So for a bit of context im in year 10 rn and im picking my subjects for vce. basically im doing methods and indonesian sl this year, and next year im going to continue both of them, do eng lang, spesh, chem, chinese, accounting and one more subject and im tossing between busman and general because i heard that they are easy and im planning on not paying any attention in the class and hope i get an ok grade because its my 8th subject. I think general should be easy, im averaging high 80s low 90s in methods rn and occasionally a 79 or smth but my friends doing general nht say its really easy. on the other hand i also quite like commerce subjects so may busman will be interesting but i'd like to ask what busman is like because i don't want to do a very time consuming subject.
busman or general
liyyan either way, you’re going to be stuck with a time consuming subject (sorry to break the news like that). i do both general and business this year, and here are my thoughts:
general math is VERY simplistic, but you will need to spend time fine tuning your skills and avoiding stupid errors, because vcaa is super snakey and craves opportunities for stupid errors wherever they can. for general, you should be pumping out practice exams to rehearse the skills, and noting and rehearsing errors. for the final exam, you cannot really afford to get any less that 38/40 on exam 1 (unsure about exam 2) if you’re aiming high.
business management in contrast is very common sense, but in order to do well, you’re going to need the course knowledge to add onto common sense to add depth for your answer. business management is a pile of memorisation and writing extensive responses, and requires a lot of time memorising then applying the knowledge to practice questions, because exposure to as many practice questions, as with any subject i shall add, is important!
so here’s your ultimatum (for dramatic effects of course):
if you want to apply more basic mathematic knowledge into a subject and fine tune skills, and pump out practice exams like a machine, general maths all the way.
if you’re up for writing longer responses, memorising content and applying it in more of a rehearsal manner rather than in a practical way, then business management!
any questions just reply, i practically live on this forum 
Hi, I'm in year 8 and will be going into year 9 next year and will be picking VCE subjects for year 10...
Can someone please explain VCE to me? And is Indonesian good (in your opinion)? One of my language preferences was Indonesian (for next year). And also, does the language which you do in year 9 continue to year 10 and count as VCE?
Random_Person_You_Happen_To_Be_Encountering_Now hi! vce is basically the curriculum year 11s and 12s study- unit 1 and 2 being year 11 and unit 3 and 4 being year 12. people do accelerate a unit 3 and 4 subject in year 11 though, which means you can pick up an extra subject in year 12 when the time comes! since you’re talking about doing a vce subject/s in year 10, you will do unit 1/2 in year 10 and unit 3/4 in year 11.
only your scores in a unit 3 and 4 subject will count towards your atar, which determines the uni’s you can get into.
i don’t do a language, but i am aware languages do scale up if you do well! for a language to count towards a vce atar, you need to complete it in a unit 1/2 and 3/4 sequence, as it will be under the vce curriculum and not the standard curriculum.
FH thank you so much for your reply, I think i'll probs do general because it seems easier and i'm not planning on trying too hard in it as it might be my 7th or 8th subject.
could I ask what topics you do in general, like i heard theres financial maths and matrices or smth, and is it similar to year 10 maths or is there a substantial amount of new content like in methods or spesh?
Musiclover anytime, am glad to help!
there are four topics you will cover in general: data, finance, matrices and networks.
- data is really straight forward ~ measures of spread, mean/median/mode, r and r2 (your cas does this), transformations (cas) and time series graphs
- finance is normally the hardest topic ~ there’s basic stuff like simple/ compound interest, but the biggest thing is the finance solver function on the cas calculator… easy to make errors if you don’t understand it properly
- matrices is pretty simple ~ just have to understand the fundamental skills, multiplication/order, representing data in matrices, etc.
- networks is simple for the first half, but becomes a lot harder as you wrap up ~ requires a lot of thinking and checking and double checking you havent made a silly error.
if you’d like, you can drop your email and i can send some notes w/ answers for these topics. have never tutored but if you would like me to go through some stuff i can email you and arrange something (i won’t charge i think paying for help is unfair )
FH Thank you so much