Spesh dilemma

[Crish]

Hey,
I'm in a big dilemma right now, I don't know whether to pick specialist or further. I want to do medicine and I need a 99+ atar. My teacher offered me to do 3/4 further in yr 11, but then if I do that I can't pick spesh for yr 11. I'm pretty capable with my math and I spoke to a few people who picked spesh and they said it was rlly hard and spent like 5 hrs each day doing just spesh (which is probs dragged, no way they did 5 hrs), and their sac marks were rlly varied and did really bad in all their other subjects because they gave too much time to spesh. If I pick further i can stress less in yr 12, but if I pick spesh there's a high possibillity of me getting that 99+. I'm gonna do eng, methods, chem and bio with either spesh or further, and I really need help in deciding, is Further the right way to go, or is Specialist not that hard and can be done with my other subjects.
Sorry for the long as question but any answer would be appreciated

[undefined]

do spesh. it's not that bad from my experience (especially if you're good at methods).

[Harrycc3000]

Hey,
I'm in a big dilemma right now, I don't know whether to pick specialist or further. I want to do medicine and I need a 99+ atar. My teacher offered me to do 3/4 further in yr 11, but then if I do that I can't pick spesh for yr 11. I'm pretty capable with my math and I spoke to a few people who picked spesh and they said it was rlly hard and spent like 5 hrs each day doing just spesh (which is probs dragged, no way they did 5 hrs), and their sac marks were rlly varied and did really bad in all their other subjects because they gave too much time to spesh. If I pick further i can stress less in yr 12, but if I pick spesh there's a high possibillity of me getting that 99+. I'm gonna do eng, methods, chem and bio with either spesh or further, and I really need help in deciding, is Further the right way to go, or is Specialist not that hard and can be done with my other subjects.
Sorry for the long as question but any answer would be appreciated

From a scoring stand point, spesh is kind of pretty straightforward in that unlike methods you won't get much curveballs its just following a method that they teach you in class so really the difficulty isn't too bad and its probably worth trying it out as your scaled spesh score will probably be higher than your scaled further score. Also, doing spesh makes methods so much easier so its kind of like killing two birds with one stone. From like an interest perspective, a lot of people i know that do both spesh and methods say that either spesh is their favourite subject or that spesh is so much more fun than methods just because the content is fresh, new and pretty interesting, so there is a chance that you may enjoy it too. If the course you're trying to get into doesn't really require a 99+ atar though and you don't  really have an interest towards maths, doing further would lessen the workload quite a bit and probably make your quality of life in year 12 a little better . My recommendation is to try spesh out and see if you're interested in the content and if you don't like it, either in the second semester or at the end of year 11 switch into further, and do like a content heavy subject in year 11 (because they kind of burden you in year 12, further from what i know doesn't have much content so it would be a waste using your year 11 3/4 on a subject like further).

Hope this helps!

[Synthesis62]

Do spesh

[Crish]

thank you guys, ur answers helped me get an insight on spesh

[RaspberryTau]

That's a tough one.... I picked spec, my friend picked further. We both did methods last year and got the same exam score..... So it's gonna be really interesting to see who wins this year!

We have a really small spec class (3 peoples) and it can be really fun.... But am not sure what it's like in metro schools.

Just be careful if you do go with further...it's very easy to stuff up the exam and have your study score drop... (& it gets scaled down as well )

Given you have picked high-work load subjects, I'd maybe recommend Further - especially if mathematics isn't your strong point. If you do end up going with it, I'd suggest getting ahead and doing loads of past-exams....

Make sure to check prerequisites first though. I think some Engineering courses might need spec (or something about making you do the equivalent of it in your first year).

Hope this helps!

[Williamx213]

do spesh purely for the scaling