10 units or 12? (1 Viewer)

[bengore]

Just moved into year 12 this term.
Now previous year 12 students, you would have received a lecture possibly about keeping 12 units instead of 10.

At the start of this term we received that long lecture from teachers, principal and deputy principal who all say "keep 12 units" all with a heapload of "facts" to back them up (they even handed out a sheet to show
your parents). It says stuff like people who do 10 units dont get as high a UAI as those who do 12 units. 10 unit student become lazier in terms of showing up for classes etc.

Me personally am dropping to 10 units, as i believe it would benefit more
for me, providing me with more study periods and less work outside of
school and a less workload in general.



What are your opinions on keeping 12 units or dropping to 10 units?

 

[veloc1ty]

Well I'm on 11 but opinions aside those facts are probably because a majority of students take the minimum of 10, and if you think about it most students taking 12+ units are more likely to be better organised and motivated. Taking less than 12 doesn't automatically give you a worse UAI; there are many ways to interpret "facts".

So if you think you can get organised and really go well with your 10 (a lot of people I know who have 12 keep the extra 2 as a backup; seems silly to me) then you'll be able to focus on them more and perhaps go better as a result.

 

[davidbarnes]

I'm doing 13 as I know I won't do great in maths.

 

[763259826t35647]

Just moved into year 12 this term.
Now previous year 12 students, you would have received a lecture possibly about keeping 12 units instead of 10.

At the start of this term we received that long lecture from teachers, principal and deputy principal who all say "keep 12 units" all with a heapload of "facts" to back them up (they even handed out a sheet to show
your parents). It says stuff like people who do 10 units dont get as high a UAI as those who do 12 units. 10 unit student become lazier in terms of showing up for classes etc.

Me personally am dropping to 10 units, as i believe it would benefit more
for me, providing me with more study periods and less work outside of
school and a less workload in general.



What are your opinions on keeping 12 units or dropping to 10 units?

I've heard that too, bout 10 uniter's not doing that well and everything, but i think this occurs more because of generasl trends in the type of students picking certain numbers of units. people who are wanting to bludge and not really trying to excel, will always do 10 units as its easier, obviously, whereas people who are desperate to get the awesome uai do extra units to ensure they dont suffer from any poor performances in any subjects. So i don't think those stats are relevant in making the choice, especially as last year in the hsc, 13% of the people who got >99 did 10 units, and thereforw its just as possible to do well.

I rekon the decision between 10 and 12 can sometimes even rely on the type of subjects your doing. Like, if its all maths and sciences, then once you learn the formulas and when to apply, your set, but with essay orientated subjects you can sometimes know everything but get muddled, or even suffer from subjective marking of ur essay and get undeservadly poor marks.

So i rekon if your doin lots of essay subjects, you really should do more than 10, however if not, and your confident in all your subbies, then theres no prob in doin 10.

 

[x.glam]

i agree with you bengore. and it must be true because the really smart people in my grade are only doing 10U as well - that really made me think.

 

[Absolutezero]

I'm doing twelve, but then again, I dropped down from fourteen. Yeah, correspondance was much harder than I expected...

 

[lorikeet]

Hey! just the topic I'm looking for. Ok, at the moment I have 3 major works - EE2, Ext Hist, and art. And unless I do spectacularly badly at any of my subjects (they're on my signature) art is not going to count, cause I can't foresee me doing much better than mid to high 80's...perhaps. And I'm really wondering if it's worth putting in all the effort of deciding on and making my major work in art if it's not even going to count, when I could have 5 extra periods a week for my other 2 biggies if i dropped down to 10.....

But.....

Ahhhh, i guess I'll just keep it a while. who knows, ext maths maybe worse than I expect.

But then if it does count, I'll feel horrible about dropping music 1, which i was like guarenteed a band 6 in but dropped because it was so bludgy i felt i was wasting my time and was embaressed about listing on scholarship applications!

 

[partelephant]

I guess it depends on you but if you feel that you can handle the extra units then I would say by all means stick with it. If you do 10 units then you are basically stuck with them for your UAI and if you bomb one in the HSC then your UAI will suffer accordingly. On the other hand, if you manage to pull an unexpected miracle from somewhere in the subject you intended to drop then good for you.

@ the OP: (I guess it's a bit late to say this now) Don't expect that since you will drop some units you have time to "concentrate on other units" - unless you're super-motivated, you WILL just use that extra time for bludging. I dropped Ext English at the beginning of last year (i.e. after finishing the Prelim course having done a term of the HSC course and which I was scraping a 45-46 in no less) in order to focus on Advanced English and improve my marks there - did I work harder in Advanced as I thought I would? - HELL NO - I basically slept in my free periods.

 

[o.bi.sess]

Just moved into year 12 this term.
Now previous year 12 students, you would have received a lecture possibly about keeping 12 units instead of 10.

At the start of this term we received that long lecture from teachers, principal and deputy principal who all say "keep 12 units" all with a heapload of "facts" to back them up (they even handed out a sheet to show
your parents). It says stuff like people who do 10 units dont get as high a UAI as those who do 12 units. 10 unit student become lazier in terms of showing up for classes etc.

Me personally am dropping to 10 units, as i believe it would benefit more
for me, providing me with more study periods and less work outside of
school and a less workload in general.



What are your opinions on keeping 12 units or dropping to 10 units?

If you're sure about 10 units, then keep with it. If you do pretty well in all your subjects, then the HSC should present no dramas.

A lot of people at my school did 11/12 units for backup, in case they royally screwed themselves over with one of their other subjects, but that is seriously not likely to happen.

If you can manage alright with 12 units and are not stressing out/dying under the pressure, then you can keep it if you want. There's not really any harm in doing so.

The only time you should immediately drop to 10 units is when you can't cope with the pressure of 12 units and it's obvious that the extra 2 units are adversely affecting your other subjects. If that is not the case, then dropping down to 10 is just a personal preference.

For me, doing 12 units was okay, so I kept with it last year, even though I didn't need to do IPT. It was never going to count towards my UAI and it was more my "relaxation" subject than my "backup". Other people I knew dropped down to 10 because they couldn't handle 12 or didn't want to do 12 units even though they could manage it. But I believe that if you really enjoy the extra 2 units and it's not damaging your studies, then keep it. It helps a lot in Year 12 if you do something you truly enjoy.

And the whole extra time does not work, just like partelephant said. You think you will spend the time and energy on your other subjects, but you really don't. Especially the free periods you get in school. Even though I did 12 units, I still bludged all my frees during school because I couldn't be bothered to do anything. It would've been worse if I dropped to 10 units. You really have to force yourself to use the extra time wisely, otherwise dropping 2 units for that reason alone is redundant and you might as well have kept it.

 

[nrs1990]

I have only ten units this year, but I've already completed four, giving me a total of fourteen. The thing is I'm doing both Extension 2's (Maths and English) and at the times when all the assessment tasks come at once, I find it quite stressful.

I'm wondering whether I should drop Legal Studies, or whether I'm better off staying on ten units. Without Legal Studies, I'd sometimes have double free periods (my study period and Legal come one after the other three days out of six), which would hopefully reduce time spent bludging, since I could settle for an extended period of time.

Legal's my least favourite subject, and the time could probably be better spent on the Extension 2's, which do suck up a significant portion of my study time. I'm just wondering if it's a good idea, especially since I'm hoping to study a combined law degree at uni.

 

[Aplus]

It doesn't matter whether you do 10 units or 12+ units. At the end of the day, if you put the effort in, you'll get the marks. Everyone's different. Apparently your principal and deputy principal say that people who do 10 units don't get as high a UAI as those who do 12. But, for each of those people who did not get as high a mark, there will be those who did.

 

[Evilo]

i did 8 units in year 12 (having accellerated 6 hsc units in previous years) - "study periods" wear on you after a while.

 

[Prosper]

Just want to give some input here. My school (selective) is heavily supporting everyone to do the 10 they are best at. Keeping 12 just in case you aren't good in one subject? Remove the subject you aren't sure about, then you're fine with 10.

 

[lorikeet]

You don't need legal studies to do law, they teach you everything you need to know. I say you're better off dropping it and focusing on your other stuff so you get the UAI needed for law!

 

[honeyissweet25]

im doing 11 units its working well so far.

 

[danz90]

Im on 13 units, but it kinda has the feeling of being on 11 units, since at my school, if u do 3unit maths, ur put into one class for both 2unit and 3unit.... in yr11all you do is complete the whole 2unit maths course, and then starting term 4, you start the actual ext1 course... its working good for us. We're going to finish the ext1 course mid-end of term 2, giving us a term of revision.

I actually had seen this table somwhere, showing that there was like a very small proportion of people (or maybe it was 0% even) that got 100 UAI were on 10 units, they were all on like 11 and above. Most people getting around 95-ish UAI were on 11,12 or 13 units.

 

[Chewy Panda]

Well atm I'm doing 12 units
- Economics
- Adv English
- Ext 1 Eng
- Adv Maths
- Ext 1 Maths
- Business Studies
- Modern History

I'm deciding whether to keep all 12 or drop 10...and IF i drop, i would either drop economics OR both my extensions...any suggestions? I'm averaging 70% for economics (although the workload is huge its really causing me problems come exam time so I might get worse :S) while I'm averaging 70% for ext english and 50% for ext maths....what should i do????

 

[Jinpoo]

i honestly dont see the point in keeping 'backup' subjects if theyre there for backup. you wont focus on them, they wont get high marks, and your backup fails.


self-eventuating failure, imho.

 

[Lady Brainwave]

I don't know what school you go to, but at my school we were told it was better to have 10 units because twelve can get to be to much to handle. However they did say it was entirely up to us, but at least by only doing ten you have less exams to cope with

 

[russianROULETTE]

i do ten units. i dropped general maths because it was my worst subject. there was a lot of work and homework, i didn't see the point when i was going to go crap in the exams and not have it counted anyway. it's better without the pressure of extra work and assessments, etc, as well as the fact i hated the class to death. but to be honest i do stuff all in my frees because so many friends have frees at the same time... it just depends whether you're committed or not.

i honestly dont see the point in keeping 'backup' subjects if theyre there for backup. you wont focus on them, they wont get high marks, and your backup fails.

a friend of mine did this, she thought she'd do well in chem so she bludged in her backup, but she ended up failing chem and having to drop it. now she's relying on a subject she's done no work in, all because the 12 unit safety net gave her a false sense of security...