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HELP for yr11 Subject selection!! (1 Viewer)

TooSoon

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In my opinion, no.

Personally, I believe your best bet is to pick the subjects you would enjoy doing. If you pick subjects you like, its easier to remain motivated and therefore do better in the long term.

I am currently studying HSC Business Studies - fair warning, very little is applicable to real business situations from what I have found, and if you combine it with Economics (as I did in Year 11), you find it rather infuriating over time. The textbook we use Business Studies in Action descends into 'management-speak' quite often - you know, the stuff where they ramble on about 'synergy', and a large chunk of the course is about being ethically and environmentally responsible. Not trying to scare you off, or anything - but I found it very different to what I expected.

If you aren't interested in Physics, don't do it. Simple as that. Fuck how it scales, fuck how it influences your ATAR, fuck how it combines with MX1 rather well. If you aren't interested, you WILL NOT do well unless you're ridiculously motivated.

In my opinion, if you intend on going into a Business-based Uni degree, Economics is infinitely more useful than Business Studies - but that's my personal opinion.

So, yeah - do whatever you want to do as subjects. If you're committed and do well in them, you can get any ATAR with your subject combination.
Thanks for the honesty, it sounds like what I wouldn't expect. But I think I better give it a go first in yr 11 though, so I don't get frustrated I didn't pick it. What do you mean by infuriating ?
 

enoilgam

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I doubt I would be able to do that much maths. I would crash and burns haha wbu ?
At one point I considered 4 unit, but realistically I just barely had the skills needed for 3 unit (which I ended up dropping heading into year 12). As I have said before, I was very good at maths, but I was never great at it.
 

TooSoon

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I think I'm a lot like you in terms of maths. Thanks for your help today :) you must have a lot of spare time haha
 

enoilgam

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I think I'm a lot like you in terms of maths. Thanks for your help today :) you must have a lot of spare time haha
No problem. I'm pretty much always around - doing a bit of work and a bit of BOSing.
 

iSplicer

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In my opinion, no.

Personally, I believe your best bet is to pick the subjects you would enjoy doing. If you pick subjects you like, its easier to remain motivated and therefore do better in the long term.

I am currently studying HSC Business Studies - fair warning, very little is applicable to real business situations from what I have found, and if you combine it with Economics (as I did in Year 11), you find it rather infuriating over time. The textbook we use Business Studies in Action descends into 'management-speak' quite often - you know, the stuff where they ramble on about 'synergy', and a large chunk of the course is about being ethically and environmentally responsible. Not trying to scare you off, or anything - but I found it very different to what I expected.

If you aren't interested in Physics, don't do it. Simple as that. Fuck how it scales, fuck how it influences your ATAR, fuck how it combines with MX1 rather well. If you aren't interested, you WILL NOT do well unless you're ridiculously motivated.

In my opinion, if you intend on going into a Business-based Uni degree, Economics is infinitely more useful than Business Studies - but that's my personal opinion.

So, yeah - do whatever you want to do as subjects. If you're committed and do well in them, you can get any ATAR with your subject combination.
... again, it depends which ATAR OP is aiming for.
 

Cl324

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You should only consider 4 unit if you are doing very well in MX1.
I disagree. You should do 4u if you're not disastrous at 3u. MX2 scales so so incredibly well, its as close to a failsafe subject you can get.

To put it in perspective, if you bomb 4u and 75% of the state beat you, your scaled mark will be 83. That will be equivalent to a person who came in at the top 5% of business studies, or be significantly higher than somebody who came in the top 1% of standard english. If you got a scaled mark of 83 for all of your subjects, your ATAR will be equivalent to 96.5

So solely from an ATAR perspective you should absolutely do mx2 however I do agree that it can be a bit overwhelming. And because its a course designed so that you aren't suppose to excel in the exams, getting mediocre marks can be demotivating.

But I do recommend at least giving it a go because I can guarantee you that whatever you end up choosing, 4u will never be your worst subject.
 

enoilgam

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I disagree. You should do 4u if you're not disastrous at 3u. MX2 scales so so incredibly well, its as close to a failsafe subject you can get.

To put it in perspective, if you bomb 4u and 75% of the state beat you, your scaled mark will be 83. That will be equivalent to a person who came in at the top 5% of business studies, or be significantly higher than somebody who came in the top 1% of standard english. If you got a scaled mark of 83 for all of your subjects, your ATAR will be equivalent to 96.5

So solely from an ATAR perspective you should absolutely do mx2 however I do agree that it can be a bit overwhelming. And because its a course designed so that you aren't suppose to excel in the exams, getting mediocre marks can be demotivating.

But I do recommend at least giving it a go because I can guarantee you that whatever you end up choosing, 4u will never be your worst subject.
It depends on the person really - very few people have the mathematical prowess to undertake 4 unit and score a mark which would scale well.

Dont forget, the stats for MX2 look so appealling because few students do it (iirc 4000). Most of those students are highly capable, which is why the marks and stats appear so dazzling. Also, many schools place tight restrictions on who can do MX2, which contributes to the competitiveness of the cohort. At my school, 2 unit and 3 unit were restricted, which greatly reduced the amount of people who could do 4 unit (25/160 were eligible). From there, the school only allowed 10 people from MX1 to undertake the subject. Obviously these standards vary from school to school, but nonetheless many schools place restrictions on 4 unit, meaning that the cohort that completes it is highly capable.

Compare this to business studies, where hardly any schools restrict people from doing it. Yes, the if you come in the top 75% of MX2 it will scale equal to coming in the top 5% of business studies, but tbh I would say coming in the top 75% of MX2 is almost as difficult as coming in the top 5% of business studies.

EDIT: I do think its worth a try though if you are doing ok at 3 unit. I have said many times before that you should widen your options in year 12 and giving MX2 a go is definitely something to consider. I guess my point is MX2 performs very well in terms of scaling and aligning for a reason - it is very difficult. It is not a magical elixur which can lift anybodies ATAR skyward - you need to be very capable in maths in order to fully take advantage of its benefits. Unfortunately, there arent many people who are capable of this level of maths.
 
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iSplicer

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I disagree. You should do 4u if you're not disastrous at 3u. MX2 scales so so incredibly well, its as close to a failsafe subject you can get.

To put it in perspective, if you bomb 4u and 75% of the state beat you, your scaled mark will be 83. That will be equivalent to a person who came in at the top 5% of business studies, or be significantly higher than somebody who came in the top 1% of standard english. If you got a scaled mark of 83 for all of your subjects, your ATAR will be equivalent to 96.5

So solely from an ATAR perspective you should absolutely do mx2 however I do agree that it can be a bit overwhelming. And because its a course designed so that you aren't suppose to excel in the exams, getting mediocre marks can be demotivating.

But I do recommend at least giving it a go because I can guarantee you that whatever you end up choosing, 4u will never be your worst subject.
+1.
 

shravan_872

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I'd say economics, extension maths and physics are great subjects...
 

Cl324

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It depends on the person really - very few people have the mathematical prowess to undertake 4 unit and score a mark which would scale well.

Compare this to business studies, where hardly any schools restrict people from doing it. Yes, the if you come in the top 75% of MX2 it will scale equal to coming in the top 5% of business studies, but tbh I would say coming in the top 75% of MX2 is almost as difficult as coming in the top 5% of business studies.
Good point, and I definitely agree, it probably is as hard to get for the average person to get top 75% in MX2 as it is to come top 5% in business. But out of the ~70000 people who do the HSC only 8000 do MX1 so just by that I'm going to assume that OP is already better than 90% of the state at maths.

And you know even if you fail harder and come like bottom 15% in MX2, it still wouldnt be thatt bad.

Give it a go even if it scares you. It can reward you greatly for little risk. You can always drop back down.
 

TooSoon

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I disagree. You should do 4u if you're not disastrous at 3u. MX2 scales so so incredibly well, its as close to a failsafe subject you can get.

To put it in perspective, if you bomb 4u and 75% of the state beat you, your scaled mark will be 83. That will be equivalent to a person who came in at the top 5% of business studies, or be significantly higher than somebody who came in the top 1% of standard english. If you got a scaled mark of 83 for all of your subjects, your ATAR will be equivalent to 96.5

So solely from an ATAR perspective you should absolutely do mx2 however I do agree that it can be a bit overwhelming. And because its a course designed so that you aren't suppose to excel in the exams, getting mediocre marks can be demotivating.

But I do recommend at least giving it a go because I can guarantee you that whatever you end up choosing, 4u will never be your worst subject.
How many maths classes would you have a week if you did MX2?
 

planino

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Oh and do economics, it's a great, interesting subject that scales quite well (but aligns badly). I've also found a lot of its concepts applicable to real life, and this really appreciates my interest in it.

However it's not necessarily easy (at least for me)
 

enoilgam

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How many maths classes would you have a week if you did MX2?
It depends on how many periods you have per day. At my high school, the MX2 people were doing 7.5 hours per week on average - with some classes taking place outside the timetable (i.e. early morning).
 

studyhappy

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don't do physics if you aren't interested; you'll find it difficult and annoying! and it has nothing to do with business (which by the sound of it, is what you want to do in the future!)
 

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