Chemistry 3/4 or not?

[victorey888]

I'm in Year 11 right now and I'm doing 3/4 Bio, 1/2 Methods, 1/2 English, 1/2 Chemistry, 1/2 Specialist Maths and 1/2 Chinese SL. I want to try get into Monash Biomed (really high standard for me) but I'm not sure if I should continue doing Chemistry next year. I'm deciding to drop either Chemistry or Spesh for 3/4 Psych in Year 12 because I'm not scoring too well in either right now.

I personally don't enjoy chem that much and I score inconsistently, sometimes getting 100% to getting 40-50% on other topic tests and I'm averaging 60% in spesh. I don't know how much harder 3/4 chem and spesh gets because I'm getting mixed responses from Year 12s, some saying it gets easier and some saying it gets harder.I feel like I should drop chem but apparently that closes a lot of options because it's a prerequisite.  Also, is psych worth doing without 1/2 or should I just continue chem and spesh and hope for he best?

Thanks

[peter.g15]

I'm in Year 11 right now and I'm doing 3/4 Bio, 1/2 Methods, 1/2 English, 1/2 Chemistry, 1/2 Specialist Maths and 1/2 Chinese SL. I want to try get into Monash Biomed (really high standard for me) but I'm not sure if I should continue doing Chemistry next year. I'm deciding to drop either Chemistry or Spesh for 3/4 Psych in Year 12 because I'm not scoring too well in either right now.

I personally don't enjoy chem that much and I score inconsistently, sometimes getting 100% to getting 40-50% on other topic tests and I'm averaging 60% in spesh. I don't know how much harder 3/4 chem and spesh gets because I'm getting mixed responses from Year 12s, some saying it gets easier and some saying it gets harder.I feel like I should drop chem but apparently that closes a lot of options because it's a prerequisite.  Also, is psych worth doing without 1/2 or should I just continue chem and spesh and hope for he best?

Thanks

Hey, if you're really keen on doing biomed at monash, you'll definitely need to keep chemistry next year since it has a prerequisite score of 25+ in chem. I assume you want to get into med or something similar through the post-grad route, so you could also try for science at Melbourne (which needs a science, but not specifically chemistry). You'll either have to change your preferences on courses or stick with chem and try scrape a 25.

IMO, chem gets harder in 3/4, but not a whole lot. If you're good at calculations, you'll be okay for part of 3/4. You'll also need to be solid in organic chem (it's basically all of unit 4). Otherwise, psych shouldn't be a problem to pick up in 3/4 since the information from 1/2 isn't necessary for doing well in 3/4. The only thing you'll need is to revise the research methods sections.

Can't really speak for spesh for myself, but a lot of my friends say that 3/4 starts off okay, but it really ramps up later on and can be quite difficult.

Hope this helped a bit

[dashnog]

I would just simply say "drop chem because you don't enjoy it", but obviously, a lot of the medical/science courses at Unis require VCE Chemistry to be completed, that doesn't work. Chem 3/4 does indeed get a *little* harder, but probably not to the same extent how Specialist 3/4 gets harder. So, sadly, despite the fact that you don't enjoy it too much, if you really want to get into Biomedicine, you're going to have to stick with it. Hopefully there is a way you can establish stability in your grades whilst also enjoying the content.

Psych 3/4 does not require 1/2, except for research methods. If you don't have the opportunity to learn and get close to mastery with research methods, it doesn't make 3/4 impossible to do well, but it would require a fair extra amount of revision and study to compete with those who learned it in 1/2. Other than that, it's pretty much new content that doesn't rely on the previous two units.