Difference between HSC and VCE?

[Anonymous_]

Hi there.

I'm from NSW and I'm just wondering how similar VCE is to the HSC and what are the VCE equivalent subjects for the ones I chose for Year 11 and 12 for the HSC.

I'm going to do these following subjects in Year 11 and 12:
- Biology
- Chemistry
- Physics
- English Advanced
- Economics
- Mathematics Extension 1
- Mathematics

I know for the HSC there are subjects which scale well (such as Extension 2 Math being the highest scaled subject because it's a difficult subject). So I was wondering whether the VCE also has different scaling subjects. Could you guys also tell me the VCE equivalent subjects for the ones I mentioned above? Also, would the content be similar in the VCE as it is for the HSC subjects, or is it more harder in the HSC or vice versa?

Hope you guys can help me out here.

Thanks.

[keltingmeith]

The answer is both straightforward and not-as straightforward as you'd like, I'm feeling.

So, it's somewhat obvious where each of these link up:

Biology-->Biology
Chemistry-->Chemistry
Physics-->Physics
English Advanced-->English
Economics-->Economics
Maths Ex. 1-->Nothing - specialist maths is the closest, but also incorporates a lot of things from extension 2 in it.
Mathematics-->Mathematical Methods

The thing here is that it's not a direct relation - this is basically just as close as you're going to get. The content of each can vary fairly wildly (can't comment on economics or English, and barely remember the sciences so I'd have to re-check), with some overlap for big things, but they're also generally approached very differently in exams.

I think the scaling is kind of similar? You can check the scaling report to find out. The study score system and your guys scores out of 100 are fairly different, but it's pretty easy to see which subjects go up and which go down.

In my personal experience, HSC often tends to be a bit harder, but it's an artificial difficulty IMO. Certainly with sciences and maths, it's not that you learn harder concepts/topics in HSC, but your exam writers are absolute dicks that give you guys insanely hard/stupid questions.

[Anonymous_]

Thanks for your response. I can see that the Mathematics Method paper has more probability ranged questions (the formulae sheet also has a lot of stuff on probability) than the HSC Extension 1 paper. I'm in Year 10, so most of the things look complicated regardless

[Aaron]

Out of curiosity, why are you asking this?

(Genuinely wondering, please don't misinterpret this)

[Anonymous_]

I'm just curious as to see how different the VCE is compared to the HSC.

Maths Ex. 1-->Nothing - specialist maths is the closest, but also incorporates a lot of things from extension 2 in it.

I know a lot of Universities in Sydney require Mathematics Extension 1 as a prerequisite for Engineering courses, so if someone from Melbourne were to apply for a Uni in Sydney and only did Methods and not Specialist since it's more Ext 2 based content, would the Uni still accept them since there's no particular subject which would suit Ext 1 content?

Moderator edit: - insanipi: Separated quote from reply  and merged posts

[RuiAce]

Maths Ex. 1-->Nothing - specialist maths is the closest, but also incorporates a lot of things from extension 2 in it.

I know a lot of Universities in Sydney require Mathematics Extension 1 as a prerequisite for Engineering courses, so if someone from Melbourne were to apply for a Uni in Sydney and only did Methods and not Specialist since it's more Ext 2 based content, would the Uni still accept them since there's no particular subject which would suit Ext 1 content?

It's called assumed knowledge. Not prerequisite. This means that you don't need it at all; it just means you're more likely to struggle with it.

Moderator edit: - insanipi: separated the quotes from the reply

[Quantum44]

This is quite interesting. How exactly do methods and spesh compare to Ext 1 and Ext 2? I know that they are different courses but would Ext 2 be considered harder than spesh? I looked over a past exam and there seemed to be a lot of weird stuff that looked like uni-level maths mixed in with some spesh.

[Anonymous_]

It's called assumed knowledge. Not prerequisite. This means that you don't need it at all; it just means you're more likely to struggle with it.

Moderator edit: - insanipi: separated the quotes from the reply

My bad, it's 'assumed knowledge'. Regardless of what it's called, wouldn't it be much harder for students from Melbourne to cope with the content being taught in Engineering schools in Sydney then? If there is no 'Extension 1 Math' equivalent subject and the best option is the 'Extension 2' equivalent (Specialist), would that mean students who are struggling with Specialist will probably have to do Methods but that would result them struggling in Uni work? Unless I'm completely wrong and Specialist isn't as hard as Extension 2 so it's more Extension 1 style?

[jamonwindeyer]

This is quite interesting. How exactly do methods and spesh compare to Ext 1 and Ext 2? I know that they are different courses but would Ext 2 be considered harder than spesh? I looked over a past exam and there seemed to be a lot of weird stuff that looked like uni-level maths mixed in with some spesh.

My understanding of the difficulty is something similar to:

Extension 2 >> Specialist >= Extension One > Methods >= Mathematics

Not having studied VCE Maths, I can't say for sure, and I've no doubt parts of Specialist are as difficult as MX2. But on the whole, based on my understanding, I think MX2 demands more of its students in terms of problem solving skills and the rigorous nature of the content

My bad, it's 'assumed knowledge'. Regardless of what it's called, wouldn't it be much harder for students from Melbourne to cope with the content being taught in Engineering schools in Sydney then? If there is no 'Extension 1 Math' equivalent subject and the best option is the 'Extension 2' equivalent (Specialist), would that mean students who are struggling with Specialist will probably have to do Methods but that would result them struggling in Uni work? Unless I'm completely wrong and Specialist isn't as hard as Extension 2 so it's more Extension 1 style?

I think the issue isn't so much the difficulty of the content, more what is covered. In my engineering degree, the useful things I didn't know going in that I would have learned from 4U:

- Complex Numbers
- Integration by Parts

And that's it, neither of it brutal. I'd imagine other degrees would go more into mechanics and such, but for me, MX2 would have been of limited use. If anything, Specialist would have been more useful, because it covers stats. The fact that the higher level Maths courses in NSW don't do any stats (less than General!) is the biggest reason I'm excited for the new syllabus changes

[Anonymous_]

My understanding of the difficulty is something similar to:

Extension 2 >> Specialist >= Extension One > Methods >= Mathematics

I think the issue isn't so much the difficulty of the content, more what is covered. In my engineering degree, the useful things I didn't know going in that I would have learned from 4U:

- Complex Numbers
- Integration by Parts

And that's it, neither of it brutal. I'd imagine other degrees would go more into mechanics and such, but for me, MX2 would have been of limited use. If anything, Specialist would have been more useful, because it covers stats. The fact that the higher level Maths courses in NSW don't do any stats (less than General!) is the biggest reason I'm excited for the new syllabus changes

So if a student from Victoria were to do Engineering (such as Aeronautical, Aerospace, Civil, etc) which have an assumed knowledge of Extension 1, would Mathematics Methods suffice or would Specialist be more helpful since you did mention Specialist may be greater or equal to in difficulty compared to Extension 1.

[keltingmeith]

- Complex Numbers
- Integration by Parts

And that's it, neither of it brutal. I'd imagine other degrees would go more into mechanics and such, but for me, MX2 would have been of limited use. If anything, Specialist would have been more useful, because it covers stats. The fact that the higher level Maths courses in NSW don't do any stats (less than General!) is the biggest reason I'm excited for the new syllabus changes

I mean, spec also has a proper vector area of study, as opposed to your weird complex number thing. Definitely helpful when you learn linear algebra at uni.

[RuiAce]

Linear algebra is taught rather slowly compared to at other universities in Australia because they know that it's not properly taught in high school. The vectorial stuff in the HSC is more akin to applications of vectors in physics and fundamental tools involving arrows.

What VCE maths has that HSC does not is relevance, because BOSTES are taking forever in producing a new syllabus. Difficulty wise, Extension 2 should be compared to UMEP if anything.

(I can't distinguish between whether MX2 or UMEP is above though because I don't know where to find resources for the latter.)

[RuiAce]

I will split post again to raise a completely different point (but I'm happy for insanipi or someone to merge the posts one hour later).

One of my mentees this year taking actuarial studies came from Queensland. In the math course they make actuaries do, they reported that they found algebra extremely easy, but calculus extremely hard by comparison. (Note that at UNSW, first year math is split into a calculus and an algebra strand.)

[Anonymous_]

What VCE maths has that HSC does not is relevance, because BOSTES are taking forever in producing a new syllabus. Difficulty wise, Extension 2 should be compared to UMEP if anything.

(I can't distinguish between whether MX2 or UMEP is above though because I don't know where to find resources for the latter.)

BOSTES made a new syllabus for every Math subject but they had to delay it to 2020 since the information they gave in the syllabus seemed too weird for teachers (don't quote me on that). However, they've changed the English, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and History Subjects' syllabuses which 2019 students (my year group) will be the first ones to sit the exams on.

But going back to my question at jamonwindeyer so would a student planning to study Engineering have to study Specialist Math or would Methods suffice (counting the fact that they don't want to struggle in any topics in Uni).

[RuiAce]

BOSTES made a new syllabus for every Math subject but they had to delay it to 2020 since the information they gave in the syllabus seemed too weird for teachers (don't quote me on that). However, they've changed the English, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and History Subjects' syllabuses which 2019 students (my year group) will be the first ones to sit the exams on.

But going back to my question at jamonwindeyer so would a student planning to study Engineering have to study Specialist Math or would Methods suffice (counting the fact that they don't want to struggle in any topics in Uni).

That syllabus they made was bullshit. At first I looked at it and thought good content, but then I realised the quantity factor and the number of indicative hours required per topic and I just said no. I don't even call that a syllabus - I call it a placeholder piece of rubbish. MANSW did a very good job at ripping up most elements of the syllabus - only 30% of the 'syllabus' was good.

Look, in all honesty, whatever the universities in Vic. recommend as a minimum for engineering will be the same for in NSW as well. If they only assume methods, then methods will suffice. If they assume specs, then specs is recommended.

Carefully note that in first year, all the maths intense degrees (engo, actl, certain majors in science) take either the SAME or extremely SIMILAR maths courses. Deviation occurs from then on.