Please see this, letter to adrian piccoli, minister of education (2 Viewers)

[hayabusaboston]

Even if you don't want English to count towards your ATAR, having it as a separate score that unis look at anyway for admissions as hayabusaboston suggests defeats the entire purpose.

Yes let's not have it count for our ATAR but have the unis look at it anyway as a requirement

lol

With the current system english is FORCED into consideration when you're applying for uni. With my system english scores are OPTIONAL for the uni to decide if the person is good enough for the course.

 

[iBibah]

tbh I can see haybusa's point, it does make sense in a way.

If you are gifted towards the maths/sciences, you have the burden of English being compulsory. However if you are gifted towards English/humanities, you don't have the burden of maths being compulsory.

ie why can't everyone be judged on what they are best at etc.

But this will never happen.

Yes I have always thought this, though English and communication skills are supposedly far more needed than mathematical skills, hence making it compulsory and counting it towards ATAR makes people care about it.

 

[khfreakau]

tbh I can see haybusa's point, it does make sense in a way.

If you are gifted towards the maths/sciences, you have the burden of English being compulsory. However if you are gifted towards English/humanities, you don't have the burden of maths being compulsory.

ie why can't everyone be judged on what they are best at etc.

But this will never happen.

in saying that though, there are immense benefits of undertaking non-humanities subjects - the scaling is huge, and well worth your time if you're willing to put in the effort. whilst humanities students don't have to do work in areas that they're weak in, they have to do significantly better to do just as well as the other kids.

 

[Spiritual Being]

guys

is hayabusa a troll account?

 

[atar90plus]

who knows !!!

guys

is hayabusa a troll account?

 

[atar90plus]

Who cares!!!

 

[atar90plus]

But if it is a troll account that is sad because he is paying money to become a premium member just to troll us

guys

is hayabusa a troll account?

 

[atar90plus]

That is just sad

 

[iBibah]

who knows !!!

Not a troll account.

 

[hayabusaboston]

Not a troll account geez, I am just another 2013 HSC'er who is depressed and concerned over the now great difficulty placed upon him in getting an ATAR even NEAR 99 because of english.

 

[townie]

If your depressed about not being able to get 99 you need to re-asses your priorities

 

[hayabusaboston]

If your depressed about not being able to get 99 you need to re-asses your priorities

Rather than reassessing priorities from a self-inflicted assurance of failure in English, I will get a tutour and strive to get a band 6

 

[Absolutezero]

Rather than reassessing priorities from a self-inflicted assurance of failure in English, I will get a tutour and strive to get a band 6

Or, you know, relax. If you won't be happy unless you get 99 plus you've got bigger problems to worry about.

 

[Sy123]

English really isnt that hard to be honest, you just dont want to fall into a trap of roting essays and such. Its much easier for someone to just know their text really well and write what they know in the exam, with enough practise and knowledge of your own ideas really well, you can answer pretty much any question truly, rather than thinking of how to adapt your rote one to the question which sometimes can end badly and will then not answer the question giving you crappy marks.

Im not saying that roting is completely out of the question, it works really well for some people, but if it doesnt work for you then stop doing it

 

[nifkeh]

I guess it is too.. besides international students once they become PRs, they don't need to pay inflated uni fees anymore, so the government gets less from them. I think they don't want to disadvantage the kids that were in australia for more than 4 years by not making english compulsory so that they can still get the ATARs required for the local unis without international students 'stealing' it from them because they weren't local in the first place

 

[nifkeh]

Im sorry I didn't mean it to be interpreted that way, I meant to say I believe that english competency is not NECESSARILY indicative of intellectual ability. Indeed mathematically oriented people should be able to work up skill in english if they don't already have it, so I am obviously going to work at my english to get a minimum score of 90 in HSC.

Essentially I meant to convey that there are many scientifically/mathematically skilled people who do not have the "Orientation" to be naturally good at english, hence you can't judge them as being "stupid" overall.

I don't think it's much point.. btw uni's do justify the fact about this indirectly. They offer bonus points to people who do well in the 'assumed knowledge' that is needed to get a full understanding of the course. So if english dragged you down, the bonus points can still save you. ATAR is just a number, you need a goal. Your goal is not to get a 99.95 ATAR because it sounds good/nice. You need to be realistic and see the cut offs for the courses you want to enter.

Besides I was told, once you enter uni, no one bothers to ask about your ATAR anymore. I think it's true, because then it's whether you pass your courses or not, nobody will care if you're a 99.95 student because if you can't pass the course then that is your fault and you need to redo it. What's past is past, and it's not like a high ATAR will make you famous in the first year of uni anyway because it will be easily forgotten. There's no need to idolise a high ATAR as something everyone should acheive, only ~40 people in the state will get it, and all that matters is that it is used for university admission, and once it's purpose is done it's done.

so basically I'm saying there's no point setting a unclear goal to get a 99+ ATAR if you don't know what you're going to do anyway, just because it sounds good and easy and effective to brag about for 3 months or so.


plus you aren't seeming to do bad at school anyway, you're just too worried about the 99.95 ATAR and english going to drag you down. English drags everyone down, everyone's doing it. You should be happy that you're going to get an ATAR to get into uni anyway, as people with ATARs <40 won't. There's just too much hype and overratedness over the ATAR being the sole determinator of your career and life, there's stuff such as alternative pathways and mature entry, and there's always TAFE. So even if you get a lower ATAR than what you were going for, you can still take alternative pathways to do the course you wanted, just that it takes longer time that's all. Your life isn't going to collapse once you get an 85 ATAR, because you can still do lots of courses in uni with it than a person with a 70. It's still a great ATAR, I mean you beat 85% of the state.

You should be happy and prepared if you want to do well for your goals, just don't make a tentative one such as getting the 'perfect' 99.95 because it sounds good and flashy and you don't even know what you're doing for uni. You don't even need that high if you are not doing law or med as it is kind of unnecessary. No job interview is going to ask for your ATAR, as it wears off in less than a year, and they're looking for your skills and education rather than a number that screams 'perfect', because that doesn't mean anything after your course is offered.

 

[RealiseNothing]

I don't think it's much point.. btw uni's do justify the fact about this indirectly. They offer bonus points to people who do well in the 'assumed knowledge' that is needed to get a full understanding of the course. So if english dragged you down, the bonus points can still save you. ATAR is just a number, you need a goal. Your goal is not to get a 99.95 ATAR because it sounds good/nice. You need to be realistic and see the cut offs for the courses you want to enter.

Besides I was told, once you enter uni, no one bothers to ask about your ATAR anymore. I think it's true, because then it's whether you pass your courses or not, nobody will care if you're a 99.95 student because if you can't pass the course then that is your fault and you need to redo it. What's past is past, and it's not like a high ATAR will make you famous in the first year of uni anyway because it will be easily forgotten. There's no need to idolise a high ATAR as something everyone should acheive, only ~40 people in the state will get it, and all that matters is that it is used for university admission, and once it's purpose is done it's done.

so basically I'm saying there's no point setting a unclear goal to get a 99+ ATAR if you don't know what you're going to do anyway, just because it sounds good and easy and effective to brag about for 3 months or so.


plus you aren't seeming to do bad at school anyway, you're just too worried about the 99.95 ATAR and english going to drag you down. English drags everyone down, everyone's doing it. You should be happy that you're going to get an ATAR to get into uni anyway, as people with ATARs <40 won't. There's just too much hype and overratedness over the ATAR being the sole determinator of your career and life, there's stuff such as alternative pathways and mature entry, and there's always TAFE. So even if you get a lower ATAR than what you were going for, you can still take alternative pathways to do the course you wanted, just that it takes longer time that's all. Your life isn't going to collapse once you get an 85 ATAR, because you can still do lots of courses in uni with it than a person with a 70. It's still a great ATAR, I mean you beat 85% of the state.

You should be happy and prepared if you want to do well for your goals, just don't make a tentative one such as getting the 'perfect' 99.95 because it sounds good and flashy and you don't even know what you're doing for uni. You don't even need that high if you are not doing law or med as it is kind of unnecessary. No job interview is going to ask for your ATAR, as it wears off in less than a year, and they're looking for your skills and education rather than a number that screams 'perfect', because that doesn't mean anything after your course is offered.

hayabusaboston wants MBBS at USYD iirc.

Hence the goal of 99.95.

 

[RealiseNothing]

Your life isn't going to collapse once you get an 85 ATAR, because you can still do lots of courses in uni with it than a person with a 70. It's still a great ATAR, I mean you beat 85% of the state.

An ATAR of 85 beats ~25% of the state iirc.

What's past is past, and it's not like a high ATAR will make you famous in the first year of uni anyway because it will be easily forgotten.

lol he is already semi-known anyway. He just needs to fulfil his IQ tendencies.

 

[nifkeh]

I agree, they invented the concept of scaling to stop people from getting high ATARs (UAIs back then) from doing 'easy' subjects - subjects that did not test a lot of understanding of the knowledge needed or did not have enough difficulty in extended response questions in the course. Because back then people could get the same UAI with a high mark in 'easy' subjects and someone could get the same one in the same mark for the 'harder' subjects. so they made scaling to make the 'harder' subjects be relatable to the 'easier' ones for the UAI/ATAR calculations - in harder ones, a lower mark is needed to get a high ATAR as it is more difficult and a higher mark is needed to get the same high ATAR for the 'easier' subjects.

but that poses the problem too, people now know how to gain a 'benefit' from this system without it being deemed malpractice, so people can now get the high ATAR from maths/science subjects by doing well at them, and by also being hard they get a slightly inflated ATAR close to 99.95. so for someone doing only humanities, performance or language based ones they require more work to get the same atar close to 99.95, or only get one of 99.8 or so. In the UAC's attempts to justify fairness of subjects in ATAR calculations.. this system is still flawed. The best they could do limit the number of science/maths based units a person can do or reduce the scaling of the 'harder' subjects, or just revise the system again. Because it's still unfair

 

[nifkeh]

hayabusaboston wants MBBS at USYD iirc.

Hence the goal of 99.95.

oh lol. Well, you still need to do well in the UMAT, and also ace your interview. In interviews they're looking for a certain characteristic in responses for the student intake. There's not much point getting a 99.95, if you won't get past the 2nd hurdle, the UMAT and will get into Med Science which only requires ~90. You will need to get by transferring in uni from that course


Plus ranting on how english drags your ATAR down won't do much because the aim of making English compulsory was to ensure professionals that graduated from uni could speak English properly. This might sound stupid but there was a need for medical staff to communicate to patients properly, if they didn't know English, and Australia being a English speaking country, how else was effective communication going to take place? That's why it was made compulsory so that the future generation of professional graduates that were well English literate could flourish and reduce the burden on the community from having poor communication with those that were not good at English. Science and maths can only go a short way, as a MBBS you still need to communicate with others so it is crucial for the English to be good as well. So quit complaining, ace English or else consider another degree with a lower ATAR cut off