Help! Please (1 Viewer)

[Sangfroid]

I currently take 13 units in the HSC course (Eng Adv., Maths 2 unit, Business Studies, IPT, Ancient Hist, Biology & Eng Ext 1), and I'm considering that I need to drop a 2 unit subject - a juggle between Biology & Ancient History.

I regards to my performance, I've been failing biology - partial to my lack of effort but also due to me strength not being in it as a subject to begin with. Ancient History, on the other hand, I've been in the 80%, but there's one problem.

I'm doing Ancient History (NOW, the 2nd year of HSC, I had a teacher during Prelim) by correspondance through OTEN (distance ed). I understand that without a teacher I'm likely to get lower than I would with one (well, I do have a 'support' teacher to see me a period a week), but I'm still not really sure.

Previously, the notion that biology 'scales' your UAI really well being one of the sciences made me less certain about dropping Bio, but I'm still not quite sure.

Advice in any shape or form is appreciated, please. :]

 

[me121]

To help try and put it in perspective a HSC mark of 88 in Biology will result in the same count towards your UAI as a HSC mark of 90 in Ancient History. However this was only the case for 2007 and it changes from year to year. Also the scale is not linear so its not like ancient will always be 2 above bio.

However you must consider how you think you will go in each of these subjects. There is no point in choosing Ancient because you think it scales a bit more, if you would of ended up having a higher ancient mark than bio.

As you noted, there are also other factors to consider. I suggest you talk to your teachers and get their advice. Although each teacher will probably be bias towards the subject they teach. In the end, especially as the difference in scaling between these subjects is almost nothing, you should not make your decision based on scaling, rather how you think you will go in this subject in the HSC, if you think you will need the subject for future work/education, how much you like the subject and any other factors.

 

[bubbly89]

Doing distance ed is definitely harder, but its completely doable.

My brother did distance ed for a few subjects and he still got a 94 UAI

Also about two years ago I was looking at the schools with the highest ENTER averages, well the second highest average was 98.5, and it was from a country Victorian school, I was like.. umm wtf? :s then I realised the entire grade consisted of one dedicated student who did pretty much ALL his subjects via distance ed as getting a teacher was impractical.

 

[ssglain]

Choose the subject that you enjoy learning and are doing well in - Ancient History in this case.

In my opinion, scaling should be one of the last things considered in terms of subject selection - and it should only be considered if your interest and strength in two subjects are equal. Yes, it is true that given the same HSC mark in Biology and Ancient History, the former will contribute more to your scaled aggregate (which is what your UAI rank is based on) - but if you lack both interest and strength in Biology, how likely is it that your HSC mark in Biology will be anywhere near what you might receive for Ancient History? So would you prefer, say, 60 in Bio or 90 in Ancienct History?

 

[live.fast]

Choose Ancient history! From what I've read of your situation, history seems the way to go. And any subject scales well if you do well in it! loll

 

[-WaxingLyrical-]

I'd say go with Ancient, and drop Bio.

You've already said that Biology is not a particular strength of yours, even if you haven't put as much effort into it as you could have. Consider that you were failing bio even with a teacher. If you're not as interested in it as ancient, and you're doing much better in ancient, then I don't see that there's any particular reason in keeping it.

Also, while bio might scale more, it doesn't scale your UAI "really well". It also has a lot of course content, and if you're not willing to put in the effort, just drop it.

Plus, by dropping, you'll have more time to spend on your other subjects including ancient, and that extra time could be used to boost your marks in ancient so you can do extra work to make up for being taught via correspondence.

Good luck.

 

[minijumbuk]

Biology does NOT scale you really well. It's the least scaling subject out of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (of course food science, senior science, and environmental science is even less). Biology only scales you up a bit.

I doubt you'd get any good scaling out of failing marks though.

Not sure if it's too late or not, but can you still drop to senior science? If you're allowed, you can try that. Senior science is super easy xD

For the moment, I'd say keep both. Think about it; if you drop it now, you can't regret and pick it back up. If you DON'T drop it, you can still drop it anytime you wish, and in the mean time, use only the spare time to contribute to biology or something =P

 

[Sangfroid]

Thanks a lot guys - for your comments and advice. I'll consult my teachers before making the final decision, but yep - thanks to one of those BOS threads about scaling I've got it cleared up about how much they exactly contribute to calculating UAI.

Ancient History's definitely one of my strengths, and though I AM doing it by correspondance I'd still think I'd do better in it.

For your information minijumbuk, if I'm failing now it doesn't necessarily mean that I'd fail at the end of the year. =/

 

[nick3157]

do what youre good at and like. theres no point clinging to the notion that ull get a good mark in something just because it scales well - u still need to go well in it for it to scale well

 

[risole91]

drop ancient.

 

[Sophirr]

I'd say drop biology, it seems that ur leaning towards that more, and that u like ancient better, maybe doing it by corrispondence is a good thing because you can do it in your own time and get ahead. I do biology, it dosnt scale that well, and it appears ancient scales higher.
I suggest drop bio and concentrate more in ancient. It also depends on what u want to do when u leave. seek teachers advice yeah? good luck