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Otago HSFY chat - archive
- Thread starter jeavey
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ChickenPie
Regular Member
Heh skyglow. The rest of the results are out now- two more A+ grades for moi.
I got a 94% average, so yes, not superb, but any A+ is excellent in my book.
I got a 94% average, so yes, not superb, but any A+ is excellent in my book.
Kiwilander
Regular Member
Lol, its funny how the new HSFY course means getting an A+ is sooo much easier than it used to be.
ChickenPie
Regular Member
You guys just have to shoot us down, don't you!
All results are confirmed now- unconfirmed just meant that they could theoretically change, due to a previous clerical error or the like.
All results are confirmed now- unconfirmed just meant that they could theoretically change, due to a previous clerical error or the like.
You don't have to remind us about "the good old days" every time HSFY results are released :/
Yeah, and they did change in semester 2 last year - HEAL192 made quite a serious error in reporting marks.
Well done on the great marks HSFYers! Hope to hear of more good results coming in...
Oh, and luysion, 87% average isn't actually that bad, especially if you can replace that 81% with a better mark by taking an 8th paper. All it really means is that your UMAT mark is now very important.
Kiwilander
Regular Member
Everytime? Right buddy...
@ChickenPie: I should apologise if I seemed to be shooting down grades. It's just surprising to me every year when HSFY grades seem to be getting higher. I don't really get why it's like that...
ChickenPie
Regular Member
It's all good- we're grateful, I suppose, for the "easier" courses. I'm not sure that grades are much higher this year than last year- they were about the same for the terms tests and other internal assessments.
squigglypencil
Member
Congrats 
Hmm... ChickenPie are you going to take an optional 8th paper? Do you guys think that I should? I'm still undecided! If so, which paper is quite interesting and isn't too hard?
Hmm... ChickenPie are you going to take an optional 8th paper? Do you guys think that I should? I'm still undecided! If so, which paper is quite interesting and isn't too hard?
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Does get a bit old
I'd MUCH prefer to be in a course where the averages are lower. That makes it so much easier to gain a lead over other students. Papers like HUBS which are getting more and more dumbed-down are making it harder to stand out. The HEAL paper is a fantastic opportunity to do just that.
When they actually write decent tests... still pissed off at the first terms test last year.
Completely agree with your post though skyglow. It's way too hard to stand out in HUBS - I just stopped trying.
Yeah I had a look at last year first terms test for HEAL. If you can understand their twisted logic and horrendous wording enough to work out which answer they want you to select, then you're doing great
If I imagine sitting the test myself, I'd probably be screaming in my head "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME??!!!" haha. That's basically what it comes down to in HSFY - working out what they want from you and then delivering the goods in your answers - but working out what they want from you in HEAL is often very very difficult.For second semester for instance, I'd do the bare minimum amount of work required to get a ~95% in HUBS (you should have a pretty good idea of how much this is from your experiences of HUBS191), then pour all my time and effort into HEAL and BIOC to really try and get ahead in those places.
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lol in the 2nd terms test for one question I just selected the answer that I liked the most (and stuff what the question writer was thinking) then went into the HEAL192 office to complain when it didn't match up to their answer. They were actually very nice about it all... said I shouldn't think so in depth about an MCQ question (this from the same people who posted on blackboard that people weren't thinking in depth enough when someone complained about a particularly controversial question in the first test!). That's one of the biggest problems with their MCQs - sometimes they want you to select the obvious answer and not think too hard about it, other times they want you to think hard about it and not select the obvious answer, and of course there's no way of knowing which applies to which question!
Yeah, my strategy for semester 2 was aim for that 95% in HUBS, study heaps for BIOC because I really enjoyed it, do a bit of HEAL study when I could be bothered (and could overcome the fact that it was incredibly boring to study for) and stay up to date in BSNS104, knowing that thanks to economics I didn't have to worry about HEAL anyway!
Yeah, my strategy for semester 2 was aim for that 95% in HUBS, study heaps for BIOC because I really enjoyed it, do a bit of HEAL study when I could be bothered (and could overcome the fact that it was incredibly boring to study for) and stay up to date in BSNS104, knowing that thanks to economics I didn't have to worry about HEAL anyway!
Hey all, my first post here. I'm a Health Sci and it looks like you ex-HSFYs on this thread know your stuff, so hopefully you can help me out.
I'm wondering about the 8th paper for second semester. I've been wanting to do PSYC112 for a while, 'cause it looks like the most interesting of the options (to me), and out of all of them the only one to potentially have some use if I do go on to do med. I got a 97 GPA first semester, so I figured that I would take psych, and if I didn't do too well in it my other grades would be good enough to fall back on.
But after reading what some of you guys said about HEAL192, I'm not too sure. Do I assume that my GPA in that will be relatively bad and take a paper that I know I can get a high mark in (as in, BSNS104)? Or is it worth doing just 3 papers and trying to smash epi?
Basically, what I'm asking is: is it possible to get a high mark in PSYC112? If not, is it impossible to get a high mark in HEAL192 (as I'd rather apply myself to that than BSNS - looks very boring / easy)? Health scis, what are you doing this semester? People in med, what did you do?
Cheers.
I'm wondering about the 8th paper for second semester. I've been wanting to do PSYC112 for a while, 'cause it looks like the most interesting of the options (to me), and out of all of them the only one to potentially have some use if I do go on to do med. I got a 97 GPA first semester, so I figured that I would take psych, and if I didn't do too well in it my other grades would be good enough to fall back on.
But after reading what some of you guys said about HEAL192, I'm not too sure. Do I assume that my GPA in that will be relatively bad and take a paper that I know I can get a high mark in (as in, BSNS104)? Or is it worth doing just 3 papers and trying to smash epi?
Basically, what I'm asking is: is it possible to get a high mark in PSYC112? If not, is it impossible to get a high mark in HEAL192 (as I'd rather apply myself to that than BSNS - looks very boring / easy)? Health scis, what are you doing this semester? People in med, what did you do?
Cheers.
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Wow well done in getting you're insane G.P.A! It sounds like you are more than capable of getting A+ in all your papers next semester. Epi is a bit strange because last year my friend got a similar G.P.A to yours but his Epi mark was 88% (which is considered very high in this subject). It sounds to me like you can actually afford to take a paper which you find interesting. I took Maori 102 because I had to replace on of my papers I found some parts of it interesting but I felt as though I didn't have much time to study for it as Bioc and Epi do take up a lot of time.
Hi gmck
When people refer to HEAL192 delivering low grades generally they just mean that hardly anyone gets an A+ (I think someone said earlier in this thread that last year only 50 people got over 87%). Like you, I got a 97 average first semester and while I felt pretty confident of an A+ in HUBS192 and BIOC, I went into the HEAL192 exam honestly feeling that it would be 50/50 whether or not I got an A+ for the paper (I got 92 in the end).
If you keep up your first semester grades in BIOC and HUBS, then (unless you totally screw up UMAT) you could get an A- in HEAL (which you should easily be able to do so) and still easily get into med, even without an eighth paper.
I think it would definately be possibe to get a decent A+ in HEAL if you put in lots of work, but the downside is that most people find HEAL exceptionally boring to study for, especially in terms of getting a good A+ (expect to memorise a lot of lists word for word, know all the lecture slides pretty much off by heart and be able to reproduce the trends on a lot of graphs - not fun stuff), and even then, a good A+ in HEAL is something like 94-95 (anything above this is exceptionally rare, at least with HEAL192 in its current form - the paper changes all the time). I decided about halfway through semester two to let HEAL be my lowest mark and cover it with BSNS, not because I didn't think it would be possible to get a good mark in HEAL but because I honestly couldn't be bothered.
Definately possible to get a good A+ in PSYC - I have heard of a few. If you are interested in it, I'd say go for it (don't do Maori or economics if you won't enjoy it. Personally the main reason I did economics was because I'd never studied it before and really wanted to learn the basics of it and understand what was going on in the news. As a result I found it fascinating and, even though the exam didn't require any serious thinking, it was quite easy to get intellectually engaged by using the content of the course as a nucleus for further thinking and learning).
When people refer to HEAL192 delivering low grades generally they just mean that hardly anyone gets an A+ (I think someone said earlier in this thread that last year only 50 people got over 87%). Like you, I got a 97 average first semester and while I felt pretty confident of an A+ in HUBS192 and BIOC, I went into the HEAL192 exam honestly feeling that it would be 50/50 whether or not I got an A+ for the paper (I got 92 in the end).
If you keep up your first semester grades in BIOC and HUBS, then (unless you totally screw up UMAT) you could get an A- in HEAL (which you should easily be able to do so) and still easily get into med, even without an eighth paper.
I think it would definately be possibe to get a decent A+ in HEAL if you put in lots of work, but the downside is that most people find HEAL exceptionally boring to study for, especially in terms of getting a good A+ (expect to memorise a lot of lists word for word, know all the lecture slides pretty much off by heart and be able to reproduce the trends on a lot of graphs - not fun stuff), and even then, a good A+ in HEAL is something like 94-95 (anything above this is exceptionally rare, at least with HEAL192 in its current form - the paper changes all the time). I decided about halfway through semester two to let HEAL be my lowest mark and cover it with BSNS, not because I didn't think it would be possible to get a good mark in HEAL but because I honestly couldn't be bothered.
Definately possible to get a good A+ in PSYC - I have heard of a few. If you are interested in it, I'd say go for it (don't do Maori or economics if you won't enjoy it. Personally the main reason I did economics was because I'd never studied it before and really wanted to learn the basics of it and understand what was going on in the news. As a result I found it fascinating and, even though the exam didn't require any serious thinking, it was quite easy to get intellectually engaged by using the content of the course as a nucleus for further thinking and learning).
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