Hi,
How do you decide the amount of study time to allocate to each subject? The current "ratios" of study I've got planned are Physics (17%), Chemistry (17%), English (14%), Mathematics Extension 1 (Inclusive of 2 unit) (17%), Mathematics Extension 2 (31%) and Economics (3%) (I'm thinning of dropping it).
Thanks
It all really depends on your ability in those subjects. In the subjects you are not as good in, I would focus more on these to improving them to the same level as the other subjects. Saying that I think you need to spend more time on English because it will be included in your atar mark no matter what and can significantly impact the atar as I have seen many people who got relatively high marks in their other subjects but their English mark was much lower and it impacted their atar quite a bit.
Yea I was going to say this as well
Your main goal in the HSC is to maintain/improve good ranks in order to maximise your ATAR. In order to do this, you need to ensure you have a timetable and have allocated time slots to certain things you need to do for the day (this doesn't work for everyone though, some other people would usually have a 'to do' list and do whatever they need to do for the day and after that they will take a break for the rest of the day given that they have completed the neccessary tasks). In terms of allocating study time to certain subjects, you need to think about what your weak at and work from there (not just which subject you're weak at but also what sort of content in a certain subhect you have struggled with in class). If you english is your weakest subject (which it is for many students), it is essential that you spend a lot of time on english and try to focus on what your weak at. Good at doing short answer responses for the Area of study but not good at writing essays since you always retell unnecessary information? What you need to do is rather than work on Short answer responses, you put more time and effort into writing essays so you actually talk conceptually as opposed to retelling (idk if you do this though but I am giving you an example). Essentially the same concept applies to all other subjects
Say your ranks were like this (I am 99% wrong on this)
English Advanced: 10/98
3U maths: 4/7
4U maths: 3/22
Physics: 12/53
Chemistry: 47/85
Economics: 34/100
You dedicate the most time in your worst rank and just focus specifically what you're weak at as opposed to what you already know (like I explained above)
Now say your ranks were:
eng adv: 90/98
3U maths: 1st
4U maths: 1st
Chemistry: 1st
Physics: 1st
Economics: 1st
Essentially English is going to drag your ATAR down since it's your lowest rank. Since you're first in all your other subs, it's essential that you sacrifice time from those subjects and improve on English. Good at the area of study but bad at the modules? Maybe you should spend more time on focusing on Modules and focusing on what you are weak at and learn to improve from there
I know a lot of the stuff I said was made up (especially ranks) but I hope this helps you put into perspective how much time you should allocate per subject and of course you will need to change it every now and then as your ranks for each subject will change frequently
