• Best of luck to the class of 2024 for their HSC exams. You got this!
    Let us know your thoughts on the HSC exams here
  • YOU can help the next generation of students in the community!
    Share your trial papers and notes on our Notes & Resources page
MedVision ad

is it bad to do 10 units? (1 Viewer)

k150764

Member
Joined
Jan 27, 2008
Messages
79
Gender
Female
HSC
2009
Our teacher gave us an advice on people who are doing 10 units

she actually found statistics of people doing the HSC and she showed us that the people who do 10 units do poorly compared to people who do 12 or 13 units

she said most people who do 10 unit for HSC won't get 90 over UAI

is this true?? she scared me..

my subjects are: mathematics, biology, adv english, ancient history and economics..

because if this is true i'm thinking about picking up extension history just in case..
 

haaychlovesdan

KIK ASS PREMIUM MEMBER
Joined
Sep 10, 2007
Messages
32
Gender
Female
HSC
2008
its not that its a bad thing that you do 10 units.
Its just that you have no room for error.
Your UAI will be calculated with all of your results from all of your exams.
Those people doing 12 units/6 subjects will have their UAI calculated off 5 out of 6 of their subjects. This just means that the subject they do the worst in will not count towards their UAI and may mean the difference between a low and high UAI

As long as you do well in your subjects you should be fine :)
 

Asherah

New Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2008
Messages
7
Location
Wollongong
Gender
Female
HSC
2009
Statistically, people of equal potential do get a higher UAI if they keep a fuller load of subjects. That's not to say that everyone who keeps more will do better, but on average, it's shown that they do.

If you put the work in for 10 units, you can still get a good result, but most teachers are going to encourage you to keep more because your best 10 units are counted. If you mess one up, then it's messed up. Like, if you get a band 4 in something, you need a band 6 to pull your marks back up.
 

Timothy.Siu

Prophet 9
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
3,449
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2009
it is true that there are more people that do better with more units (around 12).
but it isn't bad to do 10 units, its just that u cant do bad in any subject...no back up or safety net so to say
 

-may-cat-

Tired Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2008
Messages
3,472
Gender
Female
HSC
2008
k150764 said:
Our teacher gave us an advice on people who are doing 10 units

she actually found statistics of people doing the HSC and she showed us that the people who do 10 units do poorly compared to people who do 12 or 13 units

she said most people who do 10 unit for HSC won't get 90 over UAI

is this true?? she scared me..

my subjects are: mathematics, biology, adv english, ancient history and economics..

because if this is true i'm thinking about picking up extension history just in case..
It depends on you to be honest, i take 10 units and im confident for a relativly high UAI, but then again, i only took ten as i had multiple major works and figured another subject would destroy me. There is no point in picking up another subject if you are already having trouble coping with the work you have.
 

aimhigh10

Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2008
Messages
567
Gender
Female
HSC
2010
at my school we are only allowed to do 10 units
only if we are doing an extension subject are we allowed to do 11
and its ranked in the top 10

basically as long as you put all your work and work your butt off for those 10 units then you dont need to worry about doing an extra 2 units as backup, because the 10 you do, you have to do them as good as you can
thats what our teachers say anyway
 

shoutoutloud

Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2008
Messages
286
Gender
Female
HSC
2009
hey,
well its not the end of the world but you have to work ulta hard as you have no room for error :D
 

Aplus

Active Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2007
Messages
2,384
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
k150764 said:
she said most people who do 10 unit for HSC won't get 90 over UAI
Bullshit exaggeration.
 

chltmddus112

Member
Joined
Jul 27, 2008
Messages
156
Gender
Male
HSC
2009
You can still get 99+ with 10 units, but its just too risky.

Doing more than 10 units will be safer because you will have back up units just in

case u do poorly in one of the subjects which you thought u will do well
 

moll.

Learn to science.
Joined
Aug 19, 2008
Messages
3,545
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
It's not true.
At my school we're encouraged to only do 10 units, cos otherwise it's a waste of time.
We are, however, told to make sure we pick the right ten units, and not do what we all think we're good at our even worse, what our friends are doing.
Cos if you don't choose what you enjoy, then you're not going to do well in it.
 

timobr0

Ευθήμιος
Joined
Aug 30, 2005
Messages
450
Location
Eastern Suburbs
Gender
Male
HSC
2006
k150764 said:
Our teacher gave us an advice on people who are doing 10 units

she actually found statistics of people doing the HSC and she showed us that the people who do 10 units do poorly compared to people who do 12 or 13 units

she said most people who do 10 unit for HSC won't get 90 over UAI

is this true?? she scared me..

my subjects are: mathematics, biology, adv english, ancient history and economics..

because if this is true i'm thinking about picking up extension history just in case..
The people who do 12+ units that say get over 90 would still get over 90 if they did 10 units. "Better" students are more inclined to be interested in taking on more than the minimum but it in no way is the reason they get said uai. Sure you can say that you don't have a safety net, but if you're going to use that argument, then you might as well keep going and take up 14 units just in case you screw up 2 subjects and so on. Your teacher should know better.......
 

TunaFish

Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2007
Messages
255
Location
somewhere over the rainbow, way up high.
Gender
Female
HSC
2009
If you do 12 units: there's a safety net.
10 units: you have more time to focus on the subjects you chose to do, putting you at a slight advantage compared to students doing 10+ units.

Statistically your teacher is right. But a lot of people who complete the HSC have a "don't give a damn" attitude and settle on doing the least possible number of units to receive a Higher School Certificate. I guess they would drag down the average UAIs for people who complete 10 units...?

Anyway, you shouldn't pick up extension History just because of what your teacher told you. A 90+ UAI is possible with any combination/number of units.
 
Last edited:

youngminii

Banned
Joined
Feb 13, 2008
Messages
2,083
Gender
Male
HSC
2009
k150764 said:
she actually found statistics of people doing the HSC and she showed us that the people who do 10 units do poorly compared to people who do 12 or 13 units
That's simply because all the bludgers (ie. <60 UAI or whatever) who don't give a shit about HSC do 10 units to breeze through school quickest.
Therefore the people that do 10 units include smart people AND dumbnut people
Whereas people that do more than 10 units don't have any of the dumbnut people

Anyways, I think you should drop down to 11 (like me)
But you know, it's your choice
See how you go this term, then choose later in year 12
 

lyounamu

Reborn
Joined
Oct 28, 2007
Messages
9,998
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
What the hell...

No, it's NOT risky. It really depends on individuals. On a comparative sense, it is LESS risky to carry 10 units because you have less units to care about in comparison to others who do 10+ units.

Some people have commented on how it is more risky having 10 units because they can potentially screw up the one subject but isn't it more likely that you will screw the subject up if you have less time for it?

I reckon doing 10 units is the best thing if you know what you are doing. If you are similarly good at all your subjects, it's best to go with more than 10 units to clearly establish where you are better at. If you have 10 units of the best subjects of your own, that's probably the best way to go.

It's not necessarily "safer" to have more than 10 units. As I said, it highly depends on individuals.
 

Claudeski

Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2008
Messages
70
Gender
Male
HSC
2009
The problem here is that most people (not everyone) who do 10 units are the ones that want to do the least amount of work and don't necessarily want to get a high UAI and would get a lower UAI anyway. If you're a decent worker then doing 10 units would be ok, albeit a bit risky if you screw up in a subject.

Basically if you use the extra time for working on the other subjects it should be ok and you might receive a higher UAI than if you did 11+
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2008
Messages
526
Gender
Female
HSC
2008
Franman said:
Sure there is more risk involved in doing 10 units but your chances don't automatically drop enormously.

With the statistics, that's just saying that the previous years with 10 units did not do as well than those who have more than 10 units. The statistics has no impact on your performance. People with more than 10 units need to be more organised hence why they might perform better.

So don't be scared with 10 units, just stay organised and motivated and everything will be sweet.
imo opinion the only reason to keep 12 unit's is as a back up if you bomb out in one exam then it will not count unless it is english..
i do 11
 

moll.

Learn to science.
Joined
Aug 19, 2008
Messages
3,545
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
want2bdifferent said:
imo opinion the only reason to keep 12 unit's is as a back up if you bomb out in one exam then it will not count unless it is english..
i do 11
That's just annoying.
 

proringz

Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2007
Messages
305
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
My opinion is, if you have a subject which you know you won't try as much in, and it is wasting your time, then drop it. Like for me, I knew that SDD wasn't going to count as I didn't try as hard in it as other subjects, plus it scales lower. So I dropped it at the start of Year 11 and it's paid off. I've heard of some people dropping a subject just before their HSC exam because they knew it wasn't going to count and it was wasting their study time that could be used for other subjects.
Teachers always tell the biggest bull regarding this matter. What your teacher said about the UAI is some of the biggest crap I've heard in my entire life honestly. Maybe if you do 10 units with standard english, gen maths, abo studies, etc then you won't get 90 + uai, but if you do higher scaling subjects, then the sky's the limit.
 
Last edited:

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top