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SOFT subjects (the easy way out) . Your thoughts? (1 Viewer)

Road Runner

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Black.Magic said:
Ah, how typical of a bigot. You singled out the one and only spelling error in my wonderfully crafted spiel. This just shows that my point of view is so logical and well expressed that you draw a blank when it comes time to disagree with me or agree with me. This highlights your lack of sophistication, as does your blanket statement "fucking idiot". Two can play at that game: I could single out the fact that you neglected one of the most fundamental rules of English: that each sentence is begun with a capital letter. I could then go on to make a stupid statement that you are clearly missing a good 40% of your brain because you can't even demonstrate proper use of the English language at the age of 17/18. But I'm not going to do that, because I'm not a bigot.

P.S. To all the people who questioned my choice to study visual art and French: I never said I was a genius. You seem to have fabricated that notion yourselves. I would study French Background Speakers if the course existed, but the fact of the matter is that the Board of Studies has not yet created a French language course that is adequately challenging for somebody of my linguistic capabilities. Oh yes, I do say so myself. Sue me. Also, French Extension is a bit of a joke. It's like the equivalent of English Standard.
Yes, I also study Visual Art, because I am a talented artist. No, that is not arrogance, it's just stating a fact. The BoS has not made this course sufficiently challenging. This is not my preference; I would prefer much more complex essay questions in the exam. But I suppose we must accommodate all the drop-kicks who choose VA because they want to waste time. I am exempt from the label 'bludger' (one who studies soft subjects) because I routinely achieve over 96% in each and every assessment task for the subject with an average of two hours study. The same is true for French. What I am saying is, if the BoS had the bravado to make French and VA more difficult, I could still achieve band 6 results every time. Am I arrogant, or merely different to all you anti-intellectual swine? Don't answer that, it's what's called a 'rhetorical question'.

Also, once and for all I would like to condemn Biology as a soft subject. It is a course that can be master one hundred percent simply by way of rote learning. You can conquer the course by making one 20-page word document of notes. That, to me, is not true academia. That is test of how well you can commit things to memory and regurgitate information in an exam situation.
The same goes for all of the soft subjects that people try to defend by saying 'oi but mate there's a shitload of shit to learn bro!'
Think about it. I'm condescending and loving it! If you want to disagree with me, please put a little bit of time into developing some eloquence; otherwise you come off as a bit of a simpleton. Not that that matters; we love simpletons here in Oz.
I think you might have missed a very crucial point here my friend. The thing is, it really doesn't matter what subject you choose, even if its high scaling or low scaling. In the end, all that matters is what UAI you get and to most people, the UAI matters more than the subjects that they chose.

For example, A person chooses to pick all low scaling subjects and might get a higher UAI than someone who chose subjects that are high scaling. Will the person who chose the lower scaled subjects care that he/she chose 'soft' subjects? No! All that person would care about is that he/she got a higher UAI. So basically, the subjects that you choose is not really an issue. It's how much that subject is able to contribute to the UAI is what matters the most.
 
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BackCountrySnow said:
inverse function: HARD subjects (scales up too much). Your thoughts?
Lol,
I always think, if I got the kind of marks I do in extension/2U Religion/Ancient history in maths and the hard sciences I'd fricken rule.

Whilst it is pure theory it would not suprise me one iota if the government skewed the education system to encourage more people into science/technology careers.

Also the original poster made some jab at people who do '5U history' - you play your strengths, some of us just arn't good at maths.

I know the dux of Merewether who got a 99.xx and is currently doing law and acing it. She cannot do even basic multiplication, I am not kidding.
 

lyounamu

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cannibal.horse said:
Lol,
I always think, if I got the kind of marks I do in extension/2U Religion/Ancient history in maths and the hard sciences I'd fricken rule.

Whilst it is pure theory it would not suprise me one iota if the government skewed the education system to encourage more people into science/technology careers.

Also the original poster made some jab at people who do '5U history' - you play your strengths, some of us just arn't good at maths.

I know the dux of Merewether who got a 99.xx and is currently doing law and acing it. She cannot do even basic multiplication, I am not kidding.
Hey, she cannot be that bad. That's beyond mental retardation.
 
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lyounamu said:
Hey, she cannot be that bad. That's beyond mental retardation.
I was sitting around with her whilst her mother was talking about how terrible she was at maths. The mother threw around basic questions (20% of $160) and she had no clue.

I'm pretty shit at maths too, I don't know what a means or a median is. There was a range as well, and something else which isn't clicking in my head.
 

squeenie

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cannibal.horse said:
Is that $32?
Yes indeed, you are correct.

Reminds me of some person my legal studies teacher told me about. He said that even though she got a 90+ UAI, she dropped out of uni in the first year and is now a drug addict.

Oh... So tragic...
 
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squeenie said:
Yes indeed, you are correct.

Reminds me of some person my legal studies teacher told me about. He said that even though she got a 90+ UAI, she dropped out of uni in the first year and is now a drug addict.

Oh... So tragic...
I don't think drug use is much of an indicator of intelligence.
 

squeenie

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cannibal.horse said:
I don't think drug use is much of an indicator of intelligence.
Yeah, I forgot, there's more to it...

She was living in a public housing flat with her boyfriend, but then got evicted for not paying the rent. They got back into their flat by breaking in, and are now in trouble with the police. For a while, they crashed at my teacher's house.

Edit: Well what my teacher was trying to say was that he thought it was a total waste of a 90+ UAI... Or something like that.
 
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lyounamu

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squeenie said:
Yes indeed, you are correct.

Reminds me of some person my legal studies teacher told me about. He said that even though she got a 90+ UAI, she dropped out of uni in the first year and is now a drug addict.

Oh... So tragic...
I need to remind you how common the 90+ UAI is.

90+ UAI is basically top 20% of the state. You would expect someone from that large group to be a drug addict.
 

kthxbambi

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i do CAFS, and it is a 'soft' subject
but i also do An.Hist, Business Studies & 4U English
and if i can get a 98 in CAFS
and it boosts my UAI
hell, YAY FOR SOFT SUBJECTS!
why do mediocre in a hard subject and risk your UAI
if you want to do something unrelated in Uni they offer bridging courses
at least get the 96 UAI necessary (by doing CAFS) and worry about your lack of aptitude in physics later
 
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lyounamu said:
I need to remind you how common the 90+ UAI is.

90+ UAI is basically top 20% of the state. You would expect someone from that large group to be a drug addict.
Lol, I come from a regional school (ranked 182nd) and anyone who gets over 90 gets a big song and dance about them!
 

runnable

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182nd? Surely 90 UAI shouldn't be that rare at your school?
 
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runnable said:
182nd? Surely 90 UAI shouldn't be that rare at your school?
We get about 20ish (though we're the 4th largest cohort in the state) They're still held in a massively high regard. We get about 3-5 kids with a 97+ and one kid with a 99.xx who becomes 'the great Sam O'Brian' or whoever and everyone will go on about them for a year.
 

runnable

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cannibal.horse said:
We get about 20ish (though we're the 4th largest cohort in the state) They're still held in a massively high regard. We get about 3-5 kids with a 97+ and one kid with a 99.xx who becomes 'the great Sam O'Brian' or whoever and everyone will go on about them for a year.

Lol our school gets like 20-30 over 95 UAI and we can barely remember the Dux of each year. :p
 

Patar

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cannibal.horse said:
We get about 20ish (though we're the 4th largest cohort in the state) They're still held in a massively high regard. We get about 3-5 kids with a 97+ and one kid with a 99.xx who becomes 'the great Sam O'Brian' or whoever and everyone will go on about them for a year.
lol! The 'Great Sam O'Brian' --> Love it!

which school is that?
 

circusmind

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OP:

I did soft subjects. I got a better UAI than you probably will. Blow me.
 

cowboi156

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Ruse. We can't even take most of your 'soft subjects'. Except Bio which I never knew was 'soft'.
I love how this place makes me feel good about myself. 90+ is special!
 
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Patar said:
lol! The 'Great Sam O'Brian' --> Love it!

which school is that?
All Saints College St Marys Maitland. It's actually a very nice school (its Dominican and over 200 years old) but being in a rural area it tends to attract a lot of kids who dont really care much for education.
 

Black.Magic

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Dear friends,

I don't really understand why some of you typed things like "this thread is retarded. Kill it dead. twice". Are you against free thought? There are hundreds of utterly banal, mind-numbingly boring and totally stupid threads on this godforsaken site. If I do say so myself, I think this is one of the most sophisticated threads on boredofstudies.org. In this thread, I have noticed a lot of unfounded personal attacks, from people who believe they are more intelligent than I, and so forth. (Note that I spelt 'forth' correctly this time. Correcting people really does work!)
We seem to be forgetting that nobody really cares about the UAI. We will be posted (or texted) our results, then we may then cry about our low UAI or sink many cones in celebration of receiving a hight UAI. Even if we don't get into a sandstone university, I'm fairly sure we can either transfer to the course of our dreams. The only other time the UAI will crop up in conversation is when we apply for a job. Even then, many employers place much more emphasis on university marks and indeed emotional intelligence.
I would like to think that a UAI is worth more if it is achieved through studying respectable subjects though. I know that if I were looking at the CV of a prospective employee, I saw their UAI was 99.95, and also noted that this was achieved thought Drama, Biology, Geography, Textiles and General Maths, it would not be worth much at all in my mind. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't even get to the interview stage, because I would hope that my employees would know how to factorise a quadratic equation, at least. I don't even know what line of work I'll get into, but that I know for sure. In fact, I doubt that it's even possible to get 99.95 with the aforementioned subjects. Also, I would subconsciously devalue a high UAI if it were obtained through the study of, say, 4U English, 5U History and 2U Studies of Religion. Not only because I think religion (Buddhism excluded, of course) is a crock of shit, but because that does not represent a good spread of academia. None of the humanities are prerequisites for any university course, and those who think they will have an advantage because they currently study a subject that may be useful to their desired course are deluded, because tertiary education is so far removed from secondary education.

So, comrades, continue to post on this thread if you are a free thinker. I don't care if you despise me and my floral prose. If you can put your hate into a well crafted and logical response, I will give you credit. I am not a 'troll'; I just want you all to react and start thinking for yourselves. I thank you all for contributing up until this point. That doesn't diminish the fact that I don't think anybody so far has expressed their opinion with anything approaching enough eloquence or flair. All the same, to all those people who want this thread closed down or whatever because they feel personally insulted that their subject choice may be fitting for a retard, I think you should get back to watching videos of Sarah Palin's speech and posting on extreme right-wing forums. Clearly you can't dig freedom of expression. Maybe you should work out how to program your fancy calculator to complete the greater part of your General Maths exam for you. (Here's a dandy little observation: the 'mathematicians' who are allowed the most sophisticated calculators are not, on average, mentally capable of taking full advantage of them!)

Oh, and HSC mathematics is the most formulaic (no pun intended) subject ever. It does not allow scope for real intellectualism. It just measures how many damn questions you have done and how adept you are at recognising their paradigms. English Advanced is not about rote learning because the subject can't really be mastered, no matter how many fools out there claim to have scored full marks with pre-prepared essays and 'creative' responses. I hope to God that your papers are marked by somebody with more than half a brain who recognises formulaic essays and hackneyed 'creative' responses. Sadly, I don't think the poor saps who have to mark the HSC are Australia's best and brightest... Oh, I also think that English Advanced is one of the softer subjects around. I think it's a joke that it's called the 'Advanced' course. Its name should be changed to English Standard, and English Standard should be renamed as General English. But what's in a name, anyway?

Finally, I thank all those who agree with me. Not because I am a bigot, but becasue these are the only people who put any effort into crafting intelligent responses to the OP. The dissenters, for the most part, relied on insulting me personally and clichés to achieve their purpose.

Anyway, I wish you all a beautiful weekend. And please, continue to post on my ingenious thread.
 

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