Hi guys, so I am on the edge of dropping of dropping to standard english and i need some advice. I used to be a diligent student in year 10 getting top marks, then in year 11 I got 60 percent avg with a rank of 6/28 and prelim final exam rank of 3rd, but I put in minimal effort. I then made the mistake of slacking off in my term 1 common module exam as I was debating dropping, I scored 60% with a rank of 15/25, I am thinking of actually putting in the effort now and getting some tution, though I might need to catch up on the holiday homework. So I guess what I’m trying to say is, will dropping to standard english hurt my atar? If it helps I am doing excpetionally well in my other 4 subjects.
depends, for me it was worthwhile as i was picking up 4 unit maths and did pretty meh in year 11 advanced, couldn't crack into the a range no matter how hard i tried and i wanted the lower workload in standard, plus my school was pretty clear that they recommended dropping if u found advanced difficult. worked out well for me, i went from not being able to get an a to consistently getting high marks, i even got 20/20 on a creative task based on our text, creatives used to be my weakest area but just because i loved the text so much as it was more contemporary i found it very easy to get into the shoes of the characters as was required. finished year 12 rank 1, then got carried in the hsc lol i only got 77 somehow but luckily my rank saved me as i got a 95 internal mark as a result of my rank, ended up getting high band 5 which was wayyy better than the band 4 i probably would've gotten in advanced.
i will say though, if you are putting in minimal effort rn but are willing to put in the hours and you know u can do well in advanced if u try, id recommend keeping it, as yes if u get a band 6 in advanced english it's very good for your atar, but also a band 5-6 in standard is honestly pretty similar to a band 5-6 in advanced at the end of the day. another thing to consider is the cohort, at my school as i said a lot of advanced students were encouraged to drop so the standard cohort was pretty good at the subject not to mention there were already strong students in standard before the advanced droppers, whereas at other schools u might not have the same experience, but ultimately it cancels out if you are high ranking anyway.
overall i'd say drop if u are finding the workload in advanced too much and if u want a bit more time to work on ur other subjects (although u said u are doing well so might not be an issue), the texts are much much much more accessible and easier to read in standard and therefore much easier to write an essay about, its easier to get a good grip of the ideas. but don't think that standard is a subject where u can slack and do nothing, u still need to write essays frequently, collate quotes, analyse ideas and come up with ur own independent understanding of the text, just like in advanced. but don't worry about atar, doing well in standard will still let u get a high atar if that's what ur aiming for, so just decide if u want to drop based on what i said above. : )
