Legal Studies (1 Viewer)

[HSCExposed]

Anyone here doing it? How hard is the subject? How much memorisation is involved and is it interesting? Does preliminary matter for HSC? How easy is it getting band 6 compared to business studies while I am excellent at.

 

[raggiedoll]

Hi there,

I sat the HSC in 2014 and came out with a mark of 95 in Legal Studies, so hopefully I can offer you some valuable insight.

How hard is the subject? Entirely depends on the person. If you like the subject, it's going to be easier, and vice-versa. You can make the subject easier for you if you study efficiently. Studying efficiently means focusing on your WEAK areas, not just fine-tuning your strong ones. It also means condensing your notes as much as possible. If you can learn to shorten your notes as much as possible to the point where they are simply 'triggers' for your memory, the subject won't be too hard.

How much memorisation is involved and is it interesting? Most of the essential memorisation is in preparation for the multiple choice, where obscure legal terms often come up. However, the key to memorisation for this section is to start early in the year and let it seep into your long term memory. Get a comprehensive text book with all the legal terms of the first section of the syllabus and make sure you know them. As for the other sections, memorising very, very concise essay plans (literally just stating LCMR) will suffice, no need to memorise whole essays. I personally had a bunch of plans for Human Rights, particularly for the seven marker question, which I remembered in my head. Is it interesting? Again, entirely depends on the individual. Do you like working out the positive and negative components of things like the legal system? Do you like to keep in touch with issues plaguing our society? It's up to you to work it out.

Does Preliminary matter for the HSC? Ha, I can't really answer this to the best of my ability because I was actually ranked almost last for Legal Studies in Preliminary (in Year 12 I was second), due to my consistent lack of attention in class. But hey, I ended up doing okay, right? I'll leave this up to other BOS'ers to decide.

How easy is it to get a Band 6? In 2014, approximately 13% of all Legal Studies candidates achieved a Band 6. For Business Studies, it was 9%. I'm not quite sure whether this means that it's easier to get a Band 6 in Legal or whether it just means that the Legal cohort simply had a greater proportion of high achievers. Either way, you will excel in whatever subject you are interested in, and it appears that if you are excellent in Business Studies right now, you should be able to obtain a Band 6 in that just as easily as Legal Studies.

Hope this was of some help, if you have any more queries, feel free to PM me.

 

[adellabeaini]

Yeh i agree with raggiedoll, im currently doing legal studies for my HSC. Legal studies is content heavy but if you like the subject it makes it so much easier to study and understand. Ive heard that most people who do legal studies end up doing something in that area when they finish and ive seen alot of people drop business studies because its to boring. I did very poorly in my preliminary exams because i was focusing too much on other subjects but now after my first yr 12 exam i topped it because i was more organised and found ways to learn it better so preliminary is important so you have the basis of legal concepts as well as practicing your study skills but its really just a test run for your HSC.

 

[cssu0425]

Like raggiedoll said, it really depends on you - on how much effort and focus you put into. Not every HSC subject is easy tbh, every subject will have its highs and lows. But Legal Studies was interesting for me, primarily because I wanted better understanding of my social surroundings. I think you should do it, it really has benefitted how I perceive everything today.

But subject wise, it is not hard if you focus, study and review the content regularly. My advice is if you want to top the subject, you need to go beyond just textbook content.
Not sure what resources your teacher may provide but the STATE LIBRARY has good resources on CRIME and other LST options that you will do.
Another tip is to read news articles everyday on legal cases/issues e.g Supreme Court rulings, commentaries - your syllabus will require you to input LEGISLATION, CASES, MEDIA AND DOCUMENTS in your essays. And when you do that, it indicates to the marker that you have a good understanding of the syllabus, but just make sure it is coherent and sustained

And when I mean news articles/media - please don't use THE DAILY TELEGRAPH commentaries on legal issues as a resource, they're known to be very "sensationalised" and provide a limited perspective. I'd suggest SMH, The Guardian, The Conversation, but definitely not any media outlets owned by the Murdoch Empire.

Hope you pick it!