Year 11 does not contribute to the ATAR score, but Unit 1 and 2 provides the foundation for these units. Both Year 11 and 12, however, do contribute towards the WACE Certificate.
Your Year 11 grades do not count towards your ATAR! Essentially, the ATAR is a percentile number that's calculated using your HSC Marks — aka, your Year 12 marks.
During Year 11 and 12, you're given School Assessed Coursework (SACs) and at the end of the year, you have the final exam to test your competency on the subject. The marks you get for the SACs and final exam are used to determine your raw study score for each of your VCE subject.
Your Year 11 results
Your studies this year do matter. Not only are they the foundation for your Year 12 courses, if you apply for admission to university through Schools Recommendation Schemes then the institutions will base part of their assessment on your Year 11 results.
Is year 12 content much more difficult than year 11? To be completely honest, the really overwhelming and difficult part of year 12 tends to be the pressure and the intensity of the study that you might come up against. The difference between the difficulty of the actual content is going to vary between subjects.
If you have failed a subject, the credit points won't count towards your degree, but it may affect your WAM. You will need to repeat the subject, in the case of a core or compulsory subject; or 'replace' the subject with a different subject.
Your ATAR is calculated from the results of 10 course units and at least four subjects, so even if you excel in one, two or even three subjects, you won't receive your best ATAR unless you work equally hard in each of your courses. This applies to subjects within the course, too.
It's based on overall HSC results and is designed to be a predictor of your first-year performance at university. So an ATAR of 70 doesn't mean you got 70 percent – it means that you're in the top 30 percent of your year group.
For most people, a good ATAR score is 80.00.
Eighty is the minimum ATAR for entry into most programs at the Australian National University.
As you can see, Year 11 is the most important Year in High School! A poor academic performance in Year 11 can greatly handicap your opportunities in Year 12!
Schools do not need parent/carer consent for a student to progress. Where the principal determines that repeating a year level is required for the long-term benefit of the student, the principal must obtain parent/carer consent for the student to repeat the year level.
That said, to get an ATAR of 90 you must score in the top 5%, so that might be enough to answer your question. It SHOULD be “hard”, for it to be worth anything anyway. As for choosing subjects, choose what you enjoy, as you'll then be prepared to put in the required effort to do your best and maximise your score.
An ATAR is a rank given in increments of 0.05 between 0.0 and 99.95, meaning that a score of 75 puts you in the top 25 per cent of your state. This rank provides an easy method of comparison for institutions when selecting students for course entry.
The first reason is that it brings NSW in line with other states and territories, which were all providing a maximum rank of 99.95 under different names by the time the ATAR was introduced in NSW in 2009.
The elusive 99.95 ATAR is something a lot of people strive for but few achieve. No matter what your goals are, it helps to learn from someone who's achieved a top ATAR before, if only to learn some useful tips and tricks from them.
In general, most students consider an ATAR of below 30 to be bad. This is because the actual ATAR score is not reported for an ATAR less than 30, it is just stated as <30. Still, this ATAR may be good and all that is required for a student who wants to pursue a trade or enrol in TAFE.
For instance, to score an ATAR of 95, you would need to score in the top 16% of Physics and 18% of Chemistry, but you need to be in the top 8% of Biology. Students who have fair numeracy should definitely consider taking Physics and Chemistry.
For example, a student with an ATAR of 85.00 indicates a performance better than 85% of the population eligible to be in Year 12 or in the top 15% in relation to all the students who started school at the same time.
Approximately 500 students will get a 99 ATAR in states like Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Approximately 100 students score a 99 every year in Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania, while approximately 40 students achieve this in the ACT.
Ultimately, getting 99 ATAR is no easy undertaking. It requires hard work, dedication, and a willingness to use all of the resources available to you. For those students who are aiming for the top universities, a high ATAR score is essential – and it is within your reach.
An ATAR of 100 is impossible.
You can but the Dept of Education does not like it. Thousands of NSW parents are insisting their children repeat a year of school, despite warnings from education experts it could do more harm than good. “You can repeat one or more courses within the five years (see pathway 1) without a penalty.
Secondary education
Secondary school education in Australia is compulsory until year 10 or age 16, however to move onto higher education students must complete year 12 to receive their certificate. There are however some key differences between secondary education at both the middle and senior levels.
School education (Primary and Secondary)
School education is similar across all of Australia with only minor variations between states and territories. School education (primary and secondary) is compulsory between the ages of six and sixteen (Year 1 to Year 9 or 10).