Psych Vs Further

[pm123]

Hi,
I wasnt sure where to post this, so if anyone could correct me thay would be great.
I just wanted to get some advice from all.
I have chosen at further next year as a subject, but i was not sure if that was a good choice.
I am better at more theory orientated things, however that doesnt mean my maths is poor.
Basically i always go through this annoying self doubt stage, so thought getting advice would be better. Honestly, i have read many many times that no subject is easy in the vce at all whatsoever.
But, what would you say, what would be an easier content subject where if you do put a lot of effort in, and a high ss can be achieved? Paych or further?
Does psych have more content or further?
In which subject ss come down to luck and which one effort?  Because if i do want to end up in dental or med, i do need a subject which can drag me.
Let me know

[snowisawesome]

Hi,
I wasnt sure where to post this, so if anyone could correct me thay would be great.
I just wanted to get some advice from all.
I have chosen at further next year as a subject, but i was not sure if that was a good choice.
I am better at more theory orientated things, however that doesnt mean my maths is poor.
Basically i always go through this annoying self doubt stage, so thought getting advice would be better. Honestly, i have read many many times that no subject is easy in the vce at all whatsoever.
But, what would you say, what would be an easier content subject where if you do put a lot of effort in, and a high ss can be achieved? Paych or further?
Does psych have more content or further?
In which subject ss come down to luck and which one effort?  Because if i do want to end up in dental or med, i do need a subject which can drag me.
Let me know

I don't do psychology but seeing that you are also doing methods and did accounting, then further would probably be pretty easy for you (still hard work though just like any other subject). If you're a maths person, then further is a good way to pick up easy marks
Hope this helps somewhat

[pm123]

I don't do psychology but seeing that you are also doing methods and did accounting, then further would probably be pretty easy for you (still hard work though just like any other subject). If you're a maths person, then further is a good way to pick up easy marks
Hope this helps somewhat

Yeah, thats what i had assumed when choosing as such. You know when you assume other people who are really smart, and when they dont do well, you kind of self doubt your own abilities.
Everyone goes about saying further is impossible to do well in, which i know isnt true, but then when i see these things happening, then i do get worried

[snowisawesome]

Yeah, thats what i had assumed when choosing as such. You know when you assume other people who are really smart, and when they dont do well, you kind of self doubt your own abilities.
Everyone goes about saying further is impossible to do well in, which i know isnt true, but then when i see these things happening, then i do get worried

I do both further and methods (both unit 1/2), and further is definitely easier than methods, but there are still trick questions in sacs and exams to try and separate students.

[Sine]

Hi,
I wasnt sure where to post this, so if anyone could correct me thay would be great.
I just wanted to get some advice from all.
I have chosen at further next year as a subject, but i was not sure if that was a good choice.
I am better at more theory orientated things, however that doesnt mean my maths is poor.
Basically i always go through this annoying self doubt stage, so thought getting advice would be better. Honestly, i have read many many times that no subject is easy in the vce at all whatsoever.
But, what would you say, what would be an easier content subject where if you do put a lot of effort in, and a high ss can be achieved? Paych or further?
Does psych have more content or further?
In which subject ss come down to luck and which one effort?  Because if i do want to end up in dental or med, i do need a subject which can drag me.
Let me know

I'd say further given the amount you need to memorise and know in detail for psych. Further isn't really about how good you are at maths because generally everyone can learn the techniques but knowing how to minimise your careless errors is what is important. Futher is down to luck at the top end but you can certainly "secure" a score of 45+ and then you end up getting anywhere between 45-50 on the day given no trainwrecks.

Having said that its up to your personal preference some people have only gotten low 40's for further but end up with high 40s/50's for psych.

[abbeyrose]

Obviously, this depends on what you're stronger at, however, from personal experience I'd say psych is probably easier to do better in. If you work hard enough and dedicate yourself to the subject, it's possible to do really well in either subject. That being said though, both subjects are popular and thus are quite competitive. With this in mind, for different reasons it can be difficult to score highly (i.e. 40+) in both subjects and as it is with most subjects, you need a deep understanding of the concepts to succeed. Whilst the mathematical concepts aren't overly difficult to grasp (this is coming from someone who is relatively average at maths) in Further, the work can, at times, be rather tedious and lead you to make simple mistakes which are very costly. Psychology, on the other hand, is quite content heavy, though the content itself isn't too difficult to understand. For me, I found that the content of psychology was easier to understand because it mostly related to real life and 'made sense'. I ended up getting the same SS in both classes, and I worked a lot harder in further than psych (obviously this statement is to be taken with a grain of salt due to individual circumstances).

Ultimately, it all comes down to what you think you'd be better at and what you would enjoy more (I cannot emphasise how much easier it is to do well in a subject if you enjoy it!). I'd stick it out for the holidays and do whatever homework you've been required to do and see how you like that. In addition, you can look at the study designs and exams from this year (you can probably find the exams in the '2017 Exam Discussion' board) and try and determine which subject you'd rather do, asking any friends in psych how they find the class/teacher could also prove to be helpful too. Whatever you decide, good luck with it all and don't stress about it too much in the meantime (easier said than done, I know)!

(Edit: I've just noticed your other subjects so please bear in mind my comments are written from someone whose personal strengths lie in english/humanities type subjects)

[littledreamer]

At the start of the year I was also choosing between further and psych. I was pretty much in the same situation as you because I wasn't the best at maths (like not good enough to do well in spesh but I was doing methods) and further looked doable for me. Although I considered how much maths I would be doing for HW every night and for me doing maths exercises + chapters for one subject was more than enough. So in the end I chose psych because I also preferred a content subject. You did say you are better at theory things so maybe psych? It also depends on other things like which teacher at school is better, will you put in effort if you don't like the subject etc. At first I thought further would be really easy and if I put effort in I'll do well but I guess I wasn't interested in it so I just didn't do it.

And I agree with you that no VCE subject is easy if you want to do well, subjects that scale down can also be very competitive to score well in but it doesn't mean you shouldn't do them! For example I did psych this year and HHD (scales down more than psych) and I ended up getting lower in psych and higher in HHD despite the scaling but I feel like I put the same amount of time and effort in both subjects.

Regarding your question about effort and a high ss, it's really hard to say. Like I said I feel like I put the same effort in for psych and HHD but ended up getting higher in HHD, so it might be due to other factors like SAC ranking at school, how your cohort goes in the exam and the exam you get at the end of the year. There has also been situations where one friend worked harder than the other but got lower ss, so it really is dependent on so many factors -
like some people study less but do better (quality vs quantity I guess?). But don't stress about the end result, just pick one you know you will like and work hard in because if you are motivated you'll be more likely to do well. Make sure you look at both study designs and go through some past exams! I wish I didn't stress as much about scaling and stuff because it's all fine in the end and you can still get a high ATAR doing subjects that don't scale much

I hope this helped and if you had any other questions feel free to ask