English Standard naturally imposes higher academic standards when compared to Stage 5 English. You will be studying slightly more complex texts, learning and applying new techniques and techniques that you already know in more sophisticated ways and will also have the opportunity to enhance the quality of your writing beyond your current ability, which is crucial given that a significant part of English Standard requires writing long responses (primarily essays). Favourable performance therefore depends on a number of factors:
- Your knowledge and understanding of the texts that you study.
- Your knowledge and ability to apply a range of literary and visual techniques.
- Your ability to develop good quality responses, particularly essays.
Business Studies in year 11 should not be very difficult. Essentially, the Preliminary course covers three topics, being:
- Nature of business
- Business management
- Business planning
All of these topics provide you with a brief overview of different areas of business, serving as a good introduction and allowing you to gain a solid foundation of knowledge going into year 12, where the HSC course explores specific key business functions in more depth. In ensuring a good start to Business Studies, it would be a good idea to ensure that you understand and regularly revise the content. You should also seek assistance with any concept that you may not fully understand as soon as possible. Additionally, it would be a good idea to learn the syllabus, since this will be useful in terms of helping you remember the content, especially in year 12 (where this will become more significant).
Although I dropped Earth and Environmental Science going into year 12, I still completed the year 11 course. While I may no longer be able to provide content-specific advice given that I am no longer familiar with EES content after many years, I will note the importance of three general elements in ensuring favourable performance:
- Staying up-to-date with the content.
- Ensuring that your notes and clear and easy to interpret, as this will ease the process of reviewing the content.
- Seeking clarification/advice with any concept that you may not feel confident with at the earliest opportunity.
I hope this helps!