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Fourteen Units for the HSC? (1 Viewer)

SuchSmallHands

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Hey, so I was never planning on keeping chemistry for the HSC. I only really chose it to fill up units until I picked up English Ext. 2 and French Ext. However, I ended up really, really liking it and I'm currently ranked 1/20 in a mid-200s school. However, keeping it would give me 14 units. I know that's a lot, but one of the units will be Catholic Studies (for those of you not forced into doing some level of religion, Catholic Studies is the non-ATAR version of SOR). The teacher is my modern teacher, who says I could comfortably get all of the work done for the lesson in under five minutes and use the period as a study lesson. So essentially I will have 13 units. Is this still too many though, my other subjects are:

French Continuers
French Ext.
English Adv.
English Ext 1 & 2
Modern
Legal

I'm first in my class in all of them (well not EX2 and FX2 since I haven't started them yet) but like I said I'm not at a top-ranked school so that's not that much of an indication. Does anyone else do 13/14 units this year? If so, are you finding the workload pretty heavy for the HSC year? Anyone doing less, do you think that this is a stupid decision (like my school does)?
 

albertcamus

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I think it's too much.

Modern is quite a lot of work as is Chem in Y12 (Y12 Chem is very different with less concepts and more memorising).
 

simplyinsanity

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13/14 is probably too much. But you could keep them up to your first assessment task and then drop based on your performance in the. :)
 

someth1ng

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I would always recommend doing 10-12 units - for me, I found 10 units to be really good.

If you do what you love, there's no reason for you to do crap in any of those 10 units - unless you had some severe headache during the HSC.
 

tattoo2200

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Never!!! That is nothing!!! Go 16 if you can! It's less stressful and fun!
 

Renegader

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Study for 14 units > average 3 hours per day is spread across 14 units
Study for 10 units > average 3 hours per day is spread across 10 units

Marks = time spent per subject x effort + intrinsic skill

10 units = higher marks = higher ATAR
 

such_such

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Someone from my school had 14 units and managed to get band 6 in all of them = ATAR 99.4 so it's definitely possible. Just time + effort.
 

Focus is Key

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I have 13 and it's honestly not that bad (but really 12 units of exams because of EE2, and that's nearly over with anyway).
 

starshine02

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I know quite a few people who originally started off with 13 but eventually dropped down to 11 or 12. Despite that it's still definitely possible to do 14 units but it just depends on if you would prefer to do less subjects and just spend more time on them. I think doing 11-12 units is a good number and if you find that 14 units is too much you can always just drop something later on in the year :)
 

SuchSmallHands

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I have 13 and it's honestly not that bad (but really 12 units of exams because of EE2, and that's nearly over with anyway).
This is one of the major reasons why I don't think 14 units will be that much more work than 12. EE2 is something I'd sort of do for fun any way, and Catholic Studies is Catholic Studies. It's good to see that someone near the end of the course thinks something similar. Your rankings are insane by the way!
 

SuchSmallHands

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I know quite a few people who originally started off with 13 but eventually dropped down to 11 or 12. Despite that it's still definitely possible to do 14 units but it just depends on if you would prefer to do less subjects and just spend more time on them. I think doing 11-12 units is a good number and if you find that 14 units is too much you can always just drop something later on in the year :)
Yeah, good point. It's not like I'm absolutely locked into Chem for the HSC if I keep it for the start of year 12.
 

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