Hello Forum, I would like to know the difficulty of attaining Band 6's for such list of subjects. (1 Viewer)

[SplashJuice]

Im in Year 11 and attend a top 20 school and for Maths I'm top 20 in the cohort, I believe I can E4 both Extension 1 and Extension 2 Mathematics (provided my ranks stay consistent) and I plan to join tutoring for Maths Extension 2 so I can make sure it really happens.

Physics and Chemistry is another story, I don't go to any tutoring and don't plan to because it's expensive. I know that attaining a Band 6 in Physics & Chemistry is quite challenging. Is it possible to attain a band 6 in Physics with zero tutoring? There's is about 5 Physics textbooks I can think of from different companies with their own strengths and weaknesses. If I solidify my knowledge by spamming questions off those 5 textbooks ...will that be enough for a band 6 ?or is this a wrong approach to the subject?

Thanks in advance.

 

[c8]

You have a solid strategy, drawing from multiple textbooks for practice questions, however it honestly depends on your personal studying style so if you have been using that strategy and it's been effective, then continue, if not, look at maybe making notes or having a better understanding of the theory behind the questions. This is also way better to do in year 11, that way you approach year 12 with a strategy you know works for you.

For physics, some people choose to make notes, which can cover basic physics principles or the wordier topics like mod 8, while others don't make notes and instead do heaps of practice questions, like I said, it's up to you but the second half of the HSC phys and chem syllabus get really content heavy. For chemistry, I make notes because there often is some theory alongside the content, but those are useless unless you do practice questions as well so you have to find the right balance. However, I, and I doubt anyone else can, guarantee whether you will get a band 6. Hard work usually pays off for physics and chemistry, however, they are generally quite difficult for some people (hence the tutoring) so I would evaluate how you're allocating time for these subjects if it's not spent going to tutoring, which is not necessary to do well but does help people who have trouble self learning or studying properly.

Also, provided your school is top 20, I wouldn't worry heaps about your rank as the top ranking schools tend to have cohorts very close together. That being said though, aim for the top lol.

Hope that makes sense haha

 

[SplashJuice]

You have a solid strategy, drawing from multiple textbooks for practice questions, however it honestly depends on your personal studying style so if you have been using that strategy and it's been effective, then continue, if not, look at maybe making notes or having a better understanding of the theory behind the questions. This is also way better to do in year 11, that way you approach year 12 with a strategy you know works for you.

For physics, some people choose to make notes, which can cover basic physics principles or the wordier topics like mod 8, while others don't make notes and instead do heaps of practice questions, like I said, it's up to you but the second half of the HSC phys and chem syllabus get really content heavy. For chemistry, I make notes because there often is some theory alongside the content, but those are useless unless you do practice questions as well so you have to find the right balance. However, I, and I doubt anyone else can, guarantee whether you will get a band 6. Hard work usually pays off for physics and chemistry, however, they are generally quite difficult for some people (hence the tutoring) so I would evaluate how you're allocating time for these subjects if it's not spent going to tutoring, which is not necessary to do well but does help people who have trouble self learning or studying properly.

Also, provided your school is top 20, I wouldn't worry heaps about your rank as the top ranking schools tend to have cohorts very close together. That being said though, aim for the top lol.

Hope that makes sense haha

Thanks for the insight! How would you compare year 11 physics to year 12? Much more difficult?

 

[ahri]

Yep, tutoring companies for chem/phys usually just make you do more questions to understand and solidify theory. If you have a good grasp of concepts and are able to practice doing questions a lot you will be able to do well and definitely get a B6. Another helpful resource is Khan Academy, highly recommend their videos if you don't understand a concept!

 

[c8]

Thanks for the insight! How would you compare year 11 physics to year 12? Much more difficult?

Personally, I suck at physics because I hate the subject and loathe the amount of work needed for it. That being said, if you put the work into it it isn't too hard. Year 11 was definitely easier as the concepts (for me personally) were easier to grasp than year 12 which is a lot more abstract (idk if this is the right way to describe it lol). There's also quite a lot of things in year 11 relevant to year 12 like light and waves so I'd say if you find year 11 difficult, then consider dropping the subject if you find it's too difficult or you aren't willing to put work into it especially because there's a history of year 11 stuff in the HSC lmao. However, despite my bad relationship with physics, there's like an overwhelming amount of people who love it and find it actually really easy so with practice it's definitely NOT difficult, unless of course you hate the subject like me haha. OH and year 12 is actually pretty interesting compared to year 11, like mod 7 and 8 are pretty cool and more stereotypical physics stuff

 

[pikachu975]

Im in Year 11 and attend a top 20 school and for Maths I'm top 20 in the cohort, I believe I can E4 both Extension 1 and Extension 2 Mathematics (provided my ranks stay consistent) and I plan to join tutoring for Maths Extension 2 so I can make sure it really happens.

Physics and Chemistry is another story, I don't go to any tutoring and don't plan to because it's expensive. I know that attaining a Band 6 in Physics & Chemistry is quite challenging. Is it possible to attain a band 6 in Physics with zero tutoring? There's is about 5 Physics textbooks I can think of from different companies with their own strengths and weaknesses. If I solidify my knowledge by spamming questions off those 5 textbooks ...will that be enough for a band 6 ?or is this a wrong approach to the subject?

Thanks in advance.

The syllabus changed a little bit but personally found year 12 physics the most interesting - no more stuff about like circuits etc and more interesting stuff like relativity and I don't even remember what else. I had tutoring for physics which definitely helped, but I still think a band 6 was possible without it, it just would've been a lower band 6. The tutoring that I went to (Sigma) basically helped A LOT with the in depth understanding of the content as well as the harder/trickier practice questions.

If I had no tutoring, like for biology, I would've just bought notes off high band 6 students that did the subject and use that plus the stuff you learn in class to consolidate your own notes. Saying this because yes - textbooks do have a lot of good content, but looking at high band 6 notes you can tell which information is important usually for each syllabus dot point. I did use a textbook sometimes for biology, but this was when I was slightly confused for a dot point's in depth info and wanted to confirm/see if they had a better explanation. Using other notes helped. For physics I didn't really find textbooks useful... just using other people's notes and tutoring notes was enough for exams, personally didn't write my own - only for biology I wrote mine.

However I just recommend testing strategies since you're in year 11 and adapting over time. I don't recall textbooks having many questions but if they do it's usually useless or basic level. I'd probably recommend learning the content in a solid way then doing past paper questions. We had 3 sets of trials when I was in the HSC in my school and kept procrastinating for each one, so I only had time to learn the content and not do past papers. And also for the HSC I did around 10 past papers but I didn't mark any of them since my strategy weeks before the HSC was learn content -> papers -> content. I took too much time re-learning the content a few days before the exam and didn't get to mark my papers I did so it wasn't that useful... But personally knowing the content is like more essential than papers (for physics and biology at least). If you just combine the content with good exam technique and answering approach then you can still answer questions without past papers, but if you don't know the content then you can't answer at all.