Hey e_grace! Great to have you here.
Some general thoughts on your situation:> To me, 100% on your assignment shows you have the capacity to do well in the subject, plus the fact that you've traditionally done well.
> I don't think it's uncommon for maths marks to dip a little bit through Year 11, even before the change to the ATAR system, which has complicated things a bit. To my knowledge, a lot of people are in a similar-ish situation.
> If you're feeling confident with the content but feel as though you don't perform as well as you could on exams, you have an entire year to work on that. You could skew your study techniques a little to focus more on doing practice questions under exam conditions, and things like that. Sitting exams is a skill in itself (you might like to read
this article, too!).
In terms of choosing your subjects, this is what I'd be considering:> Do you need any subjects are pre-requisites for university courses you wish to pursue?
> What subjects do you enjoy most?
> And, to a lesser degree, what are you good at?
On the flip side, I wouldn't be strongly considering things like scaling - as you've mentioned, it's impossible to know at the moment how certain subjects will scale. Even Specialist Maths
could scale down (even though I think that's very unlikely)!
If you're keen on Specialist, and the main reason you're thinking of dropping it at the moment is getting lower marks this year, I'd be inclined to stick with it.
P.S. You say you need a 99 ATAR - what are you hoping to do after school, out of interest?