• WACE

  • Literature or English!!! HUGE DILEMMA!

Hey, I am in a dilemma now, in choosing between English or Literature...

I am in WA and did Literature this year in year 11. In WA we can't do units 3/4 in year 11 regardless of how good you are, its only 6 subjects in year 11 and you can choose to drop 1 or 2 in year 12.

I finished lit with 70% (I believe 70% was the average). I am aiming for med, so no English is a prerequisite (I am only doing it because it is compulsory), and so I am aiming for the highest ATAR possible.
Should I move to English? I had made my mind that since all I need is a pass I might as well just stay in Literature, but now I am thinking what if English is just easier?

Do you know anyone that has done Lit then did English? Did they find it easier?

Please give me some advice, I am completely stuck 🙁

    I did English Language and I would highly recommend it. I don't know how much different it is in WA than in VIC but it basically tests your analytical thinking and ability to understand the purpose/aspirations of a given text more so than your writing ability, It is also the highest scaling English subject and does not contain a lot of content (no reading, etc). If the option remains, you should consider it, and if not then I'm not sure how to help.

    What is English language? Here we have english, literature and EALD... any of those?

    Just finished year 11 too here in WA.

    I initially did spec, methods, physics, chemistry, human bio and literature for sem 1, then switched human bio to English in semester 2.

    The reason I did double English was to choose which one I wanted to do for year 12. The switch wasn’t that bad since at my school they prepared you for English ATAR in year 10. You have to do 3 types of assessments: short answer, essay and composing compared to lit which is just essays.

    I ended up tanking the final exam tho (got 61 compared to lit which I got 88). I finished on 75 for English and 81 for lit.

    The workload is a lot less in English, but I found English to be more constrictive (whereas in lit they let you experiment a lot more). Could have done better, but ultimately chose to drop English and continue with lit for next year (I love lit scaling too much).

    Also aiming to do med as well!!!

      Also should add that when I was doing lit, even though sometimes I tried with all my heart on some of the assessments, I never was able to be rank 1 (was always consistently rank 3-5, and finished #2).

      Whereas in English, when I joined I became rank 1 within one term after just 3 assessments. Maintained it until the exam which I did bad in, but still finished #4. Also gotta know that I put 10% of the effort into English that I did for my other subjects.

      So based on this, ig you know that English is definitively easier than Lit, however dull at times.

      I studied Literature as a subject in my WACE, also on the med grind. I also, coincidentally, did quite well in the subject - I ended up coming 2nd in the state!

      From what I can guess, Literature is more formulaic which is why I think a student like me, who leans very heavily into maths and sciences, was able to do well. If you have a structure for an essay, a good understanding of analysis and literary devices, and the passion to truly understand the cultural studies part of Lit, then it can be a very enjoyable and somewhat easy subject to do OK in (obviously, to do extremely well takes a large amount of work and memorisation) - understand the cultural context/zeitgeist, create main points, find quotes to support your arguments, and then write a highly structured essay just like the ones you've done so far. English, from what I've heard, seems to be much less organised/structured.

      Ultimately, whether you continue with Lit or not I think should come down to these key points:

      • Will you get a pass mark in English? (Yes)
      • Will it be significantly less work to get a pass mark in English? (Not necessarily - it depends on you!)
      • Will dropping Lit be worthwhile for your overall learning and education, ignoring the ATAR grind? (Debatable, but I enjoyed Lit for sure.)

      If you can't say Yes to all three of these dot points, then you might want to reconsider any choice to drop Lit in favour of English.

      Good luck on the path to medicine!

        Arcadia
        Thank you so much! It's really nice to hear from who has done both!
        Whereabouts in WA are you, because different places are really different. I am in Perth, just wondering if you are too?

        I am not as good as you in lit haha, and I am going to start off with 6 ATARS next year, so a lesser workload would really be nice.

        Thank you for your help! 😃

          denosawr
          Oh wow congratulations! 👏
          Do you know if getting not so great in Lit in WACE will affect the scaling of my other subjects? As I said, really I just need to pass the compulsory english, but I don't want it to affect my other subjects - do you know anything about this?

          Thank you so much for your time and help 😄

              theATARbatch

              No, it shouldn't. If it's not in your top 4 and you're 100% sure it's not a backup subject, as long as you pass, there will be no adverse effect.

                  12 days later

                  Hey theATARbatch just a quick question do you know when we get our final predicted atar based on year 11 results

                  Hey, sorry for some reason I can't login my other account, so I created a new account. I haven't got my predicted ATAR either, and none of my friends know when we are getting it either, so I am not sure 🤷‍♂️

                  Shame.

                  Also are u expecting lower or higher compared to semester 1.

                  I’m expecting lower tbh cos this time round SCSA will do it with all the data from the schools

                  doe

                  Ya but my school did it including all the scaling and stuff.

                  Seemed kinda dodgy tho cos I got 97.40, and some subjects scaled down like crazy unexpectedly (looking at you methods), while others scaled up massively like chem, physics and literature

                  • doe replied to this.

                      I think only some schools do it for their students for sem 1, and it’s not an ‘official’ predicted cos you can’t use it for like early offers for uni entry or anything like that.

                      We should either get it during holidays or when we go back to school. Idk the exact date, that’s why I was asking around here