Doing Further in year 11

[marcc.malakk]

I am currently doing year 10 and already doing Biology 1/2 and was thinking to request to do further in year 11 so I have less work in year 12, anyone done the same?

[PhoenixxFire]

Hey! Welcome to AN.

I didn't do two year 12 subjects in year 11, however I did one in year 10 and one in year 11, and have done both bio and further.

The first thing to consider is would your school allow you to do only 4 subjects in year 12? I've heard of some schools that force students to do at least 5, even if they've already done 2. If your school is one of those then your workload in year 12 won't really be changing.

From the way your post is written I'm assuming that you're not currently doing 1/2 and are planning on going straight into 3/4 next year?

If your school would allow it, then joining a 1/2 class for second semester would probably help you for doing the 3/4 next year.

The other thing to consider is how well you can manage your time at the moment. For me, I barely spent any time on further outside of class, except for the occasional practice sac (keeping in mind that I had done 1/2 and there is a fair amount of repetition between the two). However, at the end of the year I spent a significant amount of time doing past exams. Whereas for biology I regularly spent time on it outside of class throughout the entire year.

If you think you are or can be organised enough to keep up with the work, and not neglect your other 1/2s then I'd say go for it. Only doing 4 year 12 subjects in year 12 certainly does make the year a bit less stressful.

[Macrophagee]

Hey
I started bio in year 10 and completed further in year 11 (not by choice-- school required everyone to do further either in year 11 or year 12). Most people who followed that route are doing 4 subjects this year so it is possible.

May I ask which other subjects you are considering?

[Aaron]

I would say doing Further without doing General and doing so at Year 11 presents a challenge for a number of reasons. See below for my points.

1) Your cohort that you'll be competing against will have completed General Maths already and this as those who have done Further will know provides foundation understanding. Most topics in Further are covered/touched on in General. So you'll need to work more to gain the upper hand.
2) A consequence of point 1 is that when it comes to SACs, competition is already fierce without taking into account the additional advantage they will have.
3) Please do not assume Further is an 'easy' choice. Many people fall into the trap of assuming it's easy - the content may be accessible more so than a subject such as Specialist for example, but the result of this means more students are in that upper bracket, making it more difficult to score well in.
4) Before choosing Further, I would spend the rest of this year refining your maths and ensuring that mistakes are minimal. Mistakes are costly in Further, more so than your typical subject.

Cheers

[marcc.malakk]

I am considering doing, Biology, Further, Methods, Chemistry, English and Business Management

Hey
I started bio in year 10 and completed further in year 11 (not by choice-- school required everyone to do further either in year 11 or year 12). Most people who followed that route are doing 4 subjects this year so it is possible.

May I ask which other subjects you are considering?

[marcc.malakk]

I am currently in the enrichment maths class for year 10 and the teacher is also a vce teacher so she covers a lot of harder concepts, I am not sure if this is gonna be enough to be able to compete with year 12's at year 11 and I'm sort of stressing out.

Hey! Welcome to AN.

I didn't do two year 12 subjects in year 11, however I did one in year 10 and one in year 11, and have done both bio and further.

The first thing to consider is would your school allow you to do only 4 subjects in year 12? I've heard of some schools that force students to do at least 5, even if they've already done 2. If your school is one of those then your workload in year 12 won't really be changing.

From the way your post is written I'm assuming that you're not currently doing 1/2 and are planning on going straight into 3/4 next year?

If your school would allow it, then joining a 1/2 class for second semester would probably help you for doing the 3/4 next year.

The other thing to consider is how well you can manage your time at the moment. For me, I barely spent any time on further outside of class, except for the occasional practice sac (keeping in mind that I had done 1/2 and there is a fair amount of repetition between the two). However, at the end of the year I spent a significant amount of time doing past exams. Whereas for biology I regularly spent time on it outside of class throughout the entire year.

If you think you are or can be organised enough to keep up with the work, and not neglect your other 1/2s then I'd say go for it. Only doing 4 year 12 subjects in year 12 certainly does make the year a bit less stressful.

[marcc.malakk]

Like I understand that it won't be easy but won't it be easier to compete because all the other year 12's will also be doing 4 or more other subjects? And my current maths teacher (keeping in mind I am doing enrichment maths which is accelerated) is a VCE teacher and has been showing us a few concepts from general, methods, and specialists to prepare us, so will this be enough? I really don't want to make mistakes in this decision, like I've been doing VCE bio 1/2 in year 10 and been getting highest marks in the class, and don't want to go downhill in any way whatsoever.

I would say doing Further without doing General and doing so at Year 11 presents a challenge for a number of reasons. See below for my points.

1) Your cohort that you'll be competing against will have completed General Maths already and this as those who have done Further will know provides foundation understanding. Most topics in Further are covered/touched on in General. So you'll need to work more to gain the upper hand.
2) A consequence of point 1 is that when it comes to SACs, competition is already fierce without taking into account the additional advantage they will have.
3) Please do not assume Further is an 'easy' choice. Many people fall into the trap of assuming it's easy - the content may be accessible more so than a subject such as Specialist for example, but the result of this means more students are in that upper bracket, making it more difficult to score well in.
4) Before choosing Further, I would spend the rest of this year refining your maths and ensuring that mistakes are minimal. Mistakes are costly in Further, more so than your typical subject.

Cheers

[PhoenixxFire]

It's not so much that further will be hard without having done 1/2, personally I didn't find it any harder than doing 1/2, it's just that because a lot of the topics are similar, people who have done 1/2 are already familiar with them and so have an advantage. It's definitely very doable to skip the 1/2 though, you just might have to spend a bit more time on it than the year 12s in your class. There isn't a heap of overlap between methods and further. U3 further is data analysis & financial maths, so if you know how to make and interpret graphs, calculate compounding & simple interest and use your CAS then you'll be fine with that.

Personally I think that the benefits of only having to do 4 subjects in year 12, and the extra time you'll get to spend on it if you do it next year rather than in year 12 outweighs the slight negative of having not done 1/2.

[Lear]

I think Further has very manageable content and in turn doing 1/2 is absolutely not necessary to doing well in 3/4 and benefits any others would having done 1/2 would be very small. Would highly recommend Further as a year 11 3/4 subject (I wish I did it in year 11!)