Modern history, legal studies, business studies or biology? (1 Viewer)

[iceecrream]

Modern history, legal studies, business studies or biology?
I'm going into Year 11 this year and I'm going to be doing Extension English, Extension Math, Chemistry and Physics but I need another subject to make it 12 units altogether as it is required by the school. I'm much better at applying knowledge/skill-based questions than memorisation/regurgitation questions and I'm a lot better at Math than English (since my English is literal dog water right now ) so I also want a subject that could help a little with my English. I also want to choose something a bit more laid back/won't require too much effort so I can lowkey chill in Year 11 but I'm afraid I won't like Chemistry too much so I also might be taking this subject seriously in Year 12. Please do tell me your thoughts on which one you think I should choose. Here are the pros and cons for each one I have in mind:

Biology Pros and Cons

• Scales okay
• Beneficial for medicine in year 12
• Aesthetic notes
• It's not "hard", it's just memorisation
• I'm very bad at memorisation
• Very content heavy
• My school's faculty for science is really, really bad

Business Studies Pros and Cons

• Helps time management in essay writing for English
• Considerably simple/does not take too much time
• Report writing for assignments so I like it
• It sounds fairly interesting
• I heard that it is boring/content draining
• Might not get a good teacher/class
• Scales the worst

Legal Studies Pros and Cons

• My school does considerably well in it
• Helps with time management in essay writing and judgement in exams for English
• Teacher should be good
• Content heavy
• Scales the second worst
• I don't know if I will like it/I am not very interested in it

Modern History Pros and Cons

• I like this the most/am most interested in this
• Exam management for English and writing speed from amount of essays
• High chance of getting a good teacher
• Scales decently well
• Content heavy/difficult to "understand"
• If it's a bad teacher it's doomed
• Might not be doing the case studies I want to do and therefore I am not as interested anymore

Which one would you suggest/think is most suited for me? Any extra comments and critiques will be great! Thank you so much for actually reading all of this.

 

[yanujw]

I am wary of 'choosing a subject because it teaches discipline in another'. While it might seem like multiple essay subjects can help your improve writing, it could increase your workload a lot, and if you hate essay writing, you're going to especially resent picking them. In my opinion, I haven't really seen the cross-subject benefit of improving my writing in all subjects by studying more writing subjects.

 

[jimmysmith560]

Scaling should not be a primary consideration with respect to subject selection. Keep in mind that you can achieve a high ATAR with any combination of subjects, meaning that your focus should be on your interest in addition to your performance potential across your subjects as you commence year 11.

From the information that you have provided, it seems that you are most interested in taking Modern History, meaning that this is something that you may wish to consider. It also seems like Business Studies is close to Modern History in terms of how interested you are in this subject. Based on this, you could probably choose one of Modern History or Business Studies or follow a different approach. The good thing about year 11 is that nothing counts towards your year 12 results or your ATAR, meaning that it technically acts as a period where you are given the opportunity to determine the best subject combination to have as you approach year 12. In order to mitigate the risk of not liking one of the suggested subjects and regretting not to have chosen another, you could take both Modern History and Business Studies in year 11 (leading to a total of 14 units) and subsequently determine which subject to keep and which to drop, since you will have allowed yourself some time to experience both subjects, allowing you to make an informed decision.

Additionally, I thought I'd include information regarding what Business Studies entails:

Business Studies Preliminary (year 11) course:

In year 11, you will be given the opportunity to build a foundation of general knowledge of the business world. Preliminary Business Studies covers the following:

• Nature of business - The focus of this topic is on the role and nature of business in a changing business environment.
• Business management - This topic focuses on what management involves as well as the responsibilities of management in the business environment.
• Business planning - This topic explores the process involved in planning and establishing a small to medium enterprise (SME).

Business Studies HSC (year 12) course:

Business Studies explores different areas of business. In year 12, you will explore 4 important areas of business and will examine contemporary business issues through real-life case study material. HSC Business Studies covers the following:

• Operations - Divided into 4 main parts (role, influences, processes and strategies), the Operations topic explores the key business function concerned with aspects such as producing goods/services.
• Marketing - Divided into 4 main parts (role, influences, processes and strategies), the Marketing topic explores the key business function concerned with aspects such as the successful promotion of a business's products (goods/services).
• Finance - Divided into 4 main parts (role, influences, processes and strategies), the Finance topic deals with the key business function concerned with all monetary aspects of running a business. It also covers some concepts such as exchange rates, which are also covered in Economics.
• Human resources - Divided into 5 main parts (role, influences, processes, strategies and effectiveness), the Human Resources topic addresses the key business function concerned with all aspects of employment and its life cycle.

It is also worth noting that the Business Studies HSC course covers legal aspects and relevant legislation. For example, students get to learn about the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 within the Marketing topic. Students also learn about the Fair Work Act 2009 within the Human Resources topic.

I hope this helps!

 

[KB2230]

Ok so there are a few things I want to say. First of all I didn't do it but have not heard a good thing about Business studies and havre heard many bad things about it being boring and irritating but that doesn't come directly from me. I also know pretty much nothing about bio.

With that out of the way ill probably say it depends most on your ability in writing subjects. I'll echo what the lad above me said that writing subjects don't really help improve your ability in other ones. I did legal, modern, ancient, SOR 2, Advanced English and extension history and I'll tell you that the way you write is DRASTICALLY different across each even from history to history I don't find them very comparable . English especially is probably the most different to all the others I did as well (I got band 6's in everything except English and extension history which was because I gave up halfway through the HSC exam lol). The best thing you can do for English is work on your English.

Also if you dont trust your ability in English why are you doing Extension? I'm going to assume you are underrating yourself because that's a safe bet with most people. Either way you haven't started year 11 I guarantee you have MORE than enough time to improve your English through normal means so I wouldn't factor that into your choice.

One more thing is that at least Legal and Modern and from what I've heard Business are Memorisation heavy. Like for Legal I remembered roughly 60 cases/legislation/media and I knew what all of them were at least roughly (though that may have been me/my teacher going overboard). And both of legal/modern require the use of skills as well, in Modern the ability to analyse sources and know what the question is asking you to do and then go and do that are more important to getting a good result than knowing every little fact. And in legal the ability to shape your knowledge to questions is also massively important as a skill. Modern is I think up there with the most content heavy subjects.

So if I were you I would decide factoring these two things
1. The one you find most interesting in terms of what you learn. No matter what other factors if you are interested in a topic you can overcome pretty much any hurdle. It seems like that is modern for you (hell yeah best subject in my totally objective opinion)
2. Try to make as good of a judgement on your ability to write as possible. I've heard for some people that are math/science people mostly that a writing subject is a good changeup/ way to break up study sessions (this is very important as you may not want to do science/math for a massive amount of time at once) But others have just found it frustrating. Try to judge yourself as well as possible to see what way you stand.

Sorry if this got a bit long I used it to take my mind off of ATAR stress and I voted Modern by the way because I had a really bad modern teacher but my interest in it allowed me to top the class from day one despite never getting above a B in HSIE before year 11 and getting A's in science lol

 

[5uckerberg]

Personally, I would lean towards Modern History because yes you might have to do it in Year 12 but the ideas that you learn from it can be seen in real life very frequently especially with NSW/Australia society because through learning Modern history you can analyse what is happening and how you yourself can change the situation for yourself.

A powerful point is that "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat its mistakes." That should convince you.

 

[KB2230]

Personally, I would lean towards Modern History because yes you might have to do it in Year 12 but the ideas that you learn from it can be seen in real life very frequently especially with NSW/Australia society because through learning Modern history you can analyse what is happening and how you yourself can change the situation for yourself.

A powerful point is that "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat its mistakes." That should convince you.

I feel like you could make a philosophical argument for pretty much any subject being very useful. There's important things to learn in all of them and ways learning them can contribute to society. This comes from someone who did 5 units of history.

 

[specificagent1]

+ points for modern because you can potentially do Ext History

 

[KB2230]

+ points for modern because you can potentially do Ext History

Extension was the funniest experience for me I loved it all the way through got full marks on my major work then halfway through the HSC exam my entire soul just withered and I just stopped writing ahahaha. Good thing it was my 11th unit.

 

[specificagent1]

Extension was the funniest experience for me I loved it all the way through got full marks on my major work then halfway through the HSC exam my entire soul just withered and I just stopped writing ahahaha. Good thing it was my 11th unit.

omg ext was so good i thoroughly enjoyed it. Plus E4'd it too sooooo super happy!

 

[Saint Dev]

I can vouch for Modern History; it's a great subject. If you find it interesting then I would suggest doing it. However, there is plenty of memorisation...

 

[specificagent1]

I can vouch for Modern History; it's a great subject. If you find it interesting then I would suggest doing it. However, there is plenty of memorisation...

no need to memorise if you revise throughout the year. It's all about consistency kiddos

 

[Saint Dev]

no need to memorise if you revise throughout the year. It's all about consistency kiddos

Isn't that just memorisation? I don't recommend cramming but it is content heavy.

 

[specificagent1]

Isn't that just memorisation? I don't recommend cramming but it is content heavy.

shhhhhhhhhhh it is but like it isnt

 

[Saint Dev]

shhhhhhhhhhh it is but like it isnt

I guess "memorisation" has negative connotations. If you enjoy the content and revise regularly (as was previously suggested) it makes life much easier and will set you up for success.

 

[specificagent1]

I guess "memorisation" has negative connotations. If you enjoy the content and revise regularly (as was previously suggested) it makes life much easier and will set you up for success.

It's the process hahahhaa

 

[zizi2003_]

ext history is nowhere near content heavy lmao

 

[vishnay]

modern is funnest humanity

defo do it

bio is by far boringest humanity

defo do not do it

 

[iceecrream]

I can vouch for Modern History; it's a great subject. If you find it interesting then I would suggest doing it. However, there is plenty of memorisation...

When you say memorisation, is it like I actually need to remember specific terms and regurgitating it in the test or is it like memorising so I understand what happened during the time period so that I can apply it during the test?

 

[specificagent1]

When you say memorisation, is it like I actually need to remember specific terms and regurgitating it in the test or is it like memorising so I understand what happened during the time period so that I can apply it during the test?

more of the latter

 

[sab13562]

Modern history, legal studies, business studies or biology?
I'm going into Year 11 this year and I'm going to be doing Extension English, Extension Math, Chemistry and Physics but I need another subject to make it 12 units altogether as it is required by the school. I'm much better at applying knowledge/skill-based questions than memorisation/regurgitation questions and I'm a lot better at Math than English (since my English is literal dog water right now ) so I also want a subject that could help a little with my English. I also want to choose something a bit more laid back/won't require too much effort so I can lowkey chill in Year 11 but I'm afraid I won't like Chemistry too much so I also might be taking this subject seriously in Year 12. Please do tell me your thoughts on which one you think I should choose. Here are the pros and cons for each one I have in mind:

Biology Pros and Cons

• Scales okay
• Beneficial for medicine in year 12
• Aesthetic notes
• It's not "hard", it's just memorisation
• I'm very bad at memorisation
• Very content heavy
• My school's faculty for science is really, really bad

Business Studies Pros and Cons

• Helps time management in essay writing for English
• Considerably simple/does not take too much time
• Report writing for assignments so I like it
• It sounds fairly interesting
• I heard that it is boring/content draining
• Might not get a good teacher/class
• Scales the worst

Legal Studies Pros and Cons

• My school does considerably well in it
• Helps with time management in essay writing and judgement in exams for English
• Teacher should be good
• Content heavy
• Scales the second worst
• I don't know if I will like it/I am not very interested in it

Modern History Pros and Cons

• I like this the most/am most interested in this
• Exam management for English and writing speed from amount of essays
• High chance of getting a good teacher
• Scales decently well
• Content heavy/difficult to "understand"
• If it's a bad teacher it's doomed
• Might not be doing the case studies I want to do and therefore I am not as interested anymore

Which one would you suggest/think is most suited for me? Any extra comments and critiques will be great! Thank you so much for actually reading all of this.

I would recommend business. Generally easy to understand and plenty resources and youtube videos available in case of bad teacher, and can be self taught. Overall topics are good, I personally enjoyed them all, except for HR in year 12, which I've never really liked to begin with. Also consists of some basic maths in year 12, but nothing hard. Workload is pretty light compared to other subjects I've done like economics, and you can easily get a band 5 or band 6.

Modern is also a great subject, and actually not too hard to memorise, especially if you have a good teacher who makes it interesting. I loved it in year 11 as I learnt so many things, but dropped it in year 12 as I didn't need it. According to My friend, it becomes more difficult in year 12 and is very content heavy so not worth the extra pressure considering the other subjects you are doing. Also very much like English, which you said is your weak point.

Overall, I recommend business studies.