Exams (skipping or leaving paper blank)

[kjade]

I have recently been debating skipping one of my end of year exams, as I cannot stand the class anymore and my school won't let me drop the subject (3/4 Global Politics). I am highly confident that it will be my lowest scoring subject. I was curious as to how dramatically that would affect my overall ATAR (I am not aiming for anything but a decent score would be nice) or even if someone wants to give me notes that will motivate me to go to the exam  any advice would be greatly appreciated

[brenden]

My advice would be that skipping the exam is super dumb - even if you didn't touch a single bit of material for the rest of the year, you still may as well attend the exam, right? A 20 study score is better than a 10 study score. If the only difference is sitting the 2hr paper, that's an enormous rate of 10 study score points per hour.

I'm sure people would kill for that rate. They'd get a 50 study score in 10 hours, and a 99.95 in under a week! Even if you bludge the subject, you may as well try your best on the exam - unless you're taking 7 subjects, in which case, I guess there's literally no benefit in going.

[zhen]

In my opinion you shouldn't take the risk. The exams play a massive part in your study score for any subject and even if global politics is in your bottom 2, it'll still have an effect on your atar. You don't want to be someone who misses out on the cutoff atar for their desired course because of this decision. I feel like the absolute minimum you should do is sit your exams. It's only a couple of hours of your time and may be the difference between getting into your desired course and not getting in.

[K888]

Just to add on to what others have said - even if it's your lowest scoring subject, it will still contribute points to your ATAR. You'd be kicking yourself if you missed the cut-off for a course by a tiny amount, when turning up to the exam and writing a bit to give yourself a bit of a higher study score may have gotten you to that cut-off.

Worst comes to worst - don't do much study for it, devote your time to other subjects, and just turn up to the exam and try your absolute best in it. It's 2 hours of your life - absolutely nothing. So why not give it your best shot? You have nothing to lose