davidbarnes said:
what??? I find that both Chemistry and Physics have heaps more content, and content that is much harder. With Physics, there is a tonne of knowledge of laws, rules, formulas etc that need to be known and applied. Chemsitry requires even more knowledge, and still some calcualtions. E&E Science has (a) not much content to the cource in comparison to Physics or Chemistry or Biology(b) the content is much easier (c) has hardly any calcualtions, meaning that if you know the content you're guranteeed to do well.
Read the E&E Science Sptlight book twice (its only what, 110 pages?) or so and you will know everything you need to know. Not only is E&E Science content basic, but a lot of it is just basic knowledge and common sense. You would have to be a compelte idiot to fail it.
Have a look at the Caimbridge EES textbook. Then have a look at the Jaccaranda Physics textbook. There is initially WAY more content in the Caimbridge text, and even more when you take into account that nearly half of the stuff in the Jaccaranda is just repeating itself over and over.
Also, it is PHYSICS that involves loads of common sense. It is probably one of the most straight forward sciences. If you have a copy of ANY ONE of the HSC physics textbooks you can virtually teach yourself the entire course. I admit at university-levels, yes, Physics generally does involve more difficult/advanced levels of work compared to Environmental sciences, but not at a HSC level.
EES in a lot of ways, covers some very modern science, so you have to be
constantly up to date with new theories, statistics. Also the general style of work is a lot more acedemic, (i.e. geological time-scale, calculating lithospheric movements, not to mention ALL the principals of geology (faunal sucession, superposition, uniformitarianism, original horizontality, etc.).
I agree, Chemistry gets pretty hard in some areas, but when you consider all three subjects at a high-ish HSC level, I think EES is generally hardest!