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Am I screwed with Standard English? (1 Viewer)

Seedonator

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I'm at the end of year 11 right now and basically what's happened is in year 10 when picking my subjects for year 11, I decided to pick Standard English instead of Advanced because I hate English the most but I didn't really know about scaling for ATAR and stuff back then. Later I read that band 6 practically doesn't even exist for Standard English so I tried to move to Advanced English for year 12 but my school wont let me.
My other subjects that I'm planning to do for year 12 are:
Advanced Maths
Biology
Chemistry or Business Studies (leaning towards chemistry)
Physics
I talked to my mum about this and she said to get my dad to contact the school and try to move me again but I don't even know if people are allowed to do Advanced in year 12 if they did Standard in year 11.
 

jimmysmith560

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Moving up to English Advanced from English Standard is not possible, and is one of the main reasons that a number of students are advised to take English Advanced in year 11 and then drop to English Standard if they discover that English Advanced is not for them. This would also make sense, when considering other subjects where the same applies such as:
  • Mathematics Standard, where you cannot move up to Mathematics Advanced in year 12 if you took Mathematics Standard in year 11.
  • Mathematics Advanced, where you cannot move up to Mathematics Extension 1 in year 12 if you only took Mathematics Advanced in year 11.
  • Studies of Religion I, where you cannot move up to Studies of Religion II if you took Studies of Religion I in year 11.
  • Beginners language courses, where you cannot move up to Continuers language courses if you took a Beginners language course in year 11.
The suggestion that band 6's are impossible in English Standard is incorrect. While alignment is generally in favour of English Advanced students, this doesn't necessarily mean that you can't achieve a band 6 in English Standard. What is true, however, is that it might be a bit more difficult for English Standard students to achieve a band 6 as their final mark compared to English Advanced students.

I was meant to take English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D). When I was choosing my subjects for year 11, I was made aware of a timetable clash with IPT, preventing me from taking EAL/D and forcing me to take English Standard as a student who is not a native English speaker and who had only been in Australia for 1 year when I started year 11. In 2019, when I sat my HSC, I was able to achieve a final mark of 83 in English Standard, with 85 as my Examination Mark. The reason I'm telling you this is to make you aware of your ability to achieve a band 6 in English Standard as you will be in a much better position in year 12 than I was about 2 years ago.

You should start to prepare for HSC English Standard to the best of your abilities. A good start would be to go through the syllabus document and to familiarise yourself with the different modules, including different ideas/themes/issues raised within each module. Once you feel you are comfortable with those, you should have a look at your prescribed texts (if you know what they are) as this can make analysing them quite a less demanding experience as you would've gained an idea of what each of your prescribed texts covers (as per their respective modules) in advance. Another thing that can enable you to complement your understanding of Preliminary English Standard in preparation for HSC English Standard is going through a list of techniques you have covered throughout year 11 and all the way until your current point. You will likely need to utilise those techniques frequently going forward (in addition to new ones), whether in analysis or essay writing. Revising what the technique is, how it can be used in a sentence/text as well as the effect it generally has when used in a particular quote/text constitutes a good way of preparing.

Lastly, as you begin to develop your analyses and essay, you should regularly seek feedback from your teacher as seeking feedback will allow you to receive suggestions that you can implement to improve your expressions and analysis (resulting in better quality essays) and regularly doing so will allow for consistent improvements each time you receive feedback. This will become particularly relevant as you commence year 12, meaning it is definitely an important thing to consider.

I hope this helps! :D
 

Seedonator

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Thanks for the reply.
Moving up to English Advanced from English Standard is not possible, and is one of the main reasons that a number of students are advised to take English Advanced in year 11 and then drop to English Standard if they discover that English Advanced is not for them.
Well I guess I have no choice but to absolutely grind English next year.
 

jazz519

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It does have some effect but unless you are trying to get like extremely high atars (like 99+) doing standard is not going to make your ATAR plummet heaps and lead to you not being able to achieve a good ATAR. Lots of people do standard English and get 90+ atars. Even some people do all low scaling subjects like pdhpe, standard maths, standard English, business studies, studies of religion and I saw some of these people get 94 ATARs at my school.
 

Seedonator

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It does have some effect but unless you are trying to get like extremely high atars (like 99+) doing standard is not going to make your ATAR plummet heaps and lead to you not being able to achieve a good ATAR. Lots of people do standard English and get 90+ atars. Even some people do all low scaling subjects like pdhpe, standard maths, standard English, business studies, studies of religion and I saw some of these people get 94 ATARs at my school.
Ah ok, I was under the impression that it'd make a huge drop in my ATAR. I'm aiming for a 91+ (guaranteed entry for my planned course) so hopefully I'll be able to achieve it, thanks!
 

jimmysmith560

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thatsnotme said:
I have subject selection for year 11 soon, I was wondering which one I should take. I am not too confident in English but I am worried that standard scales lower than advanced and I will get low atar. Which one should I take standard or advanced?
As you mentioned, English Advanced has the advantage of superior alignment when compared to English Standard, which is a reason that often results in students choosing English Advanced over English Standard. The good thing is that you can take English Advanced in year 11 and based on your experience, you could make a decision as to whether to keep English Advanced or drop to English Standard as you begin year 12, which comes at no expense given that none of your year 11 results will contribute to your HSC results or ATAR.

With that being said, I think it would safe to suggest that English Advanced is more difficult than English Standard, one of the reasons being that it encompasses more complex texts (this is with reference to year 12) such as classic texts (for example, Shakespeare) as opposed to the more modern texts in the case of English Standard. Of course, I believe that taking English Advanced in year 11 would be the better choice because the option to drop to English Standard remains available, whereas if you take English Standard in year 11, you will not be able to take English Advanced if you change your mind at a later point in time.

I hope this helps! :D
 

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