Should I drop math?

[Kaan709]

My current subjects are; Legal Studies, Biology, Standard English, Senior Science, General Math, and Retail Cert III. I'm thinking of dropping a subject, but scared because I have a few "lower scaling subjects." I'm not weak at math, however I have to devote heaps of time to it. Do you think dropping Math would be a good idea? or maybe another subject.
Thank you.

[ssarahj]

My current subjects are; Legal Studies, Biology, Standard English, Senior Science, General Math, and Retail Cert III. I'm thinking of dropping a subject, but scared because I have a few "lower scaling subjects." I'm not weak at math, however I have to devote heaps of time to it. Do you think dropping Math would be a good idea? or maybe another subject.
Thank you.

Hey! First things first don't be scared about having "lower scaling subjects". That's not a thing. If you smash your subjects it makes minimal difference. Don't let that impact your decision making at this point.

There's a lot of things to consider when dropping subject/s and most of these things come down to personal preference and your HSC goals. Stuff to consider are:
(a) Do you bloody hate Maths? Any other of your subjects? If you hate one you should probably drop it.
(b) Are you super crap at a particular subject? If this is also the one you hate you should probably drop it.
(c) Would you like to have 12 units as a buffer? If not then definitely drop something.
(d) Is another subject suffering because of the time you devote to Maths? Do you think the time you spend on Maths is sustainable throughout the rest of the year?

Sorry I can't give a concrete answer, somebody else might, but there's just some things to try and help with your thinking 

[RuiAce]

Sarah's point a) must be considered before continuing reading my post. (And b) as well but I'm actually going to assume you already addressed b))

Forget about scaling. It's about how well YOU do. So think more carefully about what would happen if you kept general as to if you didn't.

If you're currently performing well in general AND in your other courses, it's trickier. Say you got rid of general. How much BETTER would you perform in the remainder of your subjects? You have to think about it economically; if there's more benefit gained by getting rid of general, than the cost, then you should do it.

If general ends up taking it out of ALL of your other courses, drop ASAP. If general takes up some hefty marks then you should drop the instant you feel like its impacting too much. Only keep, if your marks in your other courses can be sustained.

[Kaan709]

Sarah's point a) must be considered before continuing reading my post. (And b) as well but I'm actually going to assume you already addressed b))

Forget about scaling. It's about how well YOU do. So think more carefully about what would happen if you kept general as to if you didn't.

If you're currently performing well in general AND in your other courses, it's trickier. Say you got rid of general. How much BETTER would you perform in the remainder of your subjects? You have to think about it economically; if there's more benefit gained by getting rid of general, than the cost, then you should do it.

If general ends up taking it out of ALL of your other courses, drop ASAP. If general takes up some hefty marks then you should drop the instant you feel like its impacting too much. Only keep, if your marks in your other courses can be sustained.

Unfortunately, I didn't perform well... or at all in my junior years (prior to year 11), because my ADHD wasn't recognised. However, I've been able to pull myself up during my senior years, with a lot of my subjects, with help from medication. I understand math, and can do the exercises, I may be a little slower, but simple things like algebra is only new to me. I feel like the workload my teacher gives me is heaps, because I'm a 'slower learner.'
a) I don't hate maths, I enjoy it sometimes. But the topics are still very fresh to me, hence making it harder.
b) All my other subjects, I achieve above class average, even maths (just not a band 5/6).
c) Retail Cert III is an absolute bludge, and have 4 hour sessions every month. I thought having a buffer would just be peace-of-mind.
d) Generally, yes. Not any particular subjects, but I feel that I could harness that time to focus on other subjects i.e. Bio and Legal.

Summary of my subjects:
Standard English; Band 4/5 and 6ish.
Legal Studies; Band 5, love this subject, and the copious amount of content.
Biology; Band 5, came 5th in class, love this subject.
Senior Science; dropped from chemistry (big mistake and too late to go back), find it interesting and easy, no problems, Band 5/6.
General Math; reasons above, Band 4/5.
Retail Cert III, piss easy, scared that it will scale me down (category B subject), and I get paid to do it.

Thank you so much for your time and effort

[RuiAce]

Just note that if you do choose to keep, studying for maths is ultimately 97% past papers. Being able to handle those is the deciding factor in performance in the exams.

(To be fair, fighting a mental illness is hard in any situation, and the HSC is nothing different. It should matter to some extent in your decision making, but you should only choose that extent based off what you want. It's just a beyond annoying obstacle, not a glass ceiling to outstanding performance. Seeing as though it's ADHD, your boundaries depend on how well you combat it and stay focused.)

An interesting observation is that in response to Sarah's question d), you stated that your focus would be better placed on biology and legal studies. Meanwhile, your summary shows that they're your favourite. Because you love them so much, if you drop a better place to shift your focus would probably be on eliminating the band 4 issues in English. Also because you love them so much, your own personal will to just keep studying biology and legal studies should force them into a band 6 as you progress.

Yet a counter-argument could be that by dropping, you secure the band 6 in bio and legal. Because you don't have to spend time on maths anymore.


At this point, I recommend considering how much time you NEED to spend on maths. Assuming retail is that easy (which, I believe entirely because I've been told it's easy by other people also), you basically have 5 subjects leftover. So if maths takes up a lot more than 20% of your time, drop.

I use "a lot" to keep it ambiguous. You can decide what "a lot" is. For some people that would just be 1%, for others it'd be a 10% gap.

[Shadowxo]

My advice would be to keep the maths, you don't have to do all the work assigned but having it as a subject will probably be beneficial (in Vic, maths is required for most universities and I would expect it would help when applying for jobs etc)
My two cents, good luck with whatever you choose!

[RuiAce]

Note: The difficulty of HSC General Mathematics is about equivalent to VCE Further Mathematics