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March 28, 2024, 10:53:54 pm

Author Topic: I'm not sure what subject to do  (Read 1860 times)  Share 

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Jung.J

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I'm not sure what subject to do
« on: August 12, 2019, 09:04:32 pm »
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Hi. I'm a year 10 students preparing a course selection which happens tomorrow :'(
Thing is I know that I'm going to choose English, Maths Methods and Physical Education. But other than that, I got no idea.
I not too bad at science and enjoy a little but not my favourite. I'm planning to choose at least 1 of the science subjects (bio, psychology, chemistry and physics).
Honestly, I don't know what I want to be after school but I gonna finish year 12 for sure.
Any suggestion on the subjects?

Bri MT

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Re: I'm not sure what subject to do
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2019, 09:16:47 pm »
+2
what's your favourite/least disliked part of science? Why do you want to study a science subject?

Based on the info you've provided the only thing I can think of is that biology somewhat links to PE and physics somewhat links to methods.

Good luck!

Ionic Doc

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Re: I'm not sure what subject to do
« Reply #2 on: August 12, 2019, 09:23:35 pm »
+1
Hi. I'm a year 10 students preparing a course selection which happens tomorrow :'(
Thing is I know that I'm going to choose English, Maths Methods and Physical Education. But other than that, I got no idea.
I not too bad at science and enjoy a little but not my favourite. I'm planning to choose at least 1 of the science subjects (bio, psychology, chemistry and physics).
Honestly, I don't know what I want to be after school but I gonna finish year 12 for sure.
Any suggestion on the subjects?

thought I would let you know that VCE science is way more different to previous years,
especially as the content is much more interesting and engaging, as well as organised and practical.

+

Chemistry and Physics  also fulfils a lot of prerequisites whereas most universities don't list the other science's as prerequisites.
However both bio and psych are really interesting subjects as well.

good luck
2019/2020 - Psychology | Biology | Chemistry | Methods | Further | English
2021 - Science @ Melbourne University

Jung.J

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Re: I'm not sure what subject to do
« Reply #3 on: August 12, 2019, 09:57:34 pm »
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Thank you all for the replies. My favourite subject is math, pe and science. My least favourite subject would probably be humanity. I really liked chemistry last semester but as the subject changed and now I'm in "Intro to VCE Chemistry and Physic", it's way challenging than I thought it would be and I lost interest.
My brother is currently doing biology u1 and 2 and he said it's one of his favourite subjects and it's not that challenging. However, I'm worried that the university courses in most cases will require a good study score in either chemistry or physic, not bio.
I really like math and I heard that Physic is very mathematic based, but is it engaging and enjoyable?

Bri MT

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Re: I'm not sure what subject to do
« Reply #4 on: August 12, 2019, 10:09:51 pm »
+1
Thank you all for the replies. My favourite subject is math, pe and science. My least favourite subject would probably be humanity. I really liked chemistry last semester but as the subject changed and now I'm in "Intro to VCE Chemistry and Physic", it's way challenging than I thought it would be and I lost interest.
My brother is currently doing biology u1 and 2 and he said it's one of his favourite subjects and it's not that challenging. However, I'm worried that the university courses in most cases will require a good study score in either chemistry or physic, not bio.
I really like math and I heard that Physic is very mathematic based, but is it engaging and enjoyable?

In my experience, physics and chemistry don't get much easier conceptually but it might be than you're struggling more due to the shift into VCE rather than because the content is intrinsically difficult for you

Biology is very conceptually challenging for some and less so for others - but if you and your brother are quite similar that might be a good gauge. In my experience, lots of university courses just require "a science" and don't specify which. Afaik, usually if a specific one is needed it's chemistry - I have only rarely seen physics as a mandatory prereq.

Physics in real life is very maths based, in VCE it's less math-based because they can't assume everyone studying it has studied methods (methods does still help/link to it anyway). Whether it's engaging or enjoyable can vary a lot between people. It might be worth quickly going through the overview on the study design to see if the topics interest you.

DrDusk

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Re: I'm not sure what subject to do
« Reply #5 on: August 12, 2019, 11:03:17 pm »
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Physics in real life is very maths based, in VCE it's less math-based because they can't assume everyone studying it has studied methods (methods does still help/link to it anyway).
Now that's a very very very very very big understatement lol.

Physics is probably the most intellectually challenging out of the 3 sciences. Chemistry can also be challenging but conceptually the concepts taught aren't 'abstract. Typically Physics involves learning a lot of abstract ideas and notions that govern the world. I recommend you try it out!

Look seeing anything for the first time will at a glance seem very difficult, but you get used to it.

Sine

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Re: I'm not sure what subject to do
« Reply #6 on: August 12, 2019, 11:17:44 pm »
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Now that's a very very very very very big understatement lol.

Physics is probably the most intellectually challenging out of the 3 sciences. Chemistry can also be challenging but conceptually the concepts taught aren't 'abstract. Typically Physics involves learning a lot of abstract ideas and notions that govern the world. I recommend you try it out!

Look seeing anything for the first time will at a glance seem very difficult, but you get used to it.
At a VCE level - difficulty in terms of scoring probably goes
Biology > Chemistry > Physics
Doesn't help as Biology only scales +1 as most of the strong students do it in year 11.

Hi. I'm a year 10 students preparing a course selection which happens tomorrow :'(
Thing is I know that I'm going to choose English, Maths Methods and Physical Education. But other than that, I got no idea.
I not too bad at science and enjoy a little but not my favourite. I'm planning to choose at least 1 of the science subjects (bio, psychology, chemistry and physics).
Honestly, I don't know what I want to be after school but I gonna finish year 12 for sure.
Any suggestion on the subjects?

I would probably recommend Chemistry if you are choosing between all of the sciences equally as it gives the most opportunities in terms of university prerequisites.

You also say you like math - have you thought about Specialist Maths or Further Maths?


Sconey

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Re: I'm not sure what subject to do
« Reply #7 on: August 12, 2019, 11:23:52 pm »
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Doesn't help as Biology only scales +1 as most of the strong students do it in year 11.

Hey Sine,
As someone currently doing Biology in Year 11 (as a 3/4), I'm just wondering how you came to that conclusion. Why would strong students doing the subject in Year 11 cause that? Thanks.

Sconey

Sine

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Re: I'm not sure what subject to do
« Reply #8 on: August 12, 2019, 11:45:12 pm »
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Hey Sine,
As someone currently doing Biology in Year 11 (as a 3/4), I'm just wondering how you came to that conclusion. Why would strong students doing the subject in Year 11 cause that? Thanks.

Sconey
Scaling is determined by how students did in all their other subjects. E.g. Let's take chemistry - imagine the average study score from all the students in all their subjects other than chemistry is 34. That means being average in a chemistry cohort actually should put you at a study score of 34 since an average study score of the chemistry cohort is 34. However, the median raw study score is always 30 so they need to scale it up 4 points to make it fair and to reflect the difficulty in obtaining rankings in that somewhat strong cohort.

So if we take the biology students - a lot of the high scorers and a lot of the "strength" of the cohort comes from students who do it in year 11. However, those students don't have other subjects for VCAA to compare it to as generally year 11 students only do 1 subject. A very very small proportion will do 2-3. So the strength of the students is not taken into account as their "other" study scores are completed in the following year - so the biology cohort is calculated as weaker than it actually is due to the unavailability of that data. I don't know how much it would actually effect students (could be only a small +) anyway it's still possible to do very well in the subject regardless.

It's kind of similar to how VCAA stuffed up (or at least didn't change the method quickly enough) for Specialist Maths scaling. I think before 2011 they didn't take into accounts years 12's scores in their year 11 subjects (for many this was methods). I'm not sure if it was that year that they started also scaling all the maths against each other to calculate scaling. but once they fixed that error scaling increased from +7 to +12/13.

Sconey

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Re: I'm not sure what subject to do
« Reply #9 on: August 13, 2019, 12:08:33 am »
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Scaling is determined by how students did in all their other subjects. E.g. Let's take chemistry - imagine the average study score from all the students in all their subjects other than chemistry is 34. That means being average in a chemistry cohort actually should put you at a study score of 34 since an average study score of the chemistry cohort is 34. However, the median raw study score is always 30 so they need to scale it up 4 points to make it fair and to reflect the difficulty in obtaining rankings in that somewhat strong cohort.

So if we take the biology students - a lot of the high scorers and a lot of the "strength" of the cohort comes from students who do it in year 11. However, those students don't have other subjects for VCAA to compare it to as generally year 11 students only do 1 subject. A very very small proportion will do 2-3. So the strength of the students is not taken into account as their "other" study scores are completed in the following year - so the biology cohort is calculated as weaker than it actually is due to the unavailability of that data. I don't know how much it would actually effect students (could be only a small +) anyway it's still possible to do very well in the subject regardless.

It's kind of similar to how VCAA stuffed up (or at least didn't change the method quickly enough) for Specialist Maths scaling. I think before 2011 they didn't take into accounts years 12's scores in their year 11 subjects (for many this was methods). I'm not sure if it was that year that they started also scaling all the maths against each other to calculate scaling. but once they fixed that error scaling increased from +7 to +12/13.

I see! Thanks for the detailed reply. As if I didn't feel bad enough about how I'm doing in Biology already ahahahh