Wow, thanks for all that time you spent on writing that, it's so informative. I'm currently in Year 10, going into Year 11. I'm planning on doing Ext 2 Math as well in Year 12 simply because it is;
Just a question; how would I prioritize my time if I'm doing all 3 sciences (Phys, Chem, Bio) and Adv Eng in Year 12, along with Ext 2 Math? How much time do you think I should devote on Math's each day/week?
Thanks, and best of luck for the ATAR!
Doing 3 sciences plus Extension 2 maths and its prerequisites simultaneously is perfectly doable. I did two science subjects plus Economics (which is one of my more content-heavy subjects) along with four units of maths, and I didn't feel like my HSC was any more difficult than anyone else's.
Chances are you'll probably find that mathematics will take up the largest portion of your study time during your HSC. I spent about 40% of my total weekly study hours on maths each week, while others may spend upwards of 50%. I was lucky enough to have teachers who tend to minimise homework for my other subjects, so time management wasn't as much of a problem for me as it was for others. From my experience, Advanced English probably took upwards of 20% of my total study time on an average, non-assessment week. Assuming that each week you have 2 hours of MX2 and 4 hours of MX1 at school, your homework might consist of about 3-4 hours of MX2 and 3 hours of MX1. The inequity in the class-to-home hours ratio of the maths subjects is because that you would typically go through an exercise per period of MX1, while at least 2 exercises per period of MX2 (plus the fact that MX2 content is more dense and difficult).
Regarding English, I spent about 2-3 hours outside of class each week. Most of this time went into either homework (e.g. analyses for a chapter of a prescribed text) or spent researching to prepare an argument/essay. During the weeks prior to assessments, time spent on English may easily exceed 4-5 hours per week due to essay practice. While those weeks are all spent on assessment preparation for English, maths teachers typically continue with the content despite impending exams, meaning that beyond the 7-8 hours of maths homework a week, students may have to spend additional 4-8 hours on revision and/or past papers.
I can't remember exactly how many hours a week I spent on the sciences or Economics, but it wasn't much due to my teachers providing a relatively low amount of homework (e.g. while it was
extremely rare for my Economics teacher to set homework, the other Economics classes had a teacher who was notorious for setting a lot of work to speed through the content). I probably spent 4-5 hours or less per week on Chemistry, Physics and Economics during periods where there were no coming assessments (they were mostly allocated to reading through notes to understand the content, and forming revision notes of my own), though the hours can easily multiply.
If these numbers don't add up, it would be because I'm only estimating my hours, plus they tend to fluctuate quite wildly depending on the circumstances. Furthermore, these hours don't apply to my preliminary year, where I could get away with notably shorter hours. During my HSC year, I had weeks of school where I exceeded 30 hours of work outside of the classroom, though these were during my assessment periods. Some people work longer than that, some people could get away with less; it really depends on the student. It helped to spend my lunch breaks and free periods getting the homework out of the way to save up time for preparation and revision for coming assessments at home. (During the holidays where exams were set during the first weeks back, I worked 7-8 hours a day. Some people may recommend 9 hours a day, but that's a little excessive in my opinion.)
These hours will come to you naturally when you get up to the HSC, and may be unique to you to suit your needs, so don't worry about it now. I think for the preliminaries, 2 hours of work per day outside of the classroom is more than enough for the most part, but don't be afraid to exceed that when you need to.
Good luck for your preliminaries and HSC! They're really not as bad as many may think.
