which the hardest?

I'm taking Sets, relations and groups. It was a choice of my math teacher, and, to be honest, I find it rather weird.

Edited by Slovakov
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Same with me. Not only is it weird but simply useless. This chapter appears only on some advanced mathematical studies. To my knowledge statistics appear on every university course with mathematics. In my school it was also a choice of a teacher.

I'd call it "abstract" rather than "weird" :P

It is certainly not useless, but you're correct in saying that you'll most probably not encounter group theory at university unless you're studying for degree in mathematics, or possibly also physics.

We're also taking it, and I personally love it.

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Why do so many people take stats? I hate statistics... My teacher hated it too, so we are not taking it.

At first I wanted to take series and differential equations because I thought I may need it for computer science (wanted to take this major...) but our teacher insisted on teaching discrete maths. We are a class of 4 so our teacher was willing to consider our thoughts on what option to take. Then after we finished studying integration I decided I hated calculus so I might go for discrete maths. But then that time our teacher said she would like to choose series and differential equations (she changed her mind) sooo we are finally taking that option -.- I wish we did discrete instead.. Teacher said we don't need to memorise anything for discrete math -.- I hate memorising thus I prefer discrete math..but anyway, I hope series and differential equations is not that bad. Perhaps... We haven't started studying our option.

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I recently finished Discrete Maths, and I can say that everything that is not proof based (algorithm or number based), is quite doable, whereas the proofs are really hard.

I slightly wish we did Series and Differential Equations because then I would be able to skip some more university math, but oh well. :)

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I do stats & prob. I don't think I really understood it overall because I personally do not think that is maths. Statistics and Probability should not be classified as maths. But anyhow, I got stuck with that cus our teacher chose it and we did not have a choice. The first few parts are okay since they're just memorising and building up on what we've learnt in core. But significance testing and confidence intervals... Type I & II errors are just so horrible.. and hard to get everything right, especially the degree of freedom.

Thank god for GDCS, or I would've have survived.. (or maybe I didn't, I'll see on July 6th!)

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Why do so many people take stats? I hate statistics... My teacher hated it too, so we are not taking it.

At first I wanted to take series and differential equations because I thought I may need it for computer science (wanted to take this major...) but our teacher insisted on teaching discrete maths. We are a class of 4 so our teacher was willing to consider our thoughts on what option to take. Then after we finished studying integration I decided I hated calculus so I might go for discrete maths. But then that time our teacher said she would like to choose series and differential equations (she changed her mind) sooo we are finally taking that option -.- I wish we did discrete instead.. Teacher said we don't need to memorise anything for discrete math -.- I hate memorising thus I prefer discrete math..but anyway, I hope series and differential equations is not that bad. Perhaps... We haven't started studying our option.

Just a detail. I think discrete is the one more closely related to computer science. :P

Though numerical methods and generally methods of approximation are also pretty useful. (And Series and Diff. Eqs provide exactly that mindset)

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We did Paper 3 Sets, Relations and Group theory for our class. And I think it is the easiest topic in the whole of the maths syllabus. I absolutely LOVED Paper 3 (Sets & Relations)

Esp. drawing out the cayley table for free marks...and proving equivalance relations, bijectivity, one step sub group test and proving a group.

My adivce...make sure you have an awesome teacher teaching you. Otherwise you will be losttttt

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