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March 29, 2024, 06:32:16 pm

Author Topic: Should I drop a subject  (Read 3426 times)  Share 

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weekwook

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Should I drop a subject
« on: November 07, 2019, 06:11:18 pm »
+1
Hey past, present and (maybe) future HSCers.

I just want to have a look into people's experience in the following subjects, their experience (difficulty and outcome too if possible) on handling 13 Units in Year 12 and their input on my current situation.

I'm in Term 4, starting Year 12.

My subjects are:
Chemistry
Biology
PDHPE
Music 1
Maths Advanced
English Advanced
English Extension 1

Appreciate any feedback,

Thank you

therese07

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Re: Should I drop a subject
« Reply #1 on: November 28, 2019, 09:28:25 pm »
+8
Hi there!
Hopefully I'm not too late to respond but, I personally didn't do 13 units but one of my good friends did. He did say, he wished he didn't have 13 units to begin with, because he could've used better spent his time, in subjects that he struggled with. Balancing 13 units is quite difficult, especially with the content and skills you have to learn for each subject! To add, he did in fact drop to 10 units, but said it was "the best decision he's ever made".

My advice is, I would drop from 13 units. You have to take into consideration that you will need time outside the classroom to revise the content and to apply your understanding to practice questions, revision etc. Especially if there are harder pieces of content and you do 13 units, you will not be motivated to do well since it will be mentally draining. If you do not know what subject you want to drop, consider the following

Work with your strengths: In a way, try to be strategic. Drop the subjects that is your weakest. In the long term, this will help you invest other time to subjects that need it most. If you continue to keep the subject that you are most weakest at, you will need to spend more time on that subject revising, understanding content, and will be more frustrated with. Initially, I was going to drop investigating science instead of english extension 1, but in reality, I had a better grade and rank in investigating than extension. Extension English, I failed to engage with the modules we were doing as I found them dull, thus, when it came to prelim exams, I invested a lot of time studying for it since i barely did any throughout the year. When I officially dropped extension, I found myself having so much more time to other subjects, and to focus other subjects that needed more attention. As a result on this new shift of focus, I ended up getting better ranks and grades for HSC! Remember, the HSC is a game, and if you want to succeed,play with your strengths and eliminate your weaknesses.

Think about your range of subjects: This may seem like an odd piece of advice, but really think about your subjects. It is important to have a diverse range of subjects because you are able to change the way you study and the skills needed. For example, your sciences would require you to do calculations and understanding the relationships presented, thus, doing a lot of textbook questions or classwork would be much more beneficial if you want to get enhance those analytical skills. However, too much of this can become tedious, and draining. So, you turn to music, where you can become much more 'creative' with how you study, and focus on your major work. In a way, it would act as a good break from the "drilling" from your sciences and maths. This. ultimately, makes studying much more tolerable as you arent consistently using your brain for 1-2 main skills for 4-5 hours a night depending how much you study

Consider the content itself A majority of the time leading up to HSC will be you knowing, understanding and applying the content into every day practical situations. So, you must be committed to learning the content, and must be engaged with it. So drop the subject that you think you will not be motivated to learn the content, a subject where you procrastinate to be organised with. If you hate the content, then you will not enjoy it. There is no point in being in a class where you can't put time and dedication, where you know yourself it could be better spent.

Now my personal experience, I did English Advanced, Chemistry and PDHPE. With English, I quite enjoyed and felt like I was decent at it, so I was more motivated to get a good rank in, in addition, I really appreciated the texts I studied, and always wanted to do more than what was provided in the classroom. Chemistry, I actually liked how it was a good balance between calculations and content. This was a hard subject, but I enjoyed studying for it because all the modules seemed interesting. Though, admittedly, I did have to invest a lot of time into this since there was a lot of content for the later modules 7 and 8. Chemistry is one of those subjects where you have to be on top of, and grasp a firm understanding with, because then everything gets scattered when you don't. PDHPE, I enjoyed the content for core 2, sports med and disliked the rest. It was extremely content heavy, and sometimes the content felt arbitrary and rather dull, as a result, I did cram some content because I just didn't enjoy the content. The difference between PDHPE and the two other subjects is that I had more access to so many past papers, so I did have a lot of practice and rote learning the content, so I studied this subject a lot and felt content with my understanding.

I hope this helps! Feel free to message if you need more advice!  ;D
2020: Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Law @ Macquarie University