In year 10 and thinking about studying Senior Science for the HSC?
But maybe you’re feeling confused about scaling, modules and textbooks?
Have no fear! Let me walk you through the HSC Senior Science FAQs to clear up any doubt you’re having!
HSC Senior Science FAQs
Q1. Why should I do senior science?
Q2. How does senior science scale?
Q3. Should I teach myself a different module to the one taught in class?
Q4. How should I be structuring my notes?
Q5. Where can I find past papers?
Q6. Should I bother with extra textbooks/resources?
Q1. Why should I do senior science?
First I’m going to tell you why I did senior science, and why I don’t regret it.
I did preliminary Chemistry and wasn’t going too badly, I was given an estimated scaled mark of 78 which I would’ve been perfectly happy with.
That being said, I was putting in way too much effort for the return that I was getting!
I didn’t want to drop all of Chemistry because I knew it would benefit me to have a slight understanding and I enjoyed science.
To solve this dilemma, I picked up Senior Science and achieved a more reasonable level of effort to return!
This exact situation could apply to any science, however Senior Science shouldn’t just be treated as an “in case of emergencies” subject!
You should do Senior Science if you enjoy all 4 types of science as you get to study all 4 (which you can’t do otherwise!)
Q2. How does senior science scale?
Scaling is complicated.
As someone who recently finished the HSC, I still don’t quite understand it beyond a vague outline. However, I have done my best to learn about it sufficiently to educate you guys!
The first thing to understand is that the strength of your cohort affects how your marks scale.
This essentially means that if you are doing a subject in which people perform well as well as doing well in their other subjects, your scaled mark may be comparatively higher.
This is when compared with a student doing a subject where the cohort performs poorly in their other subjects. This all affects your ATAR.
If you are doing subjects that don’t scale so well and have an average mark higher than someone doing ‘well-scaling’ subjects, your ATAR could be lower.
However you should bear in mind that if you achieve good marks in your course, scaling won’t affect you too badly!
Q3. Should I teach myself a different module to the one taught in class?
So, you’ve been doing a topic in class and you just don’t get it.
Is it worth putting in the effort to learn a whole new one? Or would you be better off just buckling down and trying to keep study the one you’re learning?
In my opinion you should really be studying the topic you’re learning in class.
I have a multitude of reasons for this:
- You will need to know that topic for trials
- Even though you might not understand it yet, it is still familiar to you
- You get to test your knowledge during trials and know approximately where you’re at and how much you need to improve (you won’t get this if you change…)
Q4. How should I be structuring my notes?
For Senior Science, I structured all my notes by syllabus dot points. This reassured me that I had notes for everything I could come across in the exam.
I would also advise you to hand-write your notes for every subject.
I did this for Senior Science and found it helped a tonne with memory recall and just understanding the content in general. Science backs me up with this!
Q5. Where can I find past papers?
We’ve actually just published a master list of past papers which can be found here and includes both HSC and trial papers!
Q6. Should I bother with extra textbooks/resources?
I love my extra study guides so much.
I was lucky enough to have people in older years from whom I could borrow books off. However, most libraries host a large collection and you can always find resources on the internet!
I used study guides (Excel etc.) to familiarise myself with concepts prior to studying them in class so that I already had a basic understanding of them.
I also used them to write extra notes prior to assessment tasks which I found helped a lot.
If you can, I would use extra resources. However, I would recommend either borrowing them or buying them second hand as they can be pricey!
That rounds up our list of HSC Senior Science FAQs – good luck!
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Sophie Dyson studied senior science throughout year 12 and found it a nice wind down after particularly stressful English classes. She took great pleasure writing notes and studying for senior science, namely because it meant she didn’t have to think about her history extension major work! Since finishing the HSC Sophie has started creating playlists for every emotion and situation, just for fun.
