Look, I am being a little dramatic, I did much better in the Physics Prelim than I did in the Latin Prelim.
My reasoning to keep Latin was I do love the content, essay writing and translation and my class has stuck together through thick and thin and my teacher is absolutely amazing. I had very little passion for Physics and was struggling to keep on top of both the chemistry and physics content. My chemistry has gotten much better since dropping Physics.
Reasons to keep Physics ;
- It is MUCH harder to get a band 6 in Latin than in Physics, the cohort is much smaller and more able (since you don't take Latin all the way through to end not to be kinda good at it, most students will drop Latin after year 7/8 if they find it hard) and thus the band 6 raw mark cut off is much higher (high 80s, low 90s I believe). Remember you are competing against all the grammar kids who finished the OLC in year 10.
- You are maybe more Maths person, Latin Lit analysis and Essay writing is hard and the kids in my class who do english ext 1 definitely flourish in this part of the exam. One of the prescribed texts for next year The Aeneid Book 4 requires in depth analysis of the tragic form.
- Year 12 Latin is a lot of memorizing, you cannot translate the seen part of the exam when you get to it, you do not have time, you have to memorize it and then speed write it in the exam. If you are only doing continuers that is about 600 lines and with extension that is another 500 lines on top. You have to memorise Lit analysis (or maybe you are are really good at writing and don't need to), you don't know which extracts you will be given to analyze.
Reasons to keep Latin;
- You can take Latin extension. In contrast to Latin Continuers, Almost most people will get an E4 in Latin Extension and since Latin is a high scaling language it will definitely contribute to your atar.
- You aren't learning more content. I mean you are, but its basically repetition, you are just translating section after section and practicing the grammar you've learnt rather than learning more things you might not understand (eg phys modules ect). You can start past papers almost as soon as you have done a term of latin, just making sure you skip sections for the translation you haven't done.
- You've come so far! Corny I know, but if your school is anything like mine, you will have been with them for a while and its nice to have that idk.
But TBH it really should be a passion thing. Let me know if you have other questions