This is the new Australian Curriculum edition of this bestselling maths study guide for Year 8 Mathematics.
It has been developed because of a need by students, parents, teachers and coaches for a comprehensive, well presented, easy to understand Maths summary book which covers the most important ideas in the recently developed National Year 8 Maths Curriculum throughout Australia.
Understanding Maths Year 8 Australian Curriculum Edition has been developed on the premise that students who wish to achieve confidence and success at this level should:
- Understand all the basic ideas and rules
- Practice these rules and ideas by going through graded exercises
- Understand why and how they made errors, so that hopefully they are reduced or eliminated in further exercises
- Memorise all important rules and formulae
This book has been written to fulfill these 4 vital requirements by incorporating the following benefits:
- Firstly, the book has been split up into the 9 MAJOR IMPORTANT SUB-STRANDS which are covered at all schools in Year 8 throughout Australia (i.e. Number and Place Value, Real Numbers, Patterns & Algebra, Geometric Reasoning, Measurement, Statistics, etc.).
- Each of these major topics has been broken down into a number of simpler ideas and rules, thus saving students valuable TIME in research.
- Most pages cover only one idea or rule, thus giving students CLARITY.
- Each concept is thoroughly, but simply, explained for UNDERSTANDING.
- Each formula, rule or set of steps is highlighted in larger print for ease of MEMORISING.
- Each formula and page contains at least one fully worked example. This not only reinforces understanding, but also shows the student how to APPLY each formula to typical questions.
- At the end of each chapter, there are usually at least 5 comprehensive graded exercises for PRACTICE,which cover all the ideas in the topic. If a student is not sure how to do a particular problem, all they need to do is turn back to the page number shown in order to find a very similar example. (Please read more about these exercises in the next section.)
- In addition, a great deal of extra time and expense has gone into the development of the text presentation, in order to make the subject matter more APPEALING and USER FRIENDLY to this age group.
The exercises in the book are carefully graded into 5 levels to provide confidence and success to lower ability students, while at the same time offering more difficult levels to extend students who have a good grasp of the basic concepts:
EASIER QUESTIONS:
These questions given in level 1 (sometimes also in level 2) are intended to build up confidence. Most of the questions are almost identical to the examples given throughout the chapter – except with the numbers changed. If the student does have difficulty, then he/she can easily refer back to a similar example on the page number shown in the margin.
AVERAGE QUESTIONS:
The questions in Level 2 and Level 3 are of average difficulty level, and will give all students (weak, average & gifted) a good opportunity to practice and consolidate the ideas and rules given throughout most of the chapter. Once again, if a student does have difficulty with a particular problem, then he/she can quickly refer back to a similar example on the page number shown. All students should try to complete and understand the questions in the first 3 levels.
HARDER QUESTIONS:
The questions in this level are more difficult than the ones in level 2 and 3. The numbers involved are larger, and some of the more difficult ideas in the topic are tested. Reference page numbers haven’t been included in the margin, in order to make students who reach this level more skillful in researching through the chapter for their own information. Level 4 should be done by more capable students, or those students who have found earlier levels straightforward.
PROBLEM SOLVING:
This more difficult level has been included to challenge those students who are more gifted at Maths. Usually the questions are more sentence and problem oriented, and therefore they involve more reading and comprehension skills. It is unlikely that any of the questions in this level can be done mentally, because several different ideas, rules or steps are usually required.
EXTENSION QUESTIONS:
As the name implies, these questions cover extension work which is usually more closely related to works in later years. These problems are more suitable for students who are keen and talented in Maths, and who require more stimulation and challenges.
This book will be very beneficial to parents, because it will provide them with a very structured and clear idea of the new syllabus, and what their children should know by the end of Year 8. If their child has a particular problem (say on adding fractions) it is very easy to find the page and explanations relating to that idea – and hence help their child.
Most importantly of all, it will prove to be an excellent text and reference for students of all ability groups. The user friendly and well structured format and layout makes it very much easier for a pupil to thoroughly master one major topic in a relatively short period of time, because it is so easy to see how each new idea is linked to the previous one. It has all the rules and corresponding examples clearly set out topic by topic, page by page. In addition it teaches the pupils to read explanations, as well as to look back and research similar problems.
This book is highly recommended and the series is our number one bestselling series for primary and secondary mathematics.
