Ja that's true, but since I go to a top 10 already I'm hoping it won't be too much of a jump. Aren't past papers copyrighted? but if they aren't i'd be willing to
imagine wanting to deal with even more internal competition. it actually will work against your favour because imagine ur sick or something for one exam so u dont perform how u normally would, because of that, you'll be last ranked and u will take the last ranked assessment mark, which based on statistics IS NEVER a band 6.
the average 2024 JR hsc mark for math advanced was 88, which is embarrassingly low for a top school. If you have any basic grasp of math, you'd realise that this means there must be quite a few people with a hsc mark below 88.
I wouldn't have gotten a band 6 in math advanced if I was in the JR cohort just because their exams are much more difficult and competition is so excessive. Because there's barely any top people in my school, competition was much less and I could fail one easy exam and still get a 90 assessment mark from 4th rank.
It's much WORSE to be ranked in the middle in James Ruse than ranked 1st or even 2nd in even a rank 300 school (I'm assuming you're top ranked in your school otherwise why the fuck are you trying to join james ruse)
tldr: competition is much fierce at james ruse, so if you mess up an internal, you will NOT be able to recover ur hsc mark with the exam since you will be ranked very low, hence take the assessment marks of the many low people and literal drop kicks (even in james ruse).