The Other Side of the 12 or More Units Debate (1 Viewer)

SuchSmallHands

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Hey everyone!

So basically as I’ve looked around this forum I’ve noticed that the general answer given to anyone considering 12 or more units (especially 13/14) for the HSC is something along the lines of ‘try it out until you have a clear idea of what to drop’, ‘don’t’ do it, just focus really hard on 10/11 units’ or ‘r u insane?’ While all of these are pretty valid in a way, the other side of this argument isn’t often seen on BoS, so I thought I’d put it out there for anyone considering 12 or more units.

Firstly, I finished my HSC in 2014. I did 14 units all the way up to the exams. I accelerated none of them. However, I took one unit of non-ATAR religion (Catholic Studies) due to the fact I attended a Catholic School, so essentially there were 13 units able to count toward my ATAR.

Half way through year 11 I started to realise that I actually loved the subject I’d always planned to drop (chemistry), and I started considering keeping it for the HSC. I thought I’d do relatively poorly in it though, since science was never really my thing in junior years, so I wanted to keep the rest of my subjects to boost my ATAR. I was also expecting to do pretty badly in Advanced English, I was so sure of that I basically only came to class when we were watching Blade Runner, so I picked up EE1 and EE2 expecting them to be my two units of English. 13 HSC units allowed enough space for two units of Advanced English and one of chemistry (I wasn’t expecting to smash it or anything but I still knew I had a good shot at a band 6) to not count toward my ATAR.

However, that’s not exactly how things turned out. I was really shocked by my results when they were released. Despite chemistry being not only the subject in which my actual grades were the lowest but the subject in which there was the smallest margin between me and second in the class (small school, my ranks were first in everything internally), it was my highest result in the end. My EE2 major work which had been given a mark of 50/50 by my teacher had scored only a 44 externally, and I did even worse (43) in EE1, despite having strong marks for two years. In Advanced English, into which I put next to no work, banking on it not counting toward my ATAR, I got a 90. It ended up being my highest result of any of my English units, despite comparatively low marks all year and very poor attendance. Modern history, which I had always considered to be my best subject, ended up not counting toward my ATAR. After two years of results consistently in the high 90s I got a HSC mark of 88.

Basically, if I’d been forced to drop down to 10 units for year 12 the first subject I’d have thought to drop would have been chemistry. All evidence available to me before December 2014 indicated it was the subject most likely not to count toward my ATAR. The last subject I’d have dropped would be modern history, since I was ranked first in it by the largest margin and had a trial mark of 96. If I had done this, according to Matrix for 2012, my mark would have dropped by 1.5 points (97 to 95.5 in that year’s scaling).

What I’m trying to say is that it’s easy enough to say ‘drop your worst subject and just focus on the ones you’re better at’, but how sure are you of the subjects you’re best at? I know my idea of where my strengths were was completely the opposite of reality. Keeping an extra subject (or even two) isn’t just as a backup for if you screw up on the day of a HSC exam, or in the trials, it’s also there for if you suddenly realise you didn’t know your relative abilities as well as you thought you did. I’m not saying 12+ units is for everyone, I’m just offering this as something to think about for people considering taking it on, since doing 14 units hands down saved my ATAR and my chances at getting into the degree I want to do.
 

ninjafingazz

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Interesting perspective! :) I'm actually on 13U myself and I got a few Q's!

1) How did you manage the workload without sacrificing time off other subjects??
2) were there times you were so close to dropping a subject and if so how did you overcome it??

These were the main adversities I faced with 13U so far so I was wondering if it's actually worthwhile or even possible to overcome them?
 

RivalryofTroll

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As I quote from my Year 11 MX1 teacher, ''Please do 11 or 12 units, many people who do 10 units are twiddling their thumbs during free periods''.

Of course being on 10 units has quite a few advantages over doing 11/12 or more units but so does the latter over the former.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s easy enough to say ‘drop your worst subject and just focus on the ones you’re better at’, but how sure are you of the subjects you’re best at? I know my idea of where my strengths were was completely the opposite of reality. Keeping an extra subject (or even two) isn’t just as a backup for if you screw up on the day of a HSC exam, or in the trials, it’s also there for if you suddenly realise you didn’t know your relative abilities as well as you thought you did. I’m not saying 12+ units is for everyone, I’m just offering this as something to think about for people considering taking it on, since doing 14 units hands down saved my ATAR and my chances at getting into the degree I want to do.
This so much. The reason why I still kept Physics in Year 12 and did not regret my decision even after my results came out.

I remember how Deswa (some of you may or may not remember him) was thinking of dropping Chemistry after Year 11 (because Economics was his best subject and Physics was better than Chemistry for him). Didn't drop it.

Then during Year 12, he was thinking of dropping Physics at one point (Economics was still his best subject and Chemistry was his better subject later on). Didn't drop it.

Ultimately, he kept his 12 units.

Guess what didn't count towards the calculation of his ATAR in the end?

His ''best subject'' Economics throughout Year 11 and 12.
 

SuchSmallHands

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Interesting perspective! :) I'm actually on 13U myself and I got a few Q's!

1) How did you manage the workload without sacrificing time off other subjects??
2) were there times you were so close to dropping a subject and if so how did you overcome it??

These were the main adversities I faced with 13U so far so I was wondering if it's actually worthwhile or even possible to overcome them?
1) I tried to be really consistent. The hardest thing to deal with with 14U is heavy assessment periods, so rather than trying to do four assessments in one week I'd try to pace myself. Keeping up with notes is also important, just do a dot point of two for each subject each night.

2) I was really disillusioned with my results in chemistry at times and I really considered dropping it. I was generally getting low 90s and I felt really disappointed. But I knew that I loved it and had to just keep going with it, because I needed something I really enjoyed. Remind yourself why you take that subject. If you love it or you're good at it or you need it for uni, and just keep moving forward.
 

SuchSmallHands

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As I quote from my Year 11 MX1 teacher, ''Please do 11 or 12 units, many people who do 10 units are twiddling their thumbs during free periods''.

Of course being on 10 units has quite a few advantages over doing 11/12 or more units but so does the latter over the former.



This so much. The reason why I still kept Physics in Year 12 and did not regret my decision even after my results came out.

I remember how Deswa (some of you may or may not remember him) was thinking of dropping Chemistry after Year 11 (because Economics was his best subject and Physics was better than Chemistry for him). Didn't drop it.

Then during Year 12, he was thinking of dropping Physics at one point (Economics was still his best subject and Chemistry was his better subject later on). Didn't drop it.

Ultimately, he kept his 12 units.

Guess what didn't count towards the calculation of his ATAR in the end?

His ''best subject'' Economics throughout Year 11 and 12.
Sounds so much like me! I think especially with humanities they're so subjective that you can never really be certain how you'll perform externally.
 

PLC2K14

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As I quote from my Year 11 MX1 teacher, ''Please do 11 or 12 units, many people who do 10 units are twiddling their thumbs during free periods''.

Of course being on 10 units has quite a few advantages over doing 11/12 or more units but so does the latter over the former.



This so much. The reason why I still kept Physics in Year 12 and did not regret my decision even after my results came out.

I remember how Deswa (some of you may or may not remember him) was thinking of dropping Chemistry after Year 11 (because Economics was his best subject and Physics was better than Chemistry for him). Didn't drop it.

Then during Year 12, he was thinking of dropping Physics at one point (Economics was still his best subject and Chemistry was his better subject later on). Didn't drop it.

Ultimately, he kept his 12 units.

Guess what didn't count towards the calculation of his ATAR in the end?

His ''best subject'' Economics throughout Year 11 and 12.
Inspirational. When's the book going to be published :haha:
 

babylon77

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Just to support this, I had a relatively similar scenario in terms of what I thought would/wouldn't count > I was about to drop Ex2 in the middle of term 2 and got talked out of it. I was only on 11 units and would've been on ten. English Extension one had been my best subject all year and I was absolutely sure it would count. When the HSC results came out Ex2 was my best with 49/50 and Ex1 the unit that didn't count with 46/50.

I'd also agree with what the poster above said about unpredictability in terms of what you'll get on the actual exam day > Not to try to be pessimistic but there is a pretty strong chance that even in one of the subjects you are best at, you can get a question you really weren't hoping to get or simply misread the question/ muck up your timing between the sections > as I did with the Ex1 creative writing. So it is really important to work hard consistently for your internal assessments and putting in the work for subjects with major works like History Extension, Ex2 and Society and Culture so as to mitigate the impact of any stuff-ups on the day.

Best of luck to all 2015ers
 

britaker

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I have to agree, I dropped to 11 because I thought being on 12/13 would drag down my ATAR. My friend doing 13 units ended up with 99.85, which was in the end significantly higher than my ATAR. I think this may have had something to do with the fact I tended to waste the huge amounts of spare time I had, whereas she had less time and therefore tended to use it more wisely :haha:

In the end it was also more harrowing waiting for the results to come out because I didn't really have any 'backup' subjects in the event that I bombed a 2 unit subject. I spent most of Y12 worrying that chemistry would drag down my ATAR, or perhaps it'd be biology, etc. etc., In the end I guess it comes down to how much faith you have in your own academic abilities, if I could go back and do Year 12 again I would've probably stayed on 12 units just to save myself all that time worrying/stressing after school had ended and the ATARs were released.
 

babylon77

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The other thing I could add is to not mentally psych yourself out of an exam > I went to a fairly low ranking school and stuffed up one assessment in a particular subject badly so I dropped a few ranks and thought it would stuff up my whole ATAR, so I basically had a panic attack before the HSC exam and fell asleep at like 4:30 am > Somehow ended up getting a 95 HSC exam mark which ended up only getting pulled down to 94 and was one of my better marks overall. So moral of the story I guess is keep having a go and don't despair and you'll reach your goal/s
 

matchalolz

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I myself am on 11 units but can further prove that it can be extremely difficult to predict which subjects are going to count or not.

During the week for my first hsc assessments, i had all my exams crammed into the first two days except for maths extension which was 3 days after (yeh unlucky)

Because maths extension is only worth 1 unit, i thought it was the subject i could afford to stuff up since everything else is two units so at least one unit of every subject will count. Because of this, I totally neglected maths extension until all my other exams were done. My thoughts being: if i stuff this up, I'm going to drop. my friend was urging me to study for maths ext even if i had other exams but i was really stubborn because I felt really underprepared for everything else :S

Despite doing well in maths in prelim, during my preparation i had recurring thoughts of failure because i had left it all so last minute. But seriously, 3 days can actually make a difference when you're desperate

maths ext ended up being my second highest mark (behind 2u) even if i was almost certain that i would do better in my content heavy subjects. I did really average in my content heavy subjects and maths ext could actually boost my atar now, who knows? tbh anything can happen, and i have no idea what is going to count anymore
 

RivalryofTroll

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Sounds so much like me! I think especially with humanities they're so subjective that you can never really be certain how you'll perform externally.
Really depends on the person and their strengths but in my view, I think more people get unexpected ''shocks'' when it comes to HSC marks for the sciences (Biology, Physics and Chemistry). Plus, the sciences have been known to have a much more strict marking criteria than the humanities (including Economics).

Recent thread on this - http://community.boredofstudies.org/1134/atar-hsc-marks-class-2014/332031/physics-scores-being-very-low.html

Ultimately illustrates that you can never be ''100% sure'' what subjects are dead-weight. Sometimes, it's unpredictable.
 

enoilgam

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Totally agree with RoT and SSH on this one. Ultimately, the HSC is about you - you need to analyse your own situation and decide on a course of action which best suits your strengths needs. I know this seems obvious, but people often come onto BoS looking for definitive answers and with the HSC, sometimes it isnt that simple.
 

britaker

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Really depends on the person and their strengths but in my view, I think more people get unexpected ''shocks'' when it comes to HSC marks for the sciences (Biology, Physics and Chemistry).
Ultimately illustrates that you can never be ''100% sure'' what subjects are dead-weight. Sometimes, it's unpredictable.
I'd say the biggest surprise for me (and for a few other people, it seems) was EE2. The best you can do is hope for markers that like your MW I suppose.
 

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