Must you be Gifted to Achieve Outstanding Results in the HSC? (2 Viewers)

[Kymren]

You do not need to be gifted to get a high ATAR.
'giftedness' does help, but it is not essential. it can also often have the reverse effect. Many gifted students, especially boys, do not achieve as well as some not so gifted students. this is often because of laziness, insecurity or peer expectations. if you are really smart it often draws attention to you or singles you out from a group which you might not feel comfortable with.
Both my parents are high school teachers and have seen Many gifted students go bad in the HSC or not complete their HSC, and many not gifted, really really really hard working students go really well.

 

[Kymren]

Being knowledgable
Being smart
Being intelligent
Being gifted

These are all different terms which are often confused. you can know everything you need to know for and exam and not be very intelligent.
just because you get 100% in an exam does not necessarily mean you are gifted or intelligent. true intelligence requires a degree of creativity, the ability to think on the spot and the ability develop and link ideas contrary to what you may have been shown.

 

[Queenroot]

Tbh my brother was really good at absorbing stuff by reading things once so he never really studied at all and did really well. I think the subject I saw him study the most for was 4u, which was maybe only 2 hours a day. Other than that he was never really home.

But no, you don't need to be gifted to receive good results, especially for the HSC. I mean you can really see how some people struggle in uni despite doing well in the Hsc so it's not really a marker of natural ability.

 

[dan964]

no
however, you need to be hardworking and organised though
you can be gifted but if you slack off, then its not much use to you.

 

[rumbleroar]

1. Being naturally gifted definitely helps with grasping certain concepts easier, etc. However, you can be gifted and not achieve a high ATAR because ultimately what differentiates those people from the gifted people with high ATARs is hard work. I think a high ATAR is 85% hard work and 15% natural talent. Also it depends on your definition of a "high" ATAR. Some people would consider 90 to be high, whilst others are looking at 98s or 99s.

2. A lot of people I know who got 99+ ATARs are both naturally gifted and hard workers. Its hard to separate the two when you look at people who got above 99 imo. You can also work extremely hard and never get the 99+ just because you're missing that little bit that gives you the extra edge, if that makes sense. It's ultimately dependent on the individual.

 

[xxyyxx]

1. In my experience, i found being naturally gifted helped ALOT in regards to final HSC results/ATAR. I'm not saying I didn't work - obviously I studied - but I never made a study schedule and only started seriously studying four weeks before the HSC, one week spent on my hardest subject. So even though I spent three weeks studying quite hard, I'd say the overall effort was below what other +99ers put in.

2. I found for me it was a combination of mostly being 'naturally gifted' and cramming, because that worked for me. However it definitely helped that I was doing high-scaling subjects and my final internal ranks were very high. I know people who aren't so smart but worked very hard and achieved +97, so I'd say to people who aren't as smart but really want to get a high ATAR that it can be done.

 

[aDimitri]

Being gifted is not a requirement but it certainly helps.

Generally speaking, hard work is the most important factor, but the way i like to view it is that your atar is somewhat like a product of some sort of intelligence quotient and the amount of work you put in. The more gifted the student is, the less work they require to get the high atar, but regardless of how gifted they are, if they don't work at all, they won't achieve.