18.10.13
Q: Hi I'm in year 11 and I'm currently still debating over whether I should keep 13 units (4u maths, 3u english, 2u chemistry, 2u economics and 2u japanese) is it better to keep the better scaling subjects or drop it? Everyone's telling me to do what I like and disregard scaling?- Don't 101% disregard scaling but keep it in mind. Yes, do what you like but make sure this subject also scales decently well as you don't want the course to penalise your marks (if I make any sense). If I wanted a subject which scaled well, I would have picked 4U maths but I genuinely don't have an interest in the course so I picked something scaled equivalently well and I enjoyed i.e. Japanese Extension. No Japanese extension does not actually scale equivalently well as 4U maths but on the HSC mean charts, instead of being scaled down 10 marks like chemistry and the rest, it only went down by 2 marks whereas 4U maths scaled you higher 1-2 marks.
- I'd drop English extension only because it's time consuming for its worth as a 1 unit subject and it actually doesn't scale that great. 12 units is a maximum you should keep but keep in mind how heavy content your subjects are. If I were you I'd drop economics (ironic because I do economics) but because you have 12 units and I only have 10 (and this is based on past experience. Japanese continuers is actually a very simple subject and it scales well too and compared to economics which is a very content heavy subject, you'd ought to pick a language.
- However, if you were to pursue a commerce related career then drop chemistry instead. Both economics and chemistry are the highest scaling of their science/social sciences so either way you're set. Or you can keep both of them and drop Japanese. I'd sincerely recommend you to do Japanese as it's a boost towards your career. Think of it this way- if you were attending a job interview and you were on par with another candidate, if they know they you have an extra linguistic skill compared to the other person who is restricted with let's say, English and Chinese, then they'll definitely pick you.
- If you're going to choose a university degree for Japanese, stay with it for HSC as university lectures of Japanese are extremely hard (heard from my Japanese teacher herself and previous linguistics students) as they will assume a lot of the things they teach is assumed knowledge hence they'll skip a lot and you'll have a hard time catching up if you don't have the basic foundation in high school
- Keep 4U maths if you're actually decent in maths. From Devina, I heard that Leroy who picked 4U maths, 2u English, chemistry and physics actually didn't do that well (i.e wasn't the brightest kid) and got 71 for English or something ended up with an ATAR of 94 because he did well in 4U.
- Anyway, don't disregard scaling, draw up a table/list of what you want to do in the future and start crossing out your units from there. Be safe, stay with 11-12 units and don't drop down to 10. Overall you chose well scaling subjects so it shouldn't be of a concern, now it's just prioritizing what you like best.
