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Should I drop English Extension 1? (1 Viewer)

Drop or Keep?

  • Drop

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Keep

    Votes: 3 100.0%

  • Total voters
    3

jeffstar18

New Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2012
Messages
6
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
I'm in year 12 and currently sitting on 13 units. These include ext 2 maths, physics, chemistry, economics and ext 1 english. I don't know whether I should drop Extension 1 English.

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Pros of dropping Extension 1 English

I get a lot more free time and a lot more free periods. I can focus my time on English Advanced.
Smaller workload (Ext 1 English seemed to be a lot of work for 1 unit in year 11)

Cons of dropping Extension 1 English

My school does very poorly at English Advanced. In a cohort of roughly 170, we typically achieve 4 to 6 Band 6s. In English Extension 1, we achieve about double that - roughly 10 or 12. This means that there will be around 6 boys who get a Band 6 in English Extension 1 who don't get a Band 6 in English Advanced.

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The question is - which option provides better benefits? Should I choose to have extra time to improve my results in other subjects (provided I don't procrastinate in free periods) or should I choose to mitigate the damage that English Advanced will likely do to my ATAR by having 3 English Units rather than 2 (2 Units of English must count). Keeping in mind that I ranked around 12th in year 11, and most likely will not achieve a band six in English Advanced but most likely will achieve a band six in Extension 1 English.

Are there any pros or cons that I have overlooked?
Any advice would be much appreciated.
 

Shadowdude

Cult of Personality
Joined
Sep 19, 2009
Messages
12,146
Gender
Male
HSC
2010
I think your 'cons' kind of assumes that ratio will stay constant year after year.

If that's your only con, and nothing like "I really enjoy the work" - you might be better off dropping the subject...
 

aekryan

Member
Joined
Jun 23, 2012
Messages
63
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
In extension 1 in year 12 is quite easy actually, and scales quite well. Form what i understand thus far your introduced to a new prescribed text each term and from that you pick 2 related, this process goes on for another 2 terms hereafter (you can pick same related, just new text) and by the time the HSC comes around you have 3 prescribed with 2 related ( using P-R structure), effectively meaning you have prepared throughout, it's all about the one genre. All that is needed is a set of conventions and to be a apt writer within both analytical and creative mediums.

However given the weight of your other subjects i hazard a guess as to you wouldn't be able to cope. No saying you can't, however i see no point in mollifying the fact that unless your both effective and can allocate large amount of time...even then... i mean, 4 unit math, eco, phys and chem is already quite a substantial work load.

Just do what you enjoy though, if i had picked economics instead of chem like my parents wanted i'd be both interested and engaged in the subject, and i'm not talking marks wise (although that would probably be the case too) but enjoyment and interest.
 

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