Looking for some answers as I move into year 11 (1 Viewer)

[nrice]

Hello BoS, new here, but let's skip the introduction. I have some simple questions to be answered regarding Year 11 (and 12) subject choices.

I am planning on taking (in year 11):
Maths Ext. 1 (and 4-unit in year 12, I love maths and am very good at it)
French (and ext. in year 12, again, love it and am good)
Physics
Chemistry (I think I will drop this in year 12)

My questions regard English and History:
Do I take Ext. or Adv. in year 11? English is my weakest subject, but I think I can bring it up to the standard of my other subjects with enough effort.
Should I take Modern or Ancient History? I prefer the Modern course, but I like the Ancient teachers a lot more at my school. What do you think about these two courses?

Lastly, does anyone have any words of wisdom regarding year 11 study habits? I have cruised until now, maintaining a top 10 place in my year (at a quite good school) with next to no study. I want to play to my strengths (maths, French), but English is the elephant in the room that I will have to address sooner or later. I am aiming for a 99.8+, but I need to amp up my study habits in order to maximise what I believe to be a good potential.

I hope that you can answer my questions and provide some guidance on my subject selection and study habits as move into my preliminary HSC.

Thanks all

P.S. if there are other threads addressing the same issue, a link is perfect.

 

[Axio]

History: If you are certain that you will be getting a MUCH better teacher for ancient than modern then I would personally choose ancient. Good teachers go a long way, that is assuming that you find the course somewhat interesting.

English: It sounds to me like you are going to drop Ext English in yr12 even if you do do it in yr11. I think you can improve your English marks without doing Ext but maybe if you want some more motivation it could be an alright idea.

Study habits: Make notes. Don't try TOO hard as it is only yr11 and counts for nothing.

 

[kalstar]

Why are you already planning to drop HSC chem before you've even done prelim chem lol

 

[astroman]

This thread by Strawberrye (Mei) is fantastic -->http://community.boredofstudies.org...how-excel-senior-year-studies-yr-11-12-a.html

 

[matchalolz]

English:
English is my weakest subject as well but I took up english extension and I'm absolutely regretting it! I just can't handle it and feel that it has way too much work for one subject. Basically because I do extension on top of advance, I have to hand in one (or even more) pieces of work every week - this could be essay, short story, speech, analysis. Do you like english? Do you like reading? Do you like writing stuff? Are you ready for a vigorous course? Ready to think outside the box? If you answer no to any of these questions the subject is not for you.

Study Habits:
I cannot stress the importance of daily revision. 15 minutes a day is all you need for every subject. I have 4 periods a day at school so what I do is I set aside 1 hour every day for revision (4x15 minutes = 60 minutes! easy!). Then one week later you revise the content, and then one month later revise it again. With this system you'll remember a majority of your stuff with minimal effort. Sometimes I dont even have full periods so I don't even need 1 hours! I highly recommend this habit and it's one of the smartest things I've ever done. The trick is to not stop doing this even when you have assignments due because seriously, 1 hour is nothing and it will save you a lot of time and stress in the future.

Note that this is just revision, you also have to do homework, assignments, etc.

For maths; do your homework everyday
For english: compile all your ideas and notes, and write an essay a week if you're bothered

Cheers and good luck

 

[lilcutetricker]

Advice for subjects:
English Advance: Hated it. But I did improve significantly by just simply practicing writing questions for the current module I studied. and to be honest, if you were to pump even 1 essay a day, you'll see your writing skills improve.
English Extension: Absolutely loved it but regrettably the scaling just isn't enough to cover how much work and effort you have to put into it. The subject is nothing like English advance since the exams you take are so much more interesting and you are even able to choose the text you study! Same advice with advance English
Maths (Ext 1 and Advance) : Past papers, past papers, past papers. Of course you should keep up with textbook work in school but the thing I regret and arguably made my rankings suffer this semester was not being able to do enough past papers. I think textbook work is the most inefficient studying method in senior years. Yes tests in year 8-10 were passable when you just relied on textbook because that's what the questions essentially were; textbook questions. However in senior maths the layout of questions are so much more different.
Physics: Hardest in year 11? Moving about and maybe Cosmic Engine ( chunk loads of theory), Worlds Communicate and Electrical Energy were really short and took more of the junior years knowledge - Past Papers and Textbook work.
Chemistry: Moles and Hydrocarbons.. The rest were pretty easy to wrap your head around. Again, Past Papers. Textbook work if you run out of past papers since the difference between test questions and textbook questions differ only by a tiny amount.

Study Habit Overall:
I like to put my tasks up on a board and give myself a time limit for each task. e.g. write 2 practice essays in 1 hour and 20 minutes and give myself punishments if I didn't complete it e.g. wouldn't be able to eat lunch with my friends on Thursday. Others may set up a timetable and find ways of studying. It really is up to the individual and how you approach things.
I wouldn't put too much emphasis on year 11. Yes take it seriously BUT don't take exams to heart; if you fail an exam remind yourself that it is a wake up call that you aren't as good as you think you are and you MUST improve.
by the way, I don't believe people 'burn out'. People stop working as hard as they did because they set unachievable goals and kick themselves when they don't accomplish it, or they are often put down by others. Make it clear what you want from the HSCS (medicine? teacher?) and remind yourself why you are doing it; as generic as it sounds, you aren't doing the HSC for anyone but yourself, so achieve what you want to achieve. good luck!

 

[beaubrah]

English:
English is my weakest subject as well but I took up english extension and I'm absolutely regretting it! I just can't handle it and feel that it has way too much work for one subject. Basically because I do extension on top of advance, I have to hand in one (or even more) pieces of work every week - this could be essay, short story, speech, analysis. Do you like english? Do you like reading? Do you like writing stuff? Are you ready for a vigorous course? Ready to think outside the box? If you answer no to any of these questions the subject is not for you.

Study Habits:
I cannot stress the importance of daily revision. 15 minutes a day is all you need for every subject. I have 4 periods a day at school so what I do is I set aside 1 hour every day for revision (4x15 minutes = 60 minutes! easy!). Then one week later you revise the content, and then one month later revise it again. With this system you'll remember a majority of your stuff with minimal effort. Sometimes I dont even have full periods so I don't even need 1 hours! I highly recommend this habit and it's one of the smartest things I've ever done. The trick is to not stop doing this even when you have assignments due because seriously, 1 hour is nothing and it will save you a lot of time and stress in the future.

Note that this is just revision, you also have to do homework, assignments, etc.

For maths; do your homework everyday
For english: compile all your ideas and notes, and write an essay a week if you're bothered

Cheers and good luck

For the study habits, I can't agree more, till the half yearlys I would study 3months before the exam and do on and off study which wasn't productive and focused a lot on maths and physics, after my marks in the half yearly(really shit), I did daily study of 45min per subject,1hr homework and 1hr assesment. It already boosted my ranks. I got my software assesment and I got 93%. I jumped from rank 20 to rank 8. So I can't stress it enough, DAILY STUDY IS IMPORTANT!!!!!!

 

[justem]

First of all, the best piece of advice I can give you is DO NOT OVERWORK YOURSELF!!!! So,etching very Important to remember as even though it's necessary to establish good work ethic and study patterns do not go overboard in year 11, save all the good stuff for year 12.

Regarding English: I strongly advice you to stick with advance especially if English is your weakest subject, and that's not to say that you won't be Able to do it but ext English requires you to work just as much as any other 2u subject and it's basically recommended for those people who have a general passion/ inclination towards the subject. If you do end up picking it, it seems to me you'll most likely drop it I'm year 12 anyway,stick with advance and work to bring up your English mark so you can maximize your capabilities.

As for the histories, I don't do any but I have friends who take both and I have some tips. Choose the history that you personally will know you'll enjoy more regardless of teachers because let me tell you if you like a subject you will be more inclined to perform better in it. Modern from what I've seen is a lot of Work but extremely rewarding, keep in mine that apparently the HSC exam consists of I think 3 essays so you have that to look forward to (someone correct me if I'm wrong). On the other hand he people who I know that do ancient seem to love it a lot too, but yet again the workload is something you have to see if you can manage. At the end of the day it's best to choose the history you think you'll enjoy the most.

 

[BLIT2014]

Attempt to do an essay a week.

Get a head in mathematics...

Focus on developing a study routine.

 

[enoilgam]

Hello BoS, new here, but let's skip the introduction. I have some simple questions to be answered regarding Year 11 (and 12) subject choices.

I am planning on taking (in year 11):
Maths Ext. 1 (and 4-unit in year 12, I love maths and am very good at it)
French (and ext. in year 12, again, love it and am good)
Physics
Chemistry (I think I will drop this in year 12)

My questions regard English and History:
Do I take Ext. or Adv. in year 11? English is my weakest subject, but I think I can bring it up to the standard of my other subjects with enough effort.
Should I take Modern or Ancient History? I prefer the Modern course, but I like the Ancient teachers a lot more at my school. What do you think about these two courses?

Lastly, does anyone have any words of wisdom regarding year 11 study habits? I have cruised until now, maintaining a top 10 place in my year (at a quite good school) with next to no study. I want to play to my strengths (maths, French), but English is the elephant in the room that I will have to address sooner or later. I am aiming for a 99.8+, but I need to amp up my study habits in order to maximise what I believe to be a good potential.

I hope that you can answer my questions and provide some guidance on my subject selection and study habits as move into my preliminary HSC.

Thanks all

P.S. if there are other threads addressing the same issue, a link is perfect.

1) If you think you can improve in english, give EE1 a go. It's a good backup unit because it can count over Advanced if you do poorly in the subject.

2) Go with Modern, teachers arent really much use in History beyond marking essays (having a great teacher is a plus, but you can learn History on your own if you need to).

3) For study habits, see Strawberrye's guide - it's a great read for Year 11/12 students.

 

[apletikosa]

ENGLISH
Do extension because you can always drop it
Ext. classes are very competitive because they're all top students and the differences in ranks are usually 0.5 marks, therefore its better to be putting all your energy in becoming better in advanced (ranking 1) rather than having the possibility of being in the bottom half of your ext class.
If you're not going well in english now, its probably going to carry on next year because you don't have any motivation to do it.
Overall, just pick up ext and see how you go next year.

HISTORY
Modern History is one of my favourite subjects which I'm going really well in atm.
My teacher isn't very good - he likes to talk and discuss everything and I don't really have any written work for it, so you can't really use teachers as an excuse because it comes down to the work you do.
Ancient scales lower than modern and most of the time ancient is a little harder.
In my opinion you should pick modern and if you're having trouble with your teacher, try and build up relationships with other modern teachers so you can ask them questions when your normal teacher can't answer them for you.

STUDY HABITS
A lot if yr11 students take yr11 as if its the HSC, going hard out in their work and study, and by the time it gets to the HSC they're all worn out from their work in prelim which didn't even count to anything! Just keep your eye out for that.
Get all your notes done, try and be ahead of class and use the holidays to catch up or study.

 

[evasharman]

I do modern and ancient and I'd definitely recommend modern, but I suppose it is a personal choice of what interests you more. Teachers for history aren't extremely important, although it does effect your enjoyment of the subject, you can teach yourself for modern if need be. For French, personally for me at the end of preliminary 2 units of french is really enough (it steps up a lot from year 10 - instead of learning the basics, we do topics eg. immigration in france) but if you really love it and are prepared for the big workload of extension (it's a film study) then go for it in year 12, just don't make the decision yet to be certain that you'll do it I guess. (I thought I would definitely do extension as I've always loved french and done well, but two units seems to be plenty, but it seems like that might not be a problem for you, just something to keep in mind.)
As for English, although I don't do extension english I'd say give it a crack if you've always done well in English (seems like you have) or have an interest, you can always drop it instead of thinking "oh I wish I had of tried it/done it"

 

[BLIT2014]

Hello BoS, new here, but let's skip the introduction. I have some simple questions to be answered regarding Year 11 (and 12) subject choices.

I am planning on taking (in year 11):
Maths Ext. 1 (and 4-unit in year 12, I love maths and am very good at it)
French (and ext. in year 12, again, love it and am good)
Physics
Chemistry (I think I will drop this in year 12)

My questions regard English and History:
Do I take Ext. or Adv. in year 11? English is my weakest subject, but I think I can bring it up to the standard of my other subjects with enough effort.
Should I take Modern or Ancient History? I prefer the Modern course, but I like the Ancient teachers a lot more at my school. What do you think about these two courses?

Lastly, does anyone have any words of wisdom regarding year 11 study habits? I have cruised until now, maintaining a top 10 place in my year (at a quite good school) with next to no study. I want to play to my strengths (maths, French), but English is the elephant in the room that I will have to address sooner or later. I am aiming for a 99.8+, but I need to amp up my study habits in order to maximise what I believe to be a good potential.

I hope that you can answer my questions and provide some guidance on my subject selection and study habits as move into my preliminary HSC.

Thanks all

P.S. if there are other threads addressing the same issue, a link is perfect.

Modern scales a lot better

 

[jennifer1]

I started the year with advances then dropped to standard, although standard is really easy, advanced is too much
also for studying, make study notes (based off syllabus) at the end of every topic or as you're doing the topic and revise! it will be so much easier when it's exam time