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Should I do Extension 2? (1 Viewer)

Raeksis

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Aug 5, 2013
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I'm currently in year 11 doing the EX1 accelerant course and I'm in a predicament about deciding whether I want to continue with maths next year doing 4 unit or just finish up with it. My original reasoning for doing the accelerated course was that I would have lots of time in year 12 to study for my other subjects but recently my teacher has really been making it clear to me that I'd be missing out by not doing it and so I'm not sure what to do. I thought I'd ask you guys.

Reasons for me to do it is: I love maths and I'm really keen to learn new topics. It would apparently do wonders for my ATAR (important question about that further down). It makes more sense to continue doing maths rather than neglect it for a year since I'll be doing it at uni.

Reasons for me not to do it: I'm doing quite well at the moment (averaged 98% in my exams so far for 2 unit and ranked 4th, 3 unit averaged 94% and I don't know my rank) however to get those marks I have to study for maths a LOT. Like for the trials I'm just doing now, I've done 30-something past papers.

My main concern is how I will have time for my other subjects next year when I will be sitting my maths exams at the same time as all of them, unlike what happens now since I'm doing accelerated. Like obviously this time next year for the trials there's no way I would have enough time to study as much as I have done now. Also maths isn't actually my best subject I believe - I may get the best marks in it out of all my subjects right now but that's because I devote most of my time to it. I could get the same marks fairly easily in a subject like English or History with much less time spent studying and so I can't imagine how well I could do in all those subjects if I had all the extra time next year from no maths. The issue I have with that is that perhaps I will be too relaxed and so I wouldn't do as brilliantly as I'd be expecting anyway - I need input on that.


Now my question pertaining to the whole ATAR thing with 4 unit is this. Lets say I get 97 for 2 Unit and 48 for 3 unit, making 145/150 units. Now I'm fairly confident that I could get an equally good mark for another 2 unit subject and so I would have 4 units totalling about 193 (when 1 unit of that subject is considered). Now if I did 4 unit, I lose my 2 unit mark and end up with 96 for 3 unit assuming I don't do those exams again, and let's say 90 for 4 unit, totalling 186. So I get a lower mark than the scenario above and yet the workload involved was much much much more.

Is there some flaw with how I've treated the units or is that the reality? If it's true then how is there such a huge benefit doing extension 2?
 

braintic

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Since a good ATAR is your goal, I hope you realise that it is not arrived at by simply adding your marks in each subject. There is scaling of your marks WHICH YOU DON'T SEE, and the ATAR is based on the aggregate of these unseen marks. Using the stats from the 2011 HSC:

Ext 1 96 scaled to about 94
Ext 2 90 scaled to about 91
2 unit Maths 97 about 93.

I'm not sure what your other subjects are, so I can't give stats there. But at this stage you probably have little idea of how likely you are to score particular marks in each subject. Here is the rough percentage of the state that scored a scaled (unseen) mark of 91 in each subject, leading to an ATAR of 99.5 if scored consistently across all of your subjects:

Maths 2U - 3%
Maths Ext 1 - 17%
Maths Ext 2 - 33%
English Adv - 4%
Biology - 1%
Chemistry - 2%
Economics - 3%
Business Studies - 1%
Legal Studies - 1%
Modern History - 2%
History Extension - 2%
Ancient History - 1%
Music 2 - 8%
Physics - 4%

Maybe that will change your mind on the relative merits of each subject when in comes to your ATAR.
If you can manage to score 95% (seen) in Ext 2 Maths, a mark achieved by 8% of Ext 2 students, your unseen scaled mark (if reproduced in your other subjects) will get you 99.95.
 
Last edited:

albertcamus

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Drop to 10 units in Y12 and keep MX2, especially since you'll need it in uni.
 

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