should I drop biology or business studies? (1 Viewer)

[laetaa26]

I'm really stuck on whether to drop bio or business as I enjoy bio a lot but my marks have been really bad even in year 11 and the marking is super harsh.

Whereas in business I find the content super dry and even without studying (I was pretty confident I was going to drop but kept it to see how I'd do in other subjects) I still ended up getting 70% with 10% weighing (but unsurprisingly my rank was bad) vs bio I got 55% with 20% weighing. I'm not sure about my bio rank yet but my mark was around the average.
At my school about 12 students get a band 6 in business and 11 for bio, although the bio cohort is double the size of business one.

Another issue I have is that my teacher for business isn't as good as my bio teacher who gives feedback on questions really quickly. But I always have trouble finding hsc style questions on the current content so I end up never submitting anything..
Other than that the main thing keeping me from just dropping bio because of my marks is that next year we have a viva voce as an internal for business which I was awful at in year 11 and weighs 20%. I'm pretty sure if I actually tried I could do well in business, its just this one assessment I'm worried will bring my marks/ranks down.

I'm 100% sure on only doing 10 units next year so any advice would be really appreciated!!

 

[Study to success]

Well if ur willing to improve on bio and ur rank is better than maybe drop business. Cause if u enjoy bio u might be able to improve and plus ur rank is better so maybe thats better. It depends on which subject u think you’ll be able to improve the most in

 

[laetaa26]

Well if ur willing to improve on bio and ur rank is better than maybe drop business. Cause if u enjoy bio u might be able to improve and plus ur rank is better so maybe thats better. It depends on which subject u think you’ll be able to improve the most in

i was really motivated to improve in bio after prelims and actually studied this term unlike year 11 but I somehow got worse than prelims and the marking has really demotivated me. I think my exam technique is especially bad which feels like it'd be hard to improve (that and I don't think I actually know how to study for bio...) I'm also not sure if it would be worth dropping business because of how bad it scales. I still have 90% of internals left so a band 6 in business is definitely still possible right? or is that rank dependent

 

[Study to success]

i was really motivated to improve in bio after prelims and actually studied this term unlike year 11 but I somehow got worse than prelims and the marking has really demotivated me. I think my exam technique is especially bad which feels like it'd be hard to improve (that and I don't think I actually know how to study for bio...) I'm also not sure if it would be worth dropping business because of how bad it scales. I still have 90% of internals left so a band 6 in business is definitely still possible right? or is that rank dependent

Well to get a b6 in any subjects is kinda rank dependent unless ur whole cohort are like impossibly good that they’ll all get a b6. But I feel like if u find a way to study for bio or get a tutor it might be the best. But u can always ask people on here or ur teacher for advice on how to improve in bio

 

[laetaa26]

Well to get a b6 in any subjects is kinda rank dependent unless ur whole cohort are like impossibly good that they’ll all get a b6. But I feel like if u find a way to study for bio or get a tutor it might be the best. But u can always ask people on here or ur teacher for advice on how to improve in bio

Yeah okay i'll probably ask people on here and spend a week on two trying to improve in bio and see how that goes. thanks so much!!

 

[Study to success]

Yeah okay i'll probably ask people on here and spend a week on two trying to improve in bio and see how that goes. thanks so much!!

@Hehehe22 can def help

 

[Hehehe22]

@Hehehe22 can def help

Haha yeah that's right

I struggled a lot with the harsh bio marking criteria, too. There are 2 main things I did to improve:

1. I brushed up on all the bio case studies and 'working scientifically' skills.
The content is bio is fairly simple, but there's a lot of it, and much of that is actually case studies. You might be tempted to not go into too much depth with them, but knowing these case studies thoroughly can enhance your responses and allow you to give relevant examples every time. These include the different genetic technologies/biotechnologies in Mod 6, past pandemics/epidemics in Mod 7, ear/eye/kidney disorders and technologies in Mod 8, and many more. Also, learn how to evaluate technologies effectively because that is commonly asked in long response questions.
Scientific skills are extremely important for success in any HSC science, and are easy to learn with some practice. Examples are procedure/method-writing, graph/table/diagram drawing, and evaluations of validity/reliability/accuracy. If you are super confident with all of these, then you'll find bio exams much more approachable.

2. I spammed lots of past paper questions, and got them marked.
It's a huge advantage that your teacher is willing to give feedback on questions quickly, so make sure to use that advantage. If you're having trouble finding questions, let me know which module/dot point you need, and I can send you a compiled set of questions from that topic. You can also just skim through bio past papers on THSC, and find these questions yourself. If there are lots of questions to get through and you don't have enough time, you can jot down what you intend to include in a response to each question and compare this to the marking criteria, rather than writing out full responses.

Hope this helps, if you decide to continue with bio!

 

[chrlzxccc]

@Hehehe22 any study tips