Global politics difficulty - previous experience appreciated

[jinaede1342]

I'm going into year 12 next year with the following subjects: Biology (completed), methods, chemistry, english, french, global politics.
This year, I did geography 1/2, didn't really like it and thought that I should pick up something that interested me - so I chose global... After the VCE honour roll came out, there were only two low 40s scores this year, one of which was awarded to a student who had received a 50 in English . I'm a strong English student and thought that this would help in global but that doesn't always appear to be the case. I'm kind of regretting the switch now as I was averaging 90% in geo and had the highest exam mark in a strong cohort of about 25 . So I'm wanting to ask a few questions:

1) How difficult is achieving 45+ in global
2) Will me completing it as a 3/4 in yr 12 predispose me to a lower study score due to the time and amount of effort that yr 11s tend to put in their 3/4s
3) Global vs Geo - thoughts?

Would also love to hear any tips from previous global politics students 

[hums_student]

Hey Jinaede! I did global this year so I thought I’d offer my opinion on it. To answer your questions:

1) How difficult is achieving 45+ in global
A 45+ in any subject is difficult, as you would have to outperform 98% of the state. Different people would have different opinions on exactly how difficult it would be to achieve a high mark. I found that people who do well in English / other humanities subjects tend to also do well in global, as you require very similar skills.
From my own personal experience, I managed to cop a 39 with little to no effort, however I put in a ton of work for my other humanities subjects, and found that as my writing skills for other subjects improved, so did my global results.

After the VCE honour roll came out, there were only two low 40s scores this year

That’s not bad. My school had a full class of global students and our two highest marks were both 39 lol.

2) Will me completing it as a 3/4 in yr 12 predispose me to a lower study score due to the time and amount of effort that yr 11s tend to put in their 3/4s
Don’t think so. From personal experience, this year our two duxes for global were both year 12s. Anyway, that shouldn’t be a significant factor when deciding whether or not to do a subject - you can’t really control how hard others work.

3) Global vs Geo - thoughts?
I didn’t do Geography, so I don’t have much to add for this.
If you want to get a head start and look over the topics from 1/2 which also applies to 3/4, here are some things you might want to have a look at:
• State sovereignty (look into the treaty of Westphalia)
• Differences between state, nation, and nation state
• Transnational Corporations
• Institutions of international governance
• Regional Groupings
• Non-state actors (especially terrorist organisations)
• Various political leaders and their leadership styles

Good luck!

[jinaede1342]

Thanks for the advice! I think I'll stick to global.