Advanced English vs. Standard English (2 Viewers)

A l

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I know this may have been posted many times before, but face it, each year new students are going to be discussing the same thing.

The only real difference between Standard and Advanced English is the modules, and quality of the candidature. Marks are supposedly scaled as a common course, so neither Standard or Advanced students should be disadvantaged.

Thus, when considering whether to do English Advanced or Standard, it is only a matter of interest.

The dilemma of choosing between Standard or Advanced is often due to the fact English is a compulsory subject and each offers different sets of material. Here are a set of questions from my school that gives a rough idea on whether Standard or Advanced/Extension is right for you.

1) Do you enjoy reading and read appropriate materials or books very often? (that is everyday)
2) Are you good at English? (i.e. ALWAYS get 85 or above in assessments & tests)
3) Do you enjoy English and its exploration of texts?
4) Are you a COMPETITIVE student?

If the answers to ALL of these were yes, then Advanced and Extension is the one for you
If the answers to either questions 2 and 4 were no (if only one of questions 2 and 4 was a no), then Standard is the one for you.
If the answers to questions 2 and 4 were BOTH yes at least, then Advanced is the one for you.

N.B. It is possible for one who is not good at English to enjoy the SELECTED texts in Advanced rather than those of Standard. So the questions above are only a general approximation and estimate.

HOWEVER, there are some SELECTIVE schools that ONLY offer English Advanced. Some examples include, Sydney Technical High School, North Sydney Boys High School, Sydney Boys High School, Sydney Girls High School, James Ruse Agricultural High School and Fort Street High School. I personally do not know why, since there are some selective students in these schools that are horrific at English and should be doing Standard, but are doing Advanced English because their school only offers that course. None should assume that all selective students are better than all non-selective students.

If anyone has any comments on these I would like to see them...
 
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Jago

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hurlstone offers standard.
 

astro

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And i wonder how many people do standard there...
 

[trent]

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yeh, I go to a selective school in Newcastle and we only offer Advanced...but
most people don't mind. We don't offer general maths either :(
 

firehose

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i go to Sydney Tech - we only offer Advanced in yr11 but allow people to choose which one in yr12... about 75% continue to do advanced for the HSC
 

A l

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firehose said:
i go to Sydney Tech - we only offer Advanced in yr11 but allow people to choose which one in yr12... about 75% continue to do advanced for the HSC
That is very odd...
 

BabieBubski

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^_^

There really isnt that much difference in STANDARD and ADV. ENGLISH...

Im doing Standard English... and i helped sum person who does 3 or 4 Units of English on this site with his Essay and Speech!! Well guess what?... I cant really say HELP... because i DID write his essay and i did write half of his speech... OH and u know what else?... *he* got FULL marks in both things.

Essay = 20/20
Speech= 10/10

FULL MARKS FOR ME!!! LOL !!! And ur hearing it all from a STANDARD ENGLISH student helping an ADVANCED STUDENT who *mind u* goes to a SELECTIVE SCHOOL *lol* ... soo yee... oh and if ur wondering WHY i didnt go into ADV. ENG... its because it was only UNTIL Half way into year11.. i only STARTED liking ENG... but before...hahaha... English was juz nothing to me and it was mainly about Maths and Chem! LOL!

WELP! G*LUCK ALL for the YR 05' ^_^
 
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BabieBubski said:
There really isnt that much difference in STANDARD and ADV. ENGLISH...

Im doing Standard English... and i helped sum person who does 3 or 4 Units of English on this site with his Essay and Speech!! Well guess what?... I cant really say HELP... because i DID write his essay and i did write half of his speech... OH and u know what else?... *he* got FULL marks in both things.

Essay = 20/20
Speech= 10/10

FULL MARKS FOR ME!!! LOL !!! And ur hearing it all from a STANDARD ENGLISH student helping an ADVANCED STUDENT who *mind u* goes to a SELECTIVE SCHOOL *lol* ... soo yee... oh and if ur wondering WHY i didnt go into ADV. ENG... its because it was only UNTIL Half way into year11.. i only STARTED liking ENG... but before...hahaha... English was juz nothing to me and it was mainly about Maths and Chem! LOL!

WELP! G*LUCK ALL for the YR 05' ^_^
Must've been a crap selective school... and a crap student who would let a standard english student do his schoolwork...

Saying that "there isn't much difference between Standard and Advanced English" makes no sense, otherwise all the different levels of English in the HSC would be redundant. Obviously, the courses cater for different abilities.

Try Advanced. It's a pretty good course.
 

Slidey

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Standard is a dodgy course. If you want any chance of doing well in your English units, you'd be smart to take Advanced.
 

goan_crazy

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main difference is advanced do harder texts...
standard is comparatively easier
 

A l

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joe_m_2000 said:
main difference is advanced do harder texts...
standard is comparatively easier
Actually, depending on what person you are, there really is not a big margin between Standard and Advanced English in terms of difficulty. Think about it, MOST students taking English Standard generally have lower quality students in English skills than most students taking English Advanced. So English Standard students explore the texts in the usual language and themes perspective, while English Advanced students explore texts in a more challenging manner since the students supposedly have a better ability in English. It really cannot be compared since the quality of the candidature is totally different.

Also, since English Standard and English Advanced have completely different texts for their modules, they cannot be compared. Also, they view their texts in different perspectives. For example English Standard students do module 1 Experience Through Language as views of language techniques in their texts, while English Advanced students do module 1 as Comparative Study Of Texts which compares and contrasts texts which have similarities to other texts. Since both courses test different abilities to view texts they really cannot be compared.

English Advanced usually IN MOST CASES only have an advantage over English Standard students when they take on the Area Of Study. There is a good chance that one who may do poorly in English Standard may actually do well in English Adavnced due to personal interests in specified texts.

After all that, it really comes down to personal interest,ability and/or commitment. English Standard explores texts through conventional ways such as language and themes, while English Advanced takes that a step further in exploring texts in other ways.
 
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systemx

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Why is it so hard to get a band 6 in standard but relatively easy for those in advance? Advance is suppose to be harder than standard, but each year I see more students getting a band 6 in advance than in standard. I'm currently a year 11 student doing standard at Sefton and I'm very worried about those statistics. Is it because the markers are tough or is it because most students are just plain stupid? Please explain!
 

A l

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I've noticed that many assume that it is harder to obtain Band 6 in English (Standard) than in English (Advanced). That is not true. In fact the two courses have the same performance descriptors. Compare the two using the websites given below.

http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/ebos/static/BDHSC_2004_12_15130.htm
http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/ebos/static/BDHSC_2004_12_15140.htm

This means that a Band 6 in English (Advanced) is equivalent to a Band 6 in English (Standard). Note a quote from a Board of Studies FAQ:

"....the Board’s standard-setting procedure, involving teams of experienced markers using professional judgment informed by statistical data and student responses, will be used to determine the band cut-off marks for the combined distribution so that a BAND 6 AWARDED TO A STANDARD COURSE STUDENT IS EQUIVALENT TO A BAND 6 AWARDED TO AN ADVANCED COURSE STUDENT, and so on. During this process checks will be conducted to ensure that if Standard and Advanced course students are awarded the same marks then their performances are of the same standard. The draft band descriptions may also be refined during this process. This does not mean that the same proportions of students in the Advanced and Standard courses will be placed in any Band. Students undertaking the Standard and Advanced courses will receive the Band appropriate to the standard of achievement they demonstrate..."

Also, remember this is how marks are aligned and this aligning process has no effect on scaling whatsoever.

The most likely reason that English (Advanced) students perform better than those taking the English (Standard) course is simply because the English (Advanced) students are supposedly better at abilities in English than those taking the English (Standard) course.

A specific factor which I believe is the pinpoint root cause of this distribution in aligned HSC marks is the HSC Area Of Study Paper 1. Since Standard and Advanced course students undertake the same examination paper, the Advanced course students should have a slight, if not great, margin of advantage over the Standard course students since they supposedly have a better ability in English. Since Paper 1 makes up almost forty percent of the final mark, it is the students' (of both the Advanced and Standard course) performance scale on that paper that usually brings about a dramatic difference in the distribution of HSC marks of English (Standard) and English (Advanced).
 
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A l

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sf_diegoxrock said:
A I .. are you an undercover teacher ..
Lol no, I'm currently a Year 11 student studying the Preliminary course. Don't be surprised.
 

0Jade0

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I did Standard in year 11 and moved to advanced in year 12
In prelim I was bored out of my brain, we did no work at all. watched dull movies and read even duller books. I got full marks for every assessment without even trying so in some ways i wish i was still in standard having fun and mucking around. On the other hand Adv. is interesting and more challenging... so yeah
 

goan_crazy

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i do advanced
the texts are better i reckon
were doin lear, bnw/br and telling the truth
standard do like witness, contact, henry lawsons short stories and stuff
advanced is more challanging and theres extension people in it :(
 

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