HSC Subject Reviews and Ratings

[RuiAce]

Subject Name: English Advanced

Level: HSC

Workload: Quite heavy. For some schools it's reasonably demanding, but it's still not English Ext 1.

Assessment: At my school, we had...
- 15% Essay (Listening)
- 15% Speech (Speaking)
- 15% ?? (Viewing/Representing that I remember nothing about)
- 25% In-class test (Reading/Writing)
- 35% Trial HSC Exam

Exam Thoughts:
Paper 1
- 15 marks - Unseen texts
- 15 marks - Creative writing
- 15 marks - AoS Essay
I found it very straightforward. At least the second easiest of all of my exams, if not the easiest.

Paper 2
- 20 marks for each module
At least the questions were friendly, unlike the CSSA trials in that same year, and I was able to write something up. At the same time, the rubrics for the modules never made sense to me (unlike the AoS which was crystal clear), so naturally I wasn't able to produce the best stuff.

Textbook Recommendation: These were my texts
AoS: The Tempest (studied last)
Module A: Nineteen Eighty-Four/Metropolis (studied second)
Module B: Selected poems of T.S. Eliot (studied first)
Module C: Why Weren't We Told (studied third)
I really liked The Tempest and 1984. The rest were between boring to decent.

Recommended Other Resources: Afraid I wouldn't know, because I didn't know what was useful.

Year of Completion: 2015

Rating: 3 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 87 B5 (90 Ext, 83 Int)

Comments:
Contrary to public belief, I didn't entirely hate English. I actually think analysing texts in itself is fun, and trying to figure out what exactly is the author's perspective in writing/producing/... something. What was problematic was really just the assessments. I was decent at essays (good at them if they were AoS), but found it quite agonising to do anything besides them. Nor did I like how I was really just rote learning a selection of quotes and techniques, which in my opinion makes my analysis feel a lot more restricted. Sure, the crux of doing well in English is the ability to adapt (especially being able to actually answer the question, which I could do), but it really doesn't make much difference when you're forced to just "technique, technique, quote, quote".

Now, rant out of the way, just because I didn't really like it doesn't mean that the assessment was unjustified. In English, you must be examined on all the forms - reading, speaking etc. as listed above. This is quite reasonable, because otherwise there's simply no variety, and different students shine in different forms. You should be able to understand how each of them differ from one another.

Pretty much, the rubric is the main thing. If you don't know how to take advantage of it, you're doing yourself a disservice. (Which was me, with all the modules.)

Some people say that you shouldn't bother reading/viewing all of your texts. I say that this is a bad idea, and you should at least do it once. I also say that the holidays are a very good time to do this, because that way you don't have to do it on top of everything else. What good is understanding a bunch of quotes and shit when you don't understand the synopsis? It makes "evaluate" questions much harder, because you won't be able to form any judgement or you'll give a circular one, or worse, contradict yourself.

English past papers definitely are not a waste. Practicing essay writing does make life easier for the final exam.

[dancing phalanges]

(Prompted by Rui's opinion, which I hear from everyone about Extension 1, but one that I personally off my own experience see differently )

Subject Name: English Extension 1

Level: HSC

Workload: Let me stress that this was my experience and so don't get your hopes up too much! The workload was far less demanding than Advanced in my opinion.

Assessments:
- Creative Writing
- Tutorial on Romanticism topic of choice
- Trial HSC Exam (Creative and Essay)

Exam Thoughts:

The creative is very challenging as you have to mimic the language of the period (mine being Romanticism). Thus, this requires extensive research and reading for inspiration! Also, your story had to reflect the context and philosophy of the time - again A LOT of research. However, once I had fine-tuned my piece, I memorised it (English teachers across Australia gasp collectively) and basically went through all possible stimulus' and worked out how I would adapt to the set question. Luckily, both in my trial and HSC the stimulus' were easy to adapt to and actually made me change my story just a bit to make it even better.

The essay question can also be quite specific, but again I was fortunate enough in my HSC and Trial exams to receive questions that were very in keeping with the Romantic movement as a whole. I do not recommend memorising a response here. Rather, to prepare, simply create a table with quotes, an explanation, link to philosophy and know these as they form the basis of your response along with contextual links now and then. I cannot stress the importance of including ways of thinking (philosophy) in your response and how philosophical ideas are conveyed in your texts as many students neglect this.

Textbook recommendation: We didn't have any textbooks. Thorough and extensive research online and through books is key for success in English Extension 1. I'd definitely recommend signing up for as many libraries as possible, including the State Library of NSW as they have a fantastic online research database full of great resources! In terms of specific books - Barbara Stanners did a seriously helpful book on Romanticism but I recommend reading widely and looking at books from the library in particular compared to online websites as library publications are often written by accomplished writers and include information many students do not know.

Year of Completion: 2017

Rating: 3.5/5

Your mark/grade: 48/50 (External) 49/50 (Internal)

Comments: The 3.5/5 rating is more a reflection of how much my teacher made me hate Extension 1. He focused so much on unnecessary context rambles - it made me go to sleep. Romanticism is a fascinating topic (coming from a guy) and I loved (and hence found Extension 1 easier than Advanced) that Romanticism was the only topic we looked at it compared to Advanced where there are countless modules. It allows you to really get in depth with the topic and gives you the chance to develop a passion for it. The concepts are harder than Advanced as they involve a lot of philosophy and deep thinking yet you have a whole year to learn it! I definitely recommend as long as you are confident with doing lots of thorough research and reading to really write a thought-provoking essay

[RuiAce]

Subject Name: Mathematics Extension 1

Level: HSC

Workload: In itself moderate, but of course it must be learnt alongside 2U. Which makes it reasonably intense for some people, especially since the content is definitely harder.

Assessment: At my school, we had...
- 15% In-class tests x2
- 30% Half Yearly
- 40% Trial HSC Exam

Exam Thoughts:
- 10 Multiple choice
- 4x 15 mark Extended responses, broken into subparts
It was really easy in 2014, and hence why I'm constantly disappointed at myself with this subject (see comments)

Textbook Recommendation: At the time I used Maths in Focus, which is shit. But it wasn't entirely useless; it gave me quite a fair bit of foundational knowledge and then I just moved to past papers ASAP.

Recommended Other Resources: If it's a past paper, then that.

Year of Completion: 2014

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 94 E4 (Ext 95, Int 92)

Comments:
So like, when I did the course I loved the content. But some of my test/exam marks disappointed me. Every time I think about MX1 I always think "I could've easily gotten four more marks on that 94", but my internals dragged me down and for some reason my mind was distracted as hell in the final exam by songs. Felt like really poor form. Apologies for the arrogance, but that's really how I feel about my mark with MX1.

As for the assessments themselves, again I felt it was very fair. The questions were quite straightforward and tested exactly what needed to be tested. Having said that, the final exams of this course is different to the one harder and one easier. MX1 is, actually, tiny. There's not that much to be examined on, and as a consequence the final exam is only 2 hours long. This can be both good and bad.

The good is fairly simple; you have less to do. Your brain also gets to relax a bit earlier on. The bad is the fact you're gonna be more focused on the clock. Occasionally, people drop a bit of time in the 2U/MX2 exams, and then will manage to get (or at least scrape) some of it back. MX1 will most likely not let you do this; I feel that the shorter exam only reinforces the fact that you should be grabbing all the marks you can get, and also doing it quickly enough so that you can spread out more time for other questions.

I feel that around 66% of the final exam, or even in extreme cases only 50% will be based off 'calculus'. This is something to look out for. And also, just like with 2U, 20% of the exam will involve preliminary topics. So once again, the issues with dropping off in maths because of problems at an early onset can bite you hard.

[katie,rinos]

Subject Name: Hospitality (food and beverage)

Level: HSC, However, the HSC exam content was taught over two years so you need to know some of the topics you did in year 11 well.

Workload: Light-Not too bad as I found most of the content easy to grasp initially.

Assessment: As hospitality is a vet course your HSC mark is based on your external exam only. However, there are quizzes, pracs and tests throughout that can contribute to your VET certificate 2 in hospitality. We also did half yearly and trial exams to prepare us for the HSC.

Exam Thoughts:
It’s a 2 hour exam with 5 minutes reading time.
Section 1-15 multiple choice questions.
Section 2 –Short answer (35 marks-recommended time is 50 minutes).
Section 3- 2 short answer questions and a longer answer question (3,4 and 8 marks).
Section 4- Extended response (15 marks).

The wording of questions is specifically designed to trick you and were difficult at times. Also, as they can ask you anything from the examinable content in each section they can pick on really small parts of the course (e.g I had a 3 mark question on plunger coffee in my HSC which was a tiny section of the coffee unit which I didn’t remember well).

Textbook Recommendation:
Hospitality by Cambridge. Found it fairly helpful to make notes/Flashcards but didn't use it too much.

Recommended Other Resources: Past papers.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5


Comments:

Hospitality ended up being one of my relaxing subjects amongst my 13 units and I ended up really enjoying it. It was very practical based and we cooked/made coffee most weeks. It was centered on if you wished to have a job in the industry afterwards (which I really don't want a full time hospo job), however I did complete my certificate 2 in Hospitality. The food and beverage stream focusses more on the waitressing side of cooking (although we did learn how to make simple dishes, drinks, & coffees), while the commercial cookery stream focusses on becoming a chef.

As part of the VET qualification, I needed 70 hours of work placement. I did 35 hours at a restaurant and the other 35 hours helping out with school functions and catering. To be signed off as competent in a topic, you needed to successfully get 100% on each test/quiz/prac you needed to do relating to the topic. So sometimes, you would need to do some questions multiple times in order to pass. You need to be really dedicated to catch up and redo questions, or it’ll pile up and a lot of my class didn’t end up getting full qualifications because they didn’t complete everything.

While Hospitality is seen as a really easy subject (I never found the content very difficult), the exam deliberately tries to trick you by focusing on minute areas of the syllabus and difficult wordings of questions.

[beatroot]

Subject Name: Ancient History

Level: HSC

Workload: Moderate

Assessment:
- Oral presentation (Historical Periods)
- Half Yearlies (Historical Periods + Personalities During their Time)
- Feature article (Ancient societies)
- Trials (all topics)

Exam Thoughts:
I'm just going to quote Katie here

It’s a 3 hour exam (my hand was dead at the end of it) with 4 sections that are each recommended for 45 minutes each. Each section is 25 marks. 
Pompeii and Herculaneum (core): Everybody does Pompeii and Herculaneum. This has multiple choice questions (usually related to sources) which are designed to trick you, 2 short answer questions (source and own knowledge) and a longer extended response (based on the last 4 dot points of the syllabus).
Section 2 (Ancient societies): Three small questions (2,3,5 marks) and a 15 mark extended response.
Section 3 (Personalities in their time): A 10 mark describe question and a 15 mark assses extended response.
Section 4 (Historical periods): A 25 mark essay based on one of the dot points. You have a choice between two different questions.

I felt that the questions for Section 1, 3 and 4 are quite predictable. Section 2, on the other hand, has such a huge syllabus (Ancient societies) that anything could happen in this section.

Textbook Recommendation: (What did you use? How much did you use it?)
- Antiquity 2 (All topics- predominantly used for Historical Periods and Personalities during their time. I did Greek World 500BC-440BC and The Near East: Xerxes). Provides evidence for all possible syllabus dot points and good overview each event/dot point.
- Spartan Society to the Battle of Leuctra 371 BC by Ken Webb (shoutout to my main man Ken Webb ahah). In seriousness, Webb gives a very very basic overview for each syllabus dot point for Sparta. It was nice for the book to provide some written evidence for some dot points.
- Pompeii and Herculaneum - Interpreting the evidence by Brian Brennan. Didn't touch this book as much because I found Susie's book way more useful.
- Spartan Society - Interpreting the evidence by Brian Brennan. Didn't use this book as much for other dot points.
- The Near East: Nelson Ancient History (Super helpful with the Xerxes topic considering he isn't much of a popular personality compared to Agrippina or Julius Caesar. This textbook has great insight into the Persian Empire)

Recommended Other Resources:
AN Ancient History Study Guide by Susie: This book became my holy grail the moment I first laid eyes on it. Straight to the point. Provides relevant evidence. Uses language that is easily understandable. Gives out tips and tricks on how to successfully nail the exam. It has everything. *Only has information on the core topic (Pompeii and Herculaneum)

Year of Completion: 2017

Rating: 3.5/4 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 88 external mark

Comments:
Once you get past telling a narrative in Ancient History, that's when the fun begins. You analyse evidence. You question the legitimacy of each historian. You start thinking "did that really happen?" or was everything a lie? A huge factor in nailing Ancient History is just being on top of your notes and having enough evidence for each dot point. You don't need new evidence for each dot point. Try to think of evidence that applies to a lot of syllabus dot points. Another key thing in Ancient is that you need to make judgements. Make a judgement and use evidence to back up your statements

[beatroot]

Subject Name: Photography, Video and Digital Imaging (Board Endorsed Course)

Level: Preliminary (can also be HSC but does NOT count towards your ATAR)

Workload: VERY light

Assessment: (Outline the various assessments which make up the subject and how much each counts for)
Portfolio #1 (50%)
Portfolio #2 (50%)

Exam Thoughts:
N/A. We were not examined under timed conditions as this was a subject that depended on your creativity, portfolio and growth as an artist.

Textbook Recommendation:
Caves to Canvas (very minimal use though)

Recommended Other Resources:
Feedback from your teacher and your peers + having an open mind

Year of Completion: 2016

Rating: 4 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade:
Ranked first, mark average of 92%

Comments:
I definitely agree that Photography, Video and Digital Imagining is a 'bludge' subject. The workload is very light (barely did anything in class besides taking photos and messing around on photoshop). We were only asked to write four extended responses (for 'theory' component) in the entirety of this course. It's a very practical based and requires creativity. Just because you have a DSLR, does not mean you will take good snapshots. You need to learn to be open minded and adopt the ways actual photographers take their photos (ie; use manual mode, the rule of thirds, framing not aiming etc.). You also need to present a consistent performance during this course as this will help you with your portfolio. By starting early, you give yourself enough time to do your contact sheets, edit your photos in photoshop and get your portfolio together.

This course is a board endorsed course meaning that this subject will not count towards your ATAR (reason why I only did it during my preliminary year). I would definitely recommend this course to those who are doing Visual Arts, Drama, English Extension 2, Design & Technology etc in their HSC year because the skills you will develop in P, V and DI will help you during the completion of your major works in Year 12.

*Sidenote: my school did not do the 'video' aspect of this course as we did not have the facilities.

[katie,rinos]

Subject Name: General Maths 2

Level: HSC

Workload: Wasn’t too bad. However, it was really easy to fall behind if you had missed a few lessons/not caught up after class. If you did fall behind in the classwork, you needed to put in a lot more work to catch up.

Assessment:
My school had:
Assessment Examination 1 (test on first 2 topics)-15% (I didn’t complete as they did it before I changed courses).
Half Yearly Exam-30%
Assessment task 3-Focus study on health-20%
Trial HSC Exams-35%

Exam Thoughts:
It’s a 2 1/2 hour exam with 5 minutes reading time.
Section1-25 multiple choice questions.
Section 2- 75 marks short answer questions, in 5 15 mark parts.
The recommended time is 35 minutes for multiple choice and 1hr 55minutes for the short answer questions.

You are given a three page formula sheet that has majority of the needed formulas on it. However, there are a few that you need to memorise.

Textbook Recommendation:
New Century Maths: Mathematics General 2. Used very heavily throughout the year (majority of lessons) for the exercises, chapter reviews, practise exams,etc.

Recommended Other Resources:
Past Papers
Atar Notes General Maths topic tests and the question threads

Year of Completion: 2017

Rating:  4 out of 5

Comments:

I dropped down to General Maths from 2 unit at the beginning of the year 12 in term one and found it a better course as the workload wasn’t as intense and I understood most of the content easily. However, if you drop, you need to make sure that you do go over some of the prelim content as about 20% is examinable and assumed knowledge for the course.

I didn’t find much of the content really hard in General however some of the exam questions are designed to trick you. Also, if you do drop a few marks in the exam, it is very easy to go down a band.

Past papers and practise questions are very important to improve in maths. When you find a topic/or exercise that you don’t understand it’s good to go through some more questions so that you improve and become more confident in it.

[Sashsan1]

Subject Name: Information Processes and Technology

Level: Preliminary

Workload: It is quite a content heavy subject, and there's lots of technology jargon but I managed it pretty well. We would work through folios which linked to activities in our textbooks, and we would do them at our own pace, but they had to be finished by a certain time. Some lessons were quite hands-on, like playing around on Adobe Photoshop (desktop publishing) and Microsoft Access (databases).

Assessment:

- AT1: Introduction to Information Systems (15%)
- AT2a: Tools for Information Processes (15%)
- AT2b: Research Task on 1 Information Process (15%)
- AT3: Developing Information Systems (20%)
- Preliminary Exam (35%)

Exam Thoughts: The great thing about IPT exams is there isn't an extended response! The exam consists of multiple choice and a series of short answer questions. Some questions might have you deduce something from a table in a database, or you might have to draw a context diagram/data flow diagram. The short answer questions can range from 2 marks to 6/7 marks. Scenarios are given sometimes, and then there are short answer questions for that scenario. The other stuff is just knowing your theory and applying it to a given situation.

It's hard to say how my exam was because our teacher gave us document of all the things that would be in the preliminary exam (and it was pretty accurate), but I'd say that as long as you keep on top of your theory, the exam will be fine and there shouldn't be anything too out of the blue in the exam.

Textbook Recommendation:

We used:
- Information Processes and Technology by Samuel Davis
- Information Processes and Technology by G.K. Powers

I preferred The G.K. Powers book as it was a lot easier to read in terms of length. However, the Davis book is more in-depth. The revision questions from both books were quite good as well.
I personally used the Powers textbook a lot more than the Davis, mainly because I would just read/do exercises from the Davis one but I made my notes from the Powers textbook due to its simplicity compared to the Davis book.

Year of Completion: 2017

Rating: 4 out of 5

Comments:
- Your level of English should be pretty good, because even though lots of people think it's just about playing with computers, there is writing to do, and as previously said, there's lots of jargon, so keep that in mind if you might pick IPT.
- A common question that people ask if IPT student write programs. Unfortunately there isn't any programming in the course, but there is a little theory regarding HTML in the HSC course in the Information Systems and Databases topic, so I suppose that it's more to do with understanding how a line of code works than writing it.

[kauac]

Subject Name: Chemistry (compressed)

Level: HSC

Workload: Pretty demanding as a compressed course. But our small class size meant that we got through the content quicker, and were able to focus more on the areas that we found more challenging, so it wasn't too bad.

Assessment:
Prac Task and Lab Report (15%)
Research Task and First-Hand Investigation (25%)
Secondary Sources Research and Presentation (20%)
Trial Exam (40%)
- No half-yearly exam (due to time constraints of compressed course)

Exam Thoughts: 20 MC, 55 marks short answer, 25 marks option, including a longer response (Biochemistry).
The multiple choice was fairly average, but there were a few trick questions. Short answers were pretty breezy, though they tended to have a lot more 4-5 mark questions then previous years. Option was fairly good (I really liked the long response), but there was a tricky calculation question that I hadn't anticipated - there had probably only been one or two calculation questions for this option through all of the previous exams I had looked at.

Textbook Recommendation: Chemistry Contexts 2 (pearson).
It was alright to use, but I found that I needed to use it in conjunction with other sources, because it seemed to cover some aspects in not enough detail, or provide extraneous information for other aspects.

Recommended Other Resources: Easychem website, ATAR Notes summary book, Dux College website syllabus notes

Year of Completion: 2017

Rating:  4 out of 5.

Your Mark/Grade: Not really one to share marks, but oh well. 88 (external), 88 (internal) - rank 1.

Comments: Found it really enjoyable, just a little dry at times (esp. production of materials module). The calculations for moles and pH were a nice way to provide a bit of variety instead of just a content dump. It would have been cool if they had focused more on emerging technologies, such as nuclear chem - one chapter was not enough! Would highly, highly, highly recommend the biochemistry option - I loved it!

[kauac]

Subject Name: PDHPE (compressed)

Level: HSC

Workload: Moderate. There was a lot of random content to remember, but roping it in with syllabus acronyms allowed it to be very manageable.

Assessment:
FAP Skill Acquisition Analysis and Training Session
IP Training Analysis and Presentation
Sports Medicine Topic Test
Trial Exam
(not sure about weightings for each)

Exam Thoughts: 20 MC, 40 marks short answers (core 1 & 2), 40 marks long responses (options: improving performance and sports medicine)
Overall: A straight-forward exam. They worked really hard to make the MC pretty challenging this year, but short answers were easy in compensation, and the questions were very clear in what they expected you to write. Options were nice too - they were the ones I had predicted - and the questions were pretty broad.

Textbook Recommendation: Outcomes 2 (Jacaranda).
It did a good job of explaining things, and between its weblink videos, and other supplementary materials my teacher used, it covered the syllabus really well.

Recommended Other Resources:
Pdhpe.net and its flashcards, ATAR Notes summary book, ACHPER HSC PDHPE Enrichment Day (really helpful advice and revision)

Year of Completion: 2017

Rating:  4.5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 93 (external), 93 (internal) - rank 1.

Comments: This was a really good subject! Just a little wishy-washy at times  (especially in core 1). The content came naturally to me, and I loved integrating my knowledge from the course into my everyday life. Helpful for anyone thinking about studying sports sciences at uni, or who just love sports in general (very focused on athletes and performance).

[blasonduo]

Subject Name: Physics ()

Level: HSC

Workload: Everyone seems to have different views to this, however, the most important part about the whole subject is understanding the concepts, once you understand how and why something works, it becomes much easier.

Assessment:
20% Practical exam (had to conduct one of the experiments in an exam-ish setting)
30% Practical assessment (Had to construct our own generator that generated more than 2volts, and then write up a scientific report on it)
20% Research assessment (Given multiple technologies from Ideas to Implementation topic and had to write how it worked etc...)
30% Trial HSC exam.

Exam Thoughts: We were expecting curveballs this year, and boy were we right. This year's Multiple choice was quite difficult, and a question about Webers about a coil (question 27) threw every single one of my classmates we were not really expecting it. It was really looking to know if you really knew the content.

Textbook Recommendation: Physics in focus. However, I did not use this and rather used internet resources such as youtube and AN.

Recommended Other Resources: Jamon's AN physics book

Year of Completion: 2017

Rating:  4.4 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: 88

Comments: The assessments were pretty good, apart from the generator one. I have never spent so many hours investing in a single assignment (it did pay off, but 100+ hours was not really worth it)

The course overall isn't a memorisation course but isn't that hard once you understand the concepts. If you don't learn the concepts, you will be severely disadvantaged. My favourite topic was Motors and Generators, it introduced new concepts that were just so fascinating, it really introduced me to a world I didn't know existed.

The mathematics in this course was not that bad, actually quite simple once you understood again the concepts, but MOST of the questions were just simple rearranging of formulae or substitution.

One thing I highly recommend is to make your own notes, including diagrams that make it easy for you to understand, some concepts need this (e.g. relativity). The best thing about this course is the fact it stands out from the others, you would never get a question in chemistry where you go "you know what, that is a good question, I wonder what it'll be"  Physics really tests yourself in a critical way, it makes you think outside of the box, and is what really made the course (and the overall HSC) very enjoyable. It is a very refreshing course in a mix of mundane, repetitive courses. However, its variety allows for much harder exams, allowing broader and exciting questions.

[Brun]

Economics:

HSC: (Prelim or HSC?)

Workload: There is quite a lot of content to study for the HSC Economics course, with lots of economic concepts to learn and you must be up-to-date with economic statistics. However, with those economic concepts, once you understand the concept, you can quickly revise them - the hard bit is just understanding it the first time. If you manage your time well, and revise every so often, the amount of content shouldn't be too overwhelming.

Assessment: Schools usually have the trial worth around 50%, with the other 50% made up of an exam or assignment each term. The exam would be in the form of multiple choice q's, short answers and an essay. Assignments can range from the case study of an Asian economy or reading newspaper articles on economics and discussing issues raised.

Exam Thoughts: The structure for HSC Economics Exam: 20 multiple choice questions, 40 marks worth of short-answer questions (split into four sections of 10 marks each), one stimulus essay (20 marks) and one extended response (20 marks). The MC questions are usually basic knowledge and calculation questions (note: the maths in economics is very simple), and occasionally one or two hard questions. The short answers require a bit more depth but as long you are familiar with the basic economic concepts you will be fine. The essays are where most people struggle as it requires detailed knowledge and application of real-world examples/stats.

Textbook Recommendation: The two main textbooks used are the Dixon and Riley textbooks. I prefer the Dixon one as it is succinct yet detailed enough, and explains concepts clearly. The Riley one is a bit over-the-top with too much extra information that can overwhelm students. It might be good to focus on Dixon, but take a look at Riley to see if there are any important details.

Recommended Other Resources: Constantly check news articles and updates on economic statistics.

Year of Completion: 2017

Rating:  5 out of 5

Mark/Grade: Band 6

Comments: I personally found economics to be a really interesting course as you better understand the business world and how consumers, businesses and governments interact in the economy. You learn about global free trade, exchange rates, economic issues and economic policies which are really helpful in gaining an insight into business. If you are thinking of studying commerce/economics/business courses at uni, this course would be a good starting point.

[owidjaja]

Subject Name: English Advanced

Level: HSC

Workload: Moderate because we had to read prescribed texts, research our own critical readings and read the assigned readings.

Assessment: (Outline the various assessments which make up the subject and how much each counts for)
Speech
Half-yearly exam
In-class essay (exam conditions)
Trials exam

Exam Thoughts: (What's the structure? How hard was it?)
Preparation was relatively easy because we were given two possible essay questions and but we'll be answering one of those questions in the exam. I did find it stressful since my school hasn't really assessed us on short answer questions or the creative (apart from Trials) so it was up to me to start my creative early.

Textbook Recommendation: (What did you use? How much did you use it?)
Nil

Recommended Other Resources:
State Library journal articles for critical readings.

Year of Completion:
2018

Rating: 4 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: (Optional)
86% (5/53) - Trials

Comments: Apart from how stressful English was when it came to memorising quotes (especially with Yeats), I did enjoy the subject because the texts we studied were really interesting. Even though we've joked about how useless English is, I liked looking at the various themes and found it fascinating at how applicable they were in terms of personal development.

[owidjaja]

Subject Name: Modern History

Level: HSC

Workload:
Modern is such a content-heavy subject so you need to make sure you don't fall behind. It also gets a bit confusing when you start going into politics (as someone who doesn't really have an interest in politics). There are also things you need to learn that aren't even in the syllabus but it would be good to talk about in the essay. Also, practice essays are key to doing well in Modern.

Assessment: (Outline the various assessments which make up the subject and how much each counts for)
Exam (WW1 section)
Research/ half-yearly exam (Personality Study)
Hand-in essay (Germany)
In-class essay (Conflict in Europe)
Trials

Exam Thoughts: (What's the structure? How hard was it?)
Since the exam is 3 hours and has 4 sections, it does get a bit exhausting- to be fair, a lot of 3 hour exams are exhausting. Also, the fact that there are so many things NESA could ask in the exam also makes it a bit difficult to predict. I always struggled in the Personality section because I find it difficult to adjust my personality to the quote. The good thing about the exam is that you can choose the questions for Section 2 and Section 4 so you could manipulate the paper to your advantage- that's if, the questions are good.

Textbook Recommendation: (What did you use? How much did you use it?)
Germany: Republic to Reich
Contested Spaces: Conflict in Europe

Recommended Other Resources:
History Hit is a website run by historian Dan Snow. This month, he's been making resources in relation to Conflict in Europe. Podcasts like The History Hour, History Extra, History Hit and Versus History are also great resources.

Year of Completion: 2018

Rating: 5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: (Optional)
84% (1/19) - Trials

Comments: Give your overall opinion of the subject, content, assessment etc. and a recommendation, plus anything else which you feel is relevant.
Modern was one of my favourite subjects. I actually chose it as the subject where I could "relax" in contrast to my other subjects. Even though it's very heavy in content, I found it a really interesting subject.

[owidjaja]

Subject Name: History Extension

Level: HSC

Workload:
The workload is quite heavy because it's up to you to take on the historiography debates and come up with your own opinions. It's also your responsibility to do your own research and reading. I had to do my own readings on postmodernism early on because my teacher wasn't comfortable with teaching postmodernism. You also need to do some practice essays. It's important for other subjects as well but I found writing History Extension essays to be a mix of English and Modern History essays so you need to find the perfect balance between the two. On top of exam preparation, you have your Major Work as well, which is worth 80%. Essentially, you need to be able to balance your Major Work with exam preparation.

Assessment: (Outline the various assessments which make up the subject and how much each counts for)
Major Work (proposal out of 20 which then gets moderated when calculating the overall mark, logbook checks throughout the year, final submission: essay, log, annotated bibliography and reference list- all worth 80%)
Half-yearly exam (Question 1 essay)
Trials (full exam)

Exam Thoughts: (What's the structure? How hard was it?)
The exam is 2 hours. It's highly recommended to plan your essays, especially for Question 1. Source A is quite long so it's important to take the time to read the source and annotate it so you can use it to frame your essays. Question 2 has a shorter source which means you don't usually have a lot to say. I was told that Question 2 essays tend to be shorter than Question 1 essays. I personally struggled a lot more with Question 2 essays because I didn't know what to talk about since there wasn't a lot to say.

Textbook Recommendation: (What did you use? How much did you use it?)
Nil

Recommended Other Resources:
The History Extension Source Book of Readings was a great resource because it was a compilation of sources from different historians.

Year of Completion:
2018

Rating: 5 out of 5

Your Mark/Grade: (Optional)
74% (1/4) - Trials
24/25 (1/4) - Major Work

Comments: Give your overall opinion of the subject, content, assessment etc. and a recommendation, plus anything else which you feel is relevant.
A lot of people tend to walk into History Extension knowing nothing, and that's okay! History Extension is definitely different from other subjects because it's a very philosophical subject. But it's also very enjoyable. You get to gain perspectives that you've never considered and sometimes you spiral a bit.