To year 11s doing 3/4s

I was once in this position before, a Year 11 student with the daunting task of two 3/4 subjects to finish, juggling them in amongst my 1/2s. Here's my perspective on the best way to handle this:

The short answer

The short answer is, if you care about your ATAR, focus on your 3/4s, not your 1/2s. There are many reasons people do 3/4 subjects early, all of them quite important. I can imagine you're doing them early to:

• reduce your workload in Year 12
• get a feel for the VCE system
• or your school/parents forced you to.

No matter what, at the end of the day, 3/4s count towards your ATAR, 1/2s do not.

The longer answer

Experience matters

Amongst those reasons you're doing a 3/4 early, is understanding the system better for Year 12. What better time to go through a dress rehearsal, than one year before your final performance. Instead of tumbling through Year 12 with the sudden shock of these daunting "SACs" floating your way every week or so, preparing yourself in Year 11 lets you feel more at ease with the prospect of the many "do or die" assessments throughout the year.

SACs come less frequently, you don't have super heavy expectations (can always do better next year), so spend your time understanding that feeling of:

1. revising for a SAC or exam
2. charging your CAS and preparing your pencil case the night before
3. walking into the exam room and finding your seat
4. figuring out what you can/can't do in reading time.

Even that feeling of competing, of doing well, of doing bad, to understand those in Year 11 leaves you with a huge advantage for Year 12 (no sudden calamitous drop-off).

The more experience you gain in Year 11, the calmer and more relaxed you'll be for Year 12.

You can always catch up

The thing I most want to emphasise about 1/2s, is that across many subjects, there is a giant gap between the 1/2 and 3/4 syllabus. And even if there is overlap, the courses are usually taught in a way that repeats concepts learnt in those 1/2s, and so the content you might miss out on is next to nothing (maybe except Eng Lang from my experience).

What I'd really recommend is spend a weekend asking older students, reading the study designs, checking out exam papers, and ask yourself: what do I really need to learn this year in my 1/2s. First off, I guarantee you not much, and second of all, note that down, focus on those areas if you have spare time. The more waste learning you get rid of, the more prepared you'll be for this year and next. I remember our school taught us electricity and nuclear stuff in Year 11, but there was not a single bit on the 3/4 course—I wouldn't sweat one bit about those topics then.

And like worse case, if you do find yourself a bit behind, you have plenty of time. From November to February, there's practically 3 months of time to catch up on whatever you need to catch up on. You can't seriously tell me that you can't catch up on anything in 3 months time. Having already done some 3/4s and your research into your next subjects, you're perfectly positioned to be able to filter out the nonsense and catch up on the important parts of those 1/2s you missed through the year.

You gotta make a choice

No one feels at ease when they have to decide between two things. Some of us may be good enough to concentrate on two things at a time, but that's not realistic. This decision of putting 3/4s ahead of your foundational 1/2s may seem scary, I mean why would you trade 4/5 subjects for 1/2, especially given that you're still gonna do those 4/5 subjects next year.

However, I'm not saying you should completely slack off in 1/2 classes and play games or whatever, you have to be very certain that you're trading one thing for another. I want the emphasis to be on, if you're worried out of your pants because there's a 3/4 exam and a 1/2 exam on the same day (I had similar), the obvious choice is to 100% prepare for the 3/4 exam, giving little focus to the 1/2 exam, if any at all.

But going a bit deep, making choices is a big part of life, many times you'll make sacrifices. 1/2s are potentially the easiest thing to sacrifice, in comparison to 3/4s, they're practically worthless. The ROI on a 3/4 vs a 1/2 is exponentially larger, they just aren't the same prospect. Unless you're one of those super confident in your ability to do well in those 3/4s without breaking a sweat, I'd say in the grand context of things, those 1/2s might be a worthwhile thing to forget about for a while.

Best of luck to anyone reading this!