myeewyee said:
@T-mac:
What UAI did you get/What uni/What course? I'm interested.
Why is failure <90? Are you a failure if you're not in the top 16% (which is what 90uai equates to)?
I think your argument definitely applies for the top (ie 99.xx) students. But how many courses require 99+? If people want to be doctors or lawyers, then fair enough - stress. Stress hard. Unfortunately, success does not equal a law/medicine degree, and vice versa
All 4 of those sweeping generalisations you so smugly assumed above apply to me (well, actually that depends on whether you meant inner-city or just city). I know a LOT of people who will easily get in the high 90s and who, like me, think that the HSC is pretty much a letdown for such a long buildup of anticipation. Today, I played guitar and my gf came over. I'm not stressing, because its not worth stressing about; I'm a crammer, and I do it pretty well.
I'm personally aiming for 98; I need 95 for the scholarships I applied for (3 interviews scheduled so far) - but what the fuck does it matter? I only need 83 to go down the exact same career path! You made a comment about people's expectations being much higher than their actual results - well, if you wanna shout that back at me do so. I'll get back to you in two months.
Great contradiction there by the way, if you aim for less than 90 you're a dirty failure - but its ok - you can still be a successful engineer with 80 UAI!
TBH I think you're trying to justify a vacuous and unhappy stage of your life to us. I could make more wild guesses about your background, and summarise them as 4 generalised & contradictory points. But I won't bother, its already been done once in this thread.
I've set the failure mark to 90 based on the mark you need to get to courses such as engineering, etc. Since engineering is one of the lowest scores you need to get out of all the courses like med, law, etc, apart from science and arts. Of course, different unis would vary to my uni.
You should also notice that my description of failure is only on HSC performance and not the success of your future career. Yes, I agree it does not definitely groove your career path nicely.
All I was thinking at the time when I posted was how some people underestimate what it means for people to really try and succeed among all students graduating each year. I know only a few people that seem to try but hardly scores well. However, it's enough to see a pattern, which is their pain threshold in trying.
For example, I know this classmate whose mum always say he's been working hard lately and blablabla. But from what I've observed, for him to try hard is to sit in front of his desk lazily trying to figure out what the book or topic he's reading is all about. If he can't get it on the first go, he would go and grab something in the fridge to cool it off. So 2 hours later, he would still be doing the samething. And when his mum comes back from work, he would tell her how he's been studying for two hours. The point is, he doesn't seem to have a long attention span. It's just hard to say if he's really tried but suffers some ADD like illness.
Another example would be someone who claim they're trying but goes to clubs on the following night, and the night after and so on. And I rarely know anyone who got good scores studying like that. Actually, I know none. In fact, the people who say they are not trying might be the one who tries the most. Yes, we've all seen people like that.
I also know the difference between trying on subject and the one which I haven't. My worst subject was English. I totally screwed it up even though I felt I have tried. That was 2 weeks before the exam where I really looked at my texts properly. But I've crammed hard in those two weeks on it. However, it just didn't reflect it in my exam. So I think people who said they tried meant they've tried a month or two before the exam. And this chick posted before me gave it an example. She said I studied 10 hours the day before. Yea, like that's going to help. The sad thing is, she still doesn't seem to get the fact that trying the day before won't improve anything.
The other thing you've pointed out is people's studying habits. You're probably one of those quick witted type of students. So it would be easy for you to study subjects like legal studies where things can be retained easily within a short amount of time. And it wouldn't suprise me if you're good at math and physics either.
For the rest of us which is more than not, to get a mark like 97 98 would need more time to study. This may not mean the rest of us are stupid. It's just that we learn differently. So in reality, I'm speaking for those who have average abilities but managed to achieve great results from their keeness, perserverence, and mind to go through hardships.
Lastly, I think people look upon the HSC so nervously that they would always be less stressed than they would actually be on the day of the exam. It's a bit like the few minutes before you're about to walk onto a real game of basketball. You're always feeling nervous the most at that time but when you actually starts playing, everything becomes natural even though it is just as intense.
So my point is, because some of them still think their scores determine their success in the HSC, they shouldn't think they've succeeded with a shit ass 70 UAI. That's what some of the guys were implying. Maybe they didn't specifically mentioned it but you'll feel what they're thinking.
