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Subjects for year 12: Will these allow a high ATAR? (1 Viewer)

ScienceGuy99

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Hello! The subjects I have been heavily thinking about doing for year 12 are Standard English (I'm in advanced right now but I don't feel I'm up to the level required for advanced), advanced maths, extension 1 maths, extension 2 maths (picking that up in year 12), biology, and physics.
I am doing chemistry at the moment but I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would, and I've been working very hard and it just doesn't seem to make much sense to me for some reason... So I'll wait till after the HSC so it doesn't screw me over haha

Some things I aim to do in uni includes: Doctor of Medicine, Bachelor of maths (mathematical physics)/Bachelor of science (computational science and physics), Bachelor of Biomedical Science (honours), bachelor of engineering (mechanical and aerospace). All of these obviously require a high ATAR, so I was wondering if my subjects stated above will help get me that very high ATAR required for these degrees?


Thankyou very much for reading. All feedback and responses are welcome! :)
 

BLIT2014

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Stick with Advanced. It is of a similar difficulty to Standard but the aligning(proportion of people getting band 6s,5s,4s etc) is a lot better then Standard.


If you perform well with those subjects then you may well receive a "high ATAR".
 

ScienceGuy99

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Stick with Advanced. It is of a similar difficulty to Standard but the aligning(proportion of people getting band 6s,5s,4s etc) is a lot better then Standard.
I think advanced will take too much energy out of me... It definitely has the past few terms, and it's driving me crazy. The benefit with scaling just wouldn't apply to me at all because of that hahaha
 

InteGrand

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I think advanced will take too much energy out of me... It definitely has the past few terms, and it's driving me crazy. The benefit with scaling just wouldn't apply to me at all because of that hahaha
Isn't Standard similar difficulty to Advanced?
 

ScienceGuy99

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In a way it is, the only difference is a paper and you don't study Shakespeare.
From looking at the modules in both advanced and standard, the complexity and depth in advanced is far more than that in standard. And I don't have an interest in that level of depth for english XD
 

D94

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From looking at the modules in both advanced and standard, the complexity and depth in advanced is far more than that in standard. And I don't have an interest in that level of depth for english XD
I bet 90% of the cohort does not have any interest in Advanced, but it's a far superior choice since the quality of work you need to produce in Standard is at a much higher level than Advanced due to the texts being easier. However, if you have little to no interest, I doubt you would even realise the difference in difficulty.
 

Simorgh

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I am doing chemistry at the moment but I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would, and I've been working very hard and it just doesn't seem to make much sense to me for some reason... So I'll wait till after the HSC so it doesn't screw me over haha
Not getting what you are trying to say over here. Since you appear to be not doing well in Chemistry you will wait till the HSC finishes? Wait, what, didn't understand?

I was hating Chem so much at the start of the year was really intent on dropping it but ended up suddenly loving it. For first few lessons I was actually panicking and not getting anything. Reason was that it took me some to get the basics like balancing, dot structures, the various reactions, forming chemical equations and naming. When I finally got that I started understanding everything else from then on.
 

ScienceGuy99

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Not getting what you are trying to say over here. Since you appear to be not doing well in Chemistry you will wait till the HSC finishes? Wait, what, didn't understand?

I was hating Chem so much at the start of the year was really intent on dropping it but ended up suddenly loving it. For first few lessons I was actually panicking and not getting anything. Reason was that it took me some to get the basics like balancing, dot structures, the various reactions, forming chemical equations and naming. When I finally got that I started understanding everything else from then on.
So if I decide to do a bachelor of biomedical science, instead of doing chemistry in year 12 I can do a couple bridging courses to get me up to speed. With the way I've been going in chemistry this year (my marks for exams), it's going to have a very bad impact on my ATAR if I do chemistry in my HSC :(

Haha that's what I have trouble with... Did you get tutoring or anything to help with those things you listed?
 

BLIT2014

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I think advanced will take too much energy out of me... It definitely has the past few terms, and it's driving me crazy. The benefit with scaling just wouldn't apply to me at all because of that hahaha
Firstly scaling is similar and the major difference is in the aligning.

http://www.uac.edu.au/documents/atar/2014-tables/A2.pdf

http://www.uac.edu.au/documents/atar/2015-tables/A2.pdf

Have a look at the percentage of people getting in the respective bands for Advanced English compared to Standard English.


So it would be better for your ATAR to do Advanced.
The median band for english advanced is a band 5 compared to a band 3 for example (2014 HSC).
 

Simorgh

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So if I decide to do a bachelor of biomedical science, instead of doing chemistry in year 12 I can do a couple bridging courses to get me up to speed. With the way I've been going in chemistry this year (my marks for exams), it's going to have a very bad impact on my ATAR if I do chemistry in my HSC :(

Haha that's what I have trouble with... Did you get tutoring or anything to help with those things you listed?
No I didn't get any kind of Tutoring for Chem except for Maths. At point when I realised I was really behind in class, I literally did everything I could to understand and learn everything. Went back and forth to my Chem teacher asking for help and understanding on things I didn't get, kept practicing day in day out and also used online resources like YouTube which were especially helpful.

I will link you a really great YouTube channel where I really found this guy's way of explaining stuff to be the easiest and least complex way of understanding all these fundamental concepts and formulas. https://www.youtube.com/user/tdewitt451
 

ScienceGuy99

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Firstly scaling is similar and the major difference is in the aligning.

http://www.uac.edu.au/documents/atar/2014-tables/A2.pdf

http://www.uac.edu.au/documents/atar/2015-tables/A2.pdf

Have a look at the percentage of people getting in the respective bands for Advanced English compared to Standard English.


So it would be better for your ATAR to do Advanced.
The median band for english advanced is a band 5 compared to a band 3 for example (2014 HSC).

But wouldn't the type of people that do standard be less academic than those in advanced? Haha which would create a lower average band
 

Kolmias

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But wouldn't the type of people that do standard be less academic than those in advanced? Haha which would create a lower average band
Just stick with Advanced mate. You'll be wasting your time in Standard.
 

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