Push through in english advanced or drop to standard? (1 Viewer)

[ZakaryJayNicholls]

I plan on going into engineering so I see how the extra effort may not be worth staying in advanced, but from what other people have said since more people get band 5's and 6's in advanced, and so it can be somewhat easier to get a higher band compared to standard.

I understand what you mean by english course and band being irrelevant if I'm trying to get into engineering but I'm unsure of whether the potential boost in band and thus mark would be an advantage to my atar to help make it easier to achieve a higher atar and thus easier to get into a course. If its relevant, my goal uni is either UNSW or UQ.

The ATAR cuttoffs for both UNSW Engineering and UQ Engineering will be around 85 (most uni engineering cutoffs are around this level) so as long as you have band6+E4 in Adv+EX1 and band6 in physics, and band 5/6 in everything else (regardless of what the other subject mix is) you will likely get in.

By the UNSW handbook: "Assumed knowledge - Mathematics Extension 1 and Physics; for Bioinformatics: Mathematics Extension 1 and Chemistry; for - Chemical and Chemical Product: Chemistry, Mathematics Extension 1 and Physics, for Software: Mathematics Extension 1"
And the UQ handbook: "Queensland Year 12 (or equivalent) General English subject (Units 3 & 4, C); Mathematical Methods (Units 3 & 4, C); and one of Chemistry or Physics (Units 3 & 4, C). Studying Specialist Mathematics (Units 3 & 4, C) and both Chemistry and Physics is recommended as students will have increased flexibility in their studies."

In a nutshell, they're telling to be bloody good at math/science. The reason for this is the dropout rates in STEM are high because the math/physics workload in almost every stem degree picks up really quick, so having focused more on an irrelevant course like advanced English (as opposed to focusing more time to math/physics) may harm you quite a lot in first/second year university in a STEM program.

That said, if you can handle advanced English and also get the highest bands in MathEX1+Physics then go for it.

 

[ZakaryJayNicholls]

On the flip side however, arent there a lot of uni courses with eng adv as assumed knowledge?

I should add that my original comment was for students aiming for quantitative programs (BE, BCom, BSc, BCompSci, BIT, etc). Based on OPs subjects I assumed they were headed for uni STEM.

As you say, if you are heading for a qualitative program (BA, LLB, BEd, BBus, BSocSc, etc) then Advanced English will be highly advantageous and, in many instances, mandatory.

 

[carrotsss]

As a series note, if you are planning to go into a quantitative degree program (BE, BCom, BSc, BCompSci, BIT, etc) your English course and band will essentially be irrelevant.

People who teach in quantitative departments rarely care how good you are at textual analysis (as long as you can read and write and are not completely incapable of reading a book/paper).

Consequently, it would be highly advisable to drop to standard and reallocate your advanced English study time towards math/physics which are almost always the preferred competencies for quantitative programs. In fact, many degree programs will actually require this as prerequisite material for some of the first-year courses (Some which I have taught/do teach include: UNSW - MATH1131/MATH1141, USYD - MATH1001, UON - MATH1110/PHYS1210).

So, if you are going for a quant program, this is the general advice I provide my students, and this is what I would strongly recommend to you.

Unfortunately as much as you’re right and English sucks, because HSC English has to count towards our ATAR, we pretty much have no choice but to try hard in it if we want a good ATAR.

 

[ZakaryJayNicholls]

Unfortunately as much as you’re right and English sucks, because HSC English has to count towards our ATAR, we pretty much have no choice but to try hard in it if we want a good ATAR.

Define good ATAR, I'd say a good ATAR is 75-90 and you really do not need advanced English for that kind of mark (even though adv eng scales well).
Now if your definition of good is 90+ then maybe.