Physics or Chemistry? (1 Viewer)

[Kolmias]

I will select a science subject for the HSC and I'm wondering whether to pick Chemistry or Physics.

Can anyone explain to me:
1. What is the subject of the two which scales the best?
2. How much maths is involved in each subject?
3. And how difficult are the two subjects compared to each other?

 

[BLIT2014]

Also consider past performances of previous cohorts in respective subjects.

 

[anomalousdecay]

Scaling is approximately similar relative to each over past 10 years. Similarly for aligning. You shouldn't consider this as something to base your decision off.

You can do the maths in both coming from a general background, however it would be beneficial for you to come from a background of at least Mathematics and above, especially for Physics.

Difficulty is subjective.

Rather, you should base your final decision off which you will find most interesting and related to your future choices academically (what do you want to do later on after you finish uni?). Take that into consideration.

Think about what interests you the most in your science classes at the moment and from previous years too.

 

[Kolmias]

Scaling is approximately similar relative to each over past 10 years. Similarly for aligning. You shouldn't consider this as something to base your decision off.

You can do the maths in both coming from a general background, however it would be beneficial for you to come from a background of at least Mathematics and above, especially for Physics.

Difficulty is subjective.

Rather, you should base your final decision off which you will find most interesting and related to your future choices academically (what do you want to do later on after you finish uni?). Take that into consideration.

Think about what interests you the most in your science classes at the moment and from previous years too.

Oh, that's the tricky bit: I both enjoy the Physics and Chemistry topics we have been doing in class.

What do you think is more useful anyway? Physics or Chemistry?

 

[anomalousdecay]

Why not study both?

Umm depends on where you want to end up really. Both can be pretty useful here and there.

 

[antonym]

1. Chemistry scales slightly higher, but not by that much
2. Both involve a fair amount of maths but the calculation questions aren't hard and are almost always free marks. For certain long-response questions in physics you need to be able to justify your answer with a relevant equation.
3. I personally found chemistry slightly more difficult as the marking criteria for chemistry can be quite tough and in chem there's more memorisation involved.