What scales better; Chemistry or Physics? (2 Viewers)

[SharpieKid123]

I'm in Yr 10 and I have to choose between the two, to be honest I am more interested in Chemistry; Physics to me seems like a dry subject, but many people says Physics is more interesting and scales better. What should I do?

 

[SpiralFlex]

I'm in Yr 10 and I have to choose between the two, to be honest I am more interested in Chemistry; Physics to me seems like a dry subject, but many people says Physics is more interesting and scales better. What should I do?

Don't choose a subject because of the scaling. You would rather do a subject you enjoy than sitting in your room studying for a subject you don't enjoy for 2 years. Chemistry scales betters slightly.

 

[funnytomato]

from www.uac.edu.au/documents/atar/2010_HSC_Table A3.pdf
we can see their scaling are about the same, you can't really decide which one to study over the slight difference in scaling

 

[funnytomato]

just check the textbooks and past exam papers and see which one is actually more interesting

 

[Shadowdude]

Pick Chemistry because it seems to interest you more. If you want to see how good Physics is, read the syllabus or flick through a textbook to determine it.

To answer your question, Chemistry scales slightly better.

 

[jnney]

So what if it scales better, if you dont enjoy the subject very much, then you won't be inclined to study head on with physics. Which probably means you won't do as well as you would've with chemistry. Which probably means that you're not going to get scaled very high either.

Choose chemistry.

 

[jamesfirst]

choose both.

Physics is he best subject in the world

 

[supermario]

Its Up to you what ever seems to interest you more doo that subject. If you choose a subject you dont enjoy you wont do welll in that subject. "Do What You LOVE."

 

[b33g_boss]

DAMN YOU IT teacher who said physics scaled better when i challenged him that chemistry scaled better!

 

[Shadowdude]

Also you may want to put some consideration on what you want to do after school. Do you want to do Chemistry or Physics at uni?

 

[Alkanes]

Choose biology...

/thread

 

[muzeikchun852]

Prelim Chem: little content, simply calculations.
Prelim Phys: loads of content and relatively harder calculation compared to prelim chem.

HSC Chem:
- similar amount of content with hsc phys
- more theory compared with prelim chem
- still simply calculations
- more about the environment and impact of the world.

HSC Phys:
- harder calculations compared with prelim physics.
- most of the theory need to be imagine instead of seeing it in the real world.

most people (including me) have the misconception that physics is very maths-based. however, that's not the case at all. in fact, i find that physics has more content than chem, but that might varies from person to person.

 

[funnytomato]

TO ALL POSTERS IN THIS THREAD: It IS STUPID TO RELY on that TABLE A3 to determine how well each subject scales...... That table only shows the DISTRIBUTION of scaled marks for the cohort of each subject, NOT how well each subject scales.

I quote: page 7 of http://www.uac.edu.au/documents/atar/2010-ScalingReport.pdf
3.2.3 Combined courses
As the Board places English Standard and English Advanced raw marks on a common scale, these courses
are combined and scaled as a single course, but are reported as separate courses in order to be
consistent with the Board’s reporting practice.


The above passage says that advanced and standard english have the same scaling.....yet I see 32.5 as the mean scaled mark for advanced english and 17.3 for standard english on table A3, page 35 of the scaling report.

The figures on table A3 only indicate the DISTRIBUTION of scaled marks. THEY DO NOT INDICATE HOW WELL EACH SUBJECT SCALES.

So Chemistry DOES NOT NECESSARILY scale better than physics, even if chemistry (31.7) has a higher SCALED MEAN than physics (30.5). The numbers in the brackets are the scaled means.


And DAMN it took me a long time to realise this.

well, it gives a sound comparison of scaled marks at the same percentile for different subjects
http://www.uac.edu.au/documents/atar/2010_HSC_Table A3.pdf
90percentile of standard english = 27.6/50
25percentile of advanced english = 27.1/50

 

[slyhunter]

Choose biology...

/thread

whattahead

 

[jnney]

whattahead

lolol. Biology is just memorization

 

[jamesfirst]

lolol. Biology is just memorization

So is chem.

 

[Shadowdude]

TO ALL POSTERS IN THIS THREAD: It IS STUPID TO RELY on that TABLE A3 to determine how well each subject scales...... That table only shows the DISTRIBUTION of scaled marks for the cohort of each subject, NOT how well each subject scales.

I quote: page 7 of http://www.uac.edu.au/documents/atar/2010-ScalingReport.pdf
3.2.3 Combined courses
As the Board places English Standard and English Advanced raw marks on a common scale, these courses
are combined and scaled as a single course, but are reported as separate courses in order to be
consistent with the Board’s reporting practice.


The above passage says that advanced and standard english have the same scaling.....yet I see 32.5 as the mean scaled mark for advanced english and 17.3 for standard english on table A3, page 35 of the scaling report.

The figures on table A3 only indicate the DISTRIBUTION of scaled marks. THEY DO NOT INDICATE HOW WELL EACH SUBJECT SCALES.

So Chemistry DOES NOT NECESSARILY scale better than physics, even if chemistry (31.7) has a higher SCALED MEAN than physics (30.5). The numbers in the brackets are the scaled means.


And DAMN it took me a long time to realise this.

Umm, yes - however it's still an indicator on how scaling works.

That fact - that this is not an HSC mark to scaled mark indicator - is spelt out many times, however we can see general trends and we can deduce scaling from that. Hence, that 'scaled mean' is usually a good indicator of how well a subject scales in general.

 

[CombustionManX]

I do both currently, I find Physics much more interesting and enjoyable (especially the cathode ray stuff and superconductors) and Chemistry a little bit of a drag. I still like it though. The titration is pretty cool, as well as AAS (especially the way they do it at University). Chemistry is also a little more pedantic in their marking, although both are pretty pedantic in their own right.

 

[RANK 1]

choose chem its alot easier them physics imo, and i find hsc physics extremely boring

 

[jamesfirst]

I reckon chem is harder. Physics is fun