Class of 2014! :D

[AngelWings]

Oh damn I love those books I will get it today and read it ahhahaha.
I'm going away on the 18th so I might drop by before I get on the ship to Tassie.

"Those books" being Dan Brown's, depressing novels or...?
This book, apart from being slightly questionable and depressing, was a pretty good read and rather symbolic (without having to go all English or Literature over it). I'll stay quiet now and won't ruin it for you.

[walkec]

(without having to go all English or Literature over it).

I've read heaps of books for enjoyment since finishing my exams, but the problem is I can't seem to unwire my Literature brain. Occasionally it's cool to think about why the author chose certain words/consider how things flow/punctuation etc but I just want to read for the plot instead of analysing word choice by default.

Darn you VCE Literature. What have you done to me?

(^ actually a great subject though. It became one of my favourite subjects by the end of the year, even though I deeply hated it to begin with).

[anna.xo]

It became one of my favourite subjects by the end of the year, even though I deeply hated it to begin with).

I hope I can say something similar when we get our results

[fareseru]

I've read heaps of books for enjoyment since finishing my exams, but the problem is I can't seem to unwire my Literature brain. Occasionally it's cool to think about why the author chose certain words/consider how things flow/punctuation etc but I just want to read for the plot instead of analysing word choice by default.

Darn you VCE Literature. What have you done to me?

(^ actually a great subject though. It became one of my favourite subjects by the end of the year, even though I deeply hated it to begin with).

I find myself studying the views and values more than anything haha. I know that they're evident through the language but still

I don't want to think about going to sleep. It's like... the moment it happens it's here Please let me get over 90. Even just 90.00 would be perfect. I'll be over the moon. Then I can go to school to have the photo taken for the paper (with the other over 90s kids), have a nice lunch with them and relax before seeing my family in the evening. I'm tempted to not even check my study scores, except I want to know what I get for German. I wish we could just see the scores and not the grades. I really don't want to know my English grade, it was such a fuck up and I just want to leave it behind.

That's the thing, I'm not worrying about getting into uni at all. Getting into arts with the aim of transferring into arts/law has pretty much been a given (like 75 clearly-in for me) so I'm not worried about that. Getting the 94 for arts/law was forgotten the moment that English went terribly. So really it's down to being disappointed or happy with a mark that I've set for myself (90+). I started with 94, then reduced it to 93 (with SEAS I'll still have a chance with 93) and now I'm like anything over 90.  But then everyone's like 'well scholarships are very important' and I'm like stfu they aren't real I hate them because they mess up my whole plan. I can't really say that I've set a goal for myself and have people be content with that when they know that me getting higher (or as high as possible) will give me a better chance at getting a scholarship and therefore saving them like $10k a year.

[Mieow]

Wow a lot of aspiring UoM B.sci people here lmfao
It'd be cool if I met you all throughout the year but the cohort is always so big that's probs impossible

[appleandbee]

Sorry for hijacking your thread and causing any additional angst if I do. I know I’m only did one subject this year, and everyone says it doesn't matter much but for my parents all the writing is on wall. They say people will lose all hopes and expectations in me next year if I don’t do well this year.

They said if "if you can't do reasonably well in Revs where the cohort is generally weak and less strong students do it, how can you expect do do well in 'harder' subjects like Methods, Spesh, Chemistry and Economics where the cohort is much stronger because people that want to do undergrad medicine (presumably at Monash) do those subjects and need high scores in them, unlike you who is probably not going to do undergrad med". They disregarded my abilities in those individual subjects and just saying that because Revs is perceived to be 'easy' so therefore if I don't do that well; I’ll probably do even worse in my other subjects on the balance of probabilities.

Their point is that nearly all students that want to do undergrad medicine does Methods, Chemistry and Spesh and they will probably grab all the top scores  in those subjects because they need the number to get into the course, unlike people who don't have any aspirations to do undergrad med. They said it's hard for me to get 40 or above in any of those subjects, which made me upset because I topped methods and economics ½ (near 100% average in a top school, not trying to brag). I also did work (including prac exams for the maths subjects) for Methods, Economics and Spesh ¾ a year in advanced.

I already told my parents that comparing different subjects is like comparing apples and oranges, and they gave me the example "do you think a tennis player that can't beat a lowly ranked player can beat Novak Djokovic?"

They also think that if I still somehow manage get a high atar (let's say around 99.65+), but didn't do well in an easy subject like Revs, other people will start judging me, thinking that I'm a fluke, inconsistent, undeserving of that kind of Atar and wondering how I could do badly in an easy subject but still do well in the harder subjects. Also said if I do badly in one of the subjects I did in year 11, people will drop their expectations of me because I didn't grab the 'easy win'.

I actually genuinely want to do really well, not for my parents, but for myself, but with my parents saying these things on a constant basis, it’s causing tons of stress. Because I did a humanities subject I don’t really know how I went, could get anywhere from sub 30 to 45. Had to pretend to my parents that a 45+ was possible, just to appease them (because they’re Asians) even though I'm not confident about it at all.

Can you please clear some of this stuff out because it’s really bothering me. It’s possible to do really well in year 12 having already done badly in a subject? I just need to hear from people’s experiences.

[Mieow]

Your parents sound very ignorant, quite frankly. Your performance in Revs does not in any way affect your performance in any other subject. Whether you get a 50, a 40, a 30 or a 20 this year doesn't mean you cannot do very well next year. It's a new year and a fresh start. It's all about how much effort you put into your learning and how well you invested your time studying. So if you really want a 40+ in Methods/Chem/Spesh, you can achieve that if you put in the work, even if all the smartarses in the state do it too. And I think your parents care too much about what other people think - it doesn't matter how much fluctuation there was amongst your study scores. If you got an ATAR score of xxx, that's signed and sealed, and claiming it was a "fluke" or "undeserved" won't change that.

Seriously, don't let anyone make year 12 a stressful year for you! It's just not worth it. If you can honestly tell yourself that you did the best you could in VCE, then you have every reason to be proud. Study hard, study effectively and all the scores you deserve will fall into place 

[M_BONG]

Oh, and having heard from numerous people, they have said that Revs is probably one of the hardest humanities subjects. If you discount Classical Studies and other unheard-of subjects from it, Revs is probably the hardest (in terms of workload, things to memorise etc.). You can try telling them that?

[fareseru]

Sorry for hijacking your thread and causing any additional angst if I do. I know I’m only did one subject this year, and everyone says it doesn't matter much but for my parents all the writing is on wall. They say people will lose all hopes and expectations in me next year if I don’t do well this year.

To start off with, this is bullshit. Completely disregard it. I did Psych in year eleven and only got a 38 but have been perfectly fine with my other subjects this year (ie A+ average for all SACs). No one needs to know about your mark for Revs (you can tell the school not to release your results to the papers/staff) and you don't need to tell anyone. Even if they did find out they wouldn't care.

They said if "if you can't do reasonably well in Revs where the cohort is generally weak and less strong students do it, how can you expect do do well in 'harder' subjects like Methods, Spesh, Chemistry and Economics where the cohort is much stronger because people that want to do undergrad medicine (presumably at Monash) do those subjects and need high scores in them, unlike you who is probably not going to do undergrad med". They disregarded my abilities in those individual subjects and just saying that because Revs is perceived to be 'easy' so therefore if I don't do that well; I’ll probably do even worse in my other subjects on the balance of probabilities.

This is all wrong as well. Revs isn't an easy subject, it's scaled up one (depending on which score you get, but at the higher end of the curve) and creates an absolutely enormous amount of work. I know dozens of people who have told me that it's the content-heaviest subject in the whole VCE. Difficulty is entirely subjective and you should know how difficult the subject was because you did it. Regardless of the revolutions that a student studies, it's tough.

Also, so what if people who want to do med are doing Chem etc? People who want to be lawyers (like me) are doing Revs and need 98+ to get into law (at Monash, anyway). I know that we don't need high scores in Revs alone, but on the whole we need to do just as well as the people doing science subjects to get into our chosen degree/s.

I already told my parents that comparing different subjects is like comparing apples and oranges, and they gave me the example "do you think a tennis player that can't beat a lowly ranked player can beat Novak Djokovic?"

Completely ridiculous. I don't even feel like responding. Just because you 'couldn't' do well in Revs doesn't mean anything (you could have worked harder etc, plus by not being the best you only failed to 'beat' humanities kids and not the ones doing science/maths who are very different).

I actually genuinely want to do really well, not for my parents, but for myself, but with my parents saying these things on a constant basis, it’s causing tons of stress. Because I did a humanities subject I don’t really know how I went, could get anywhere from sub 30 to 45. Had to pretend to my parents that a 45+ was a possible, just to appease them (because they’re Asians) even though I'm not confident about it at all.

Can you please clear some of this stuff out because it’s really bothering me. It’s possible to do really well in year 12 having already done badly in a subject? I just need to hear from people’s experiences.

Sorry, it's just hard to even try to comprehend what it's like to have parents like yours. I complain because I don't think that mine were supportive enough but I don't think I have a case when I hear what yours have said. I guess it's just a cultural difference and maybe some kind of absolute desperation for you to do well so that they feel that moving from Asia was worth it and that it has benefited their children.

The overall point is that doing well in year 12 has almost nothing to do with your Revs mark. It is definitely helpful to do well; I wish that I'd done better in Psych so that it could've been one of my top four. It's annoying knowing throughout year 12 (to an extent) that you only have the ability to do 'substandard' in one subject (instead of two) but I guess that made me work harder. However, I could've gotten the 38 that I got and still done ridiculously well in my other subjects (45+ in each) and therefore gotten 99+. if I'd worked harder. The other obvious thing is that you can't say that you've done badly in Revs until you get your mark tomorrow. Try not to stress.

[Paulrus]

honestly, despite the fact that revolutions only scales up one, it has a reputation for being an incredibly fucking hard subject. this topic came up not long ago in this thread, and a few people who do both spesh and revs said that they thought that revs was actually a more demanding subject. don't be fooled by the scaling cos the revs cohort is definitely not weak at the top end. getting over 40 in revolutions is a pretty amazing achievement tbh - it's not an easy subject at all (very far from it, from what i've heard), and not smashing it definitely won't mean that you can't do insanely well in your other subjects.

also on that note, revs is very different to the rest of your subjects. it's your only humanities amongst a bunch of maths/science based subjects, so your performance in revs won't really have that much of a bearing on how you go in the others. trust me, no-one will judge you if you don't do incredibly amazingly in one subject but smash all your others - they'll be too busy being impressed at your other scores
besides, you should never discount yourself. you won't know how well you've done until 7am tomorrow, and you could have absolutely destroyed revs for all you know. like you said, it's a humanities subject so it's super hard to tell haha

in terms of not doing that well in a subject in year 11, and then smashing year 12, it's definitely possible. i think i posted about this the other day, but my friend got like 28 or 29 in her year 11 subject (which was revolutions, funnily enough), but then proceeded to smash out a 49, a 45 and two 42s in year 12. my sister got a 32 in year 11 (again, it was revolutions ) but in year 12 she got the highest english score my school's ever gotten.
the thing is, your year 11 3/4 results honestly don't have much of a bearing on how you'll go in year 12. there's a weird phenomenon where you'll find that you'll probably get higher scores despite putting in less effort. you can take all the things you've learnt through this year - how to study efficiently, how to avoid dumb mistakes, how to word and express answers clearly - and apply them next year, and you'll be better off for it. take it as a learning experience. maybe you can dump revolutions in your bottom 2 anyway.

to be honest, maybe you won't be able to change your parents' minds. but you need to understand it for yourself that one subject doesn't determine your atar, and your atar doesn't determine your worth. it's such a ridiculously cliché phrase, but behind the banality and pedestrianism it's essentially true.
best of luck for monday, and i honestly hope you smash the shit out of revs. but remember if you don't, that's perfectly okay. you're obviously smart, and at most it'll be a very minor setback for you

[sjayne]

They said if "if you can't do reasonably well in Revs where the cohort is generally weak and less strong students do it, how can you expect do do well in 'harder' subjects

I did revs last year. It's NOT an easy subject  I definitely think the scaling or absence of scaling is unfair considering the amount of effort and time that goes into it. In my opinion it's one of the hardest humanities subjects and this often goes unrecognised.
Last year I got a 34 in revs and a 38 in further. The hard work I put into revs was much greater than what I put into further and after scaling it's still less but out of all of my subjects it was my favourite and taught me the most.

Don't listen to your parents, this is about you. The education system has changed a lot since they were at school and their interests aren't always going to be yours. Getting a bad score in year 11 isn't the end of the world, for one you're younger than a lot of the cohort but more importantly you aren't really a year 12 student yet. I found that the transition into year 12 made everyone else mature and put in more effort therefore motivating me to do the same but when you are in year 11 it's a little different. You have a whole other year ahead of you and you are the only one who can ensure you do well.

[appleandbee]

To start off with, this is bullshit. Completely disregard it. I did Psych in year eleven and only got a 38 but have been perfectly fine with my other subjects this year (ie A+ average for all SACs). No one needs to know about your mark for Revs (you can tell the school not to release your results to the papers/staff) and you don't need to tell anyone. Even if they did find out they wouldn't care.

Yeah Revs is so underrated in terms of hardness, and there’s seriously no point comparing it to maths/science subjects because they are simply different. Even though I maths/science student who is pretty good at humanities (topped Economics and A+ average in English), Revs is just different in its own right. I guess ignorant people judge difficulty in terms of scaling and as for my parents (how many people wanting to do medicine does it).

I put lots of effort into Revs and enjoyed it a lot (don’t regret doing it), didn't get a very good rank I think (cohort was super strong), but SAC grades were reasonably good (high 80s%). It’s just that predicting scores for humanities subjects is literally impossible; because of the amount of subjectivity involved-parents don’t understand that.

Thanks for the replies guys! 

[ras]

What I would say in response to this issue is that focus on your education, not on a final outcome. If you shape every single thing about VCE to be about getting into medicine, I can guarantee you won't enjoy it (I had moments like that this year, and it is only detrimental to your final outcome).

In terms of those trying to get into med doing spesh/chem/methods, while that may be true, why can't you do those subjects as well as humanities? I know plenty of kids doing undergrad med who did revs/legal studies/health and human development etc. In fact, how I see it is that keeping a rounded education is invaluable to any future studies. The skills learnt from revs such as self-directed learning are key to success in tertiary education. In subjects such as spesh and chem, you're not exposed to such a learning style, as it is mostly rote learning.

I too have the aim of going into the health sciences for a career, but I do not regret one bit doing revs this year, even if I do not do so well. In fact, in selection processes such as interviews, having a broad education may even give you an edge. Your learning experiences will be vastly different to those who solely stuck to the asian 5, and if you can analyse and discuss the thinking and learning processes you gained from revs, it in many ways will come across as more mature than talking about how you rote learned the whole of the spesh course over the summer holidays.

VCE and your whole education is an individual journey. My best advice would be learn how to make it work for you, don't rely on the expectations of others, whether it be your parents or friends.

Good luck!

Half of this is incoherent, sorry about that 

[walkec]

Can you please clear some of this stuff out because it’s really bothering me. It’s possible to do really well in year 12 having already done badly in a subject? I just need to hear from people’s experiences.

Not to boast about my brother, but he didn't do too well in 3/4 T&T in year 11 (like low 30s study score) and still got a 99 as an ATAR. Doing badly in one subject does not mean you can not get a high ATAR. It can actually be a really good way to motivate yourself during year 12.

Also, you can learn from your mistakes and experiences of taking a 3/4 in year 11. The way I studied for my 3/4 last year was quite a refinement from how I studied this year. Even just knowing how SACs, scaling, marking schemes and stuff work a year early is invaluable experience and helps you immensely the following year.

[anna.xo]

Sorry for hijacking your thread and causing any additional angst if I do. I know I’m only did one subject this year, and everyone says it doesn't matter much but for my parents all the writing is on wall. They say people will lose all hopes and expectations in me next year if I don’t do well this year.

They said if "if you can't do reasonably well in Revs where the cohort is generally weak and less strong students do it, how can you expect do do well in 'harder' subjects like Methods, Spesh, Chemistry and Economics where the cohort is much stronger because people that want to do undergrad medicine (presumably at Monash) do those subjects and need high scores in them, unlike you who is probably not going to do undergrad med". They disregarded my abilities in those individual subjects and just saying that because Revs is perceived to be 'easy' so therefore if I don't do that well; I’ll probably do even worse in my other subjects on the balance of probabilities.

Their point is that nearly all students that want to do undergrad medicine does Methods, Chemistry and Spesh and they will probably grab all the top scores  in those subjects because they need the number to get into the course, unlike people who don't have any aspirations to do undergrad med. They said it's hard for me to get 40 or above in any of those subjects, which made me upset because I topped methods and economics ½ (near 100% average in a top school, not trying to brag). I also did work (including prac exams for the maths subjects) for Methods, Economics and Spesh ¾ a year in advanced.

I already told my parents that comparing different subjects is like comparing apples and oranges, and they gave me the example "do you think a tennis player that can't beat a lowly ranked player can beat Novak Djokovic?"

They also think that if I still somehow manage get a high atar (let's say around 99.65+), but didn't do well in an easy subject like Revs, other people will start judging me, thinking that I'm a fluke, inconsistent, undeserving of that kind of Atar and wondering how I could do badly in an easy subject but still do well in the harder subjects. Also said if I do badly in one of the subjects I did in year 11, people will drop their expectations of me because I didn't grab the 'easy win'.

I actually genuinely want to do really well, not for my parents, but for myself, but with my parents saying these things on a constant basis, it’s causing tons of stress. Because I did a humanities subject I don’t really know how I went, could get anywhere from sub 30 to 45. Had to pretend to my parents that a 45+ was possible, just to appease them (because they’re Asians) even though I'm not confident about it at all.

Can you please clear some of this stuff out because it’s really bothering me. It’s possible to do really well in year 12 having already done badly in a subject? I just need to hear from people’s experiences.

Honestly, I'm in a little bit of a similar situation..completely different context but same experience.

Seriously, if I was in that situation, I'd be ignoring everything they say. And if I had the guts, I would tell them to go to hell.

One thing I've learned is that you really can't argue with people like this (ie. most Asian parents) as their views are just so narrow minded and bigoted, and no amount of explaining can alter such smallmindedness.

Good luck with everything !