swagmeister
Active Member
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2014
- Messages
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- HSC
- 2015
So I couple of days ago I started a thread for the 2014ers to give advice to us 2015ers and it got over 70 replies. I was going through it myself and decided to get what I thought were the best bits of it as well as advice from a few other threads by people that smashed their HSC then summarised it and categorise it based on specific topics.
Anyways, here it is and hope it helps
Notes
Getting ahead
Past Papers
Extra reading (English, Humanities)
English
Consistently, Study Routines, Time Management
Using a daily to-do list
Studying Techniques
Goals
Holidays (in particular the Summer Holidays)
Special credit to Immortality, emilios and Erique for their information
Anyways, here it is and hope it helps
Notes
- use one main resource, but also refer to another resource which has other important stuff
- for parts you don’t understand, use internet, others notes, Khan academy etc.
- after each topic, skim through other textbooks/study guide/other people’s notes to check you have covered similar things
- could use ‘base notes’ then compile own notes from resources and integrate into ‘base notes'
- write notes in your own words, it helps facilitate understanding
Getting ahead
- try to keep ahead of your class that way in class you are improving your knowledge of it and having discussions at a higher level
Past Papers
- if you are unsure of a question, check your notes and try to work out an answer before looking at the actual answer
- don’t ‘save' them till right before the HSC cause you won’t get time to do them - do them on stuff you are learning throughout the year
- time yourself
- make sure you have neat handwriting
- take advantage of your teachers, get them to mark your PP's and give you feedback
Extra reading (English, Humanities)
- to get an extra edge, read widely so that you grasp the writing style of academics
- read novels to improve your English, but also read academic papers such as from academia.edu and jstor.org
- research topics could be topics such as romanticism or even specific texts or authors
English
- Rote it, make sure you keep improving the practice response though
- Get the hang of flexible thinking with ideas and snippets of evidence before you walk in with a prepared essay you can’t even mould to the question
- Don’t rote it for Module B as questions can be very very specific
- State ranking essays have around 6 examples per paragraph
- Memorise around 20-30 quotes per unit (incl related text)
- You have to walk into the exam knowing pretty much exactly what you are going to talk about
Consistently, Study Routines, Time Management
- Crucial that you are consistent throughout the year
- Consistency is greater then intensity - you need to keep going for the whole year
- general guideline for study - 2-3 hours a weekday incl. homework, 5 hours on Saturday and Sunday
- plan when you are going to study and pre-plan breaks
- have an outcomes focus, every time before you study write a to do list of the things you will do during the study period
- REMOVE DISTRACTIONS
- Have a focus of revision on the weekend and homework + note taking on weekdays
- Prioritisation is key - if homework is not valuable don’t do it
- Sleep, exercise, healthy eating key to avoiding burnout
- Be disciplined, this is greater then motivation
- Make a study schedule or use a daily to-do list
- Go hard or go home - what are you doing to Advance your HSC journey today
Using a daily to-do list
- If you are using a daily to-do list, on Sunday make a list of all the tasks you want to achieve on each day of the week and not mandatory tasks but things like essays, notes, PP’s etc.
- Aim for 3-4 tasks per day - one for each subject you had during the day
- do extra tasks before mandatory ones otherwise you won’t end up having time for the mandatory ones
- anything you don’t compete finish on the weekend (so don’t originally allocate tasks for Sat and Sun)
Studying Techniques
- Teachers others is the best way to study, can do 1 on 1 teaching with someone at the same level as you, someone who knows barely anything about the material to force you to know the basics well and be really clear
- Practice papers and flash cards work well because you are practicing retrieving the information
[*]Take advantage of spaced repetition to increase memory retention - e.g. spend 10 minutes review what you learnt in each class per night and review same content on the weekend - Past papers are everything, but don’t ‘save’ them until the HSC because you won’t get time to do them - do relevant questions as you learn stuff
- Walk into your exam room with confidence, and not “fake it till you make it” confidence but confidence gathered from familiarising yourself with the styles of questions they can ask you, the style of answering questions (essential for sciences), an impregnable knowledge of the syllabus and skeleton responses for common types of question
- It's essential to understand the mechanics of what is considered as a band 6 essay, short answer response and approaches to m/c. Learn from the best in order to be the best. Especially crucial for English and Humanities
Goals
- Set clear goals as to why you want to achieve certain marks and ATAR, and make sure you know WHY you want to achieve these goals
- Don’t tell people your goals, it’s proven to make you less likely to achieve them
- You could mess up or misread one question in one exam and that could change your ATAR, marker could not like your essay, cutoff could increase etc. - set goals that are decently above the cutoff and what you can achieve, don't aim for 90 if your course requires that when you could get 97 if you pushed yourself
- Success builds on success. Confidence builds on confidence. Start conquering your subjects early and you'll steamroll through the year. Get off to a shaky start and you put yourself in an uncomfortable position. The key is to push through until you reach another success. Smash your half yearlies and you'll be golden.
- Never give up, it is completely normal to mess up at least one assessment just use it as motivation to work harder
- You can stick up a goal on your wall, but what have you done to advance your HSC journey today?
Holidays (in particular the Summer Holidays)
- Make as many notes as you can, at least up to the half yearlies
- Spending time finding related texts, annotating texts, writing essays for English
- Math - in the summer holidays because up to 35% of the content of the HSC exam can be from prelim make sure you have covered everything from prelim really well and understand it all and do some more prelim practice papers because you probably won’t have time to do this during the year as you want to focus more on the HSC content which is harder… in saying that definitely do some HSC maths stuff as well
- Even if you spend 3 hours studying first thing in the morning 5 days a week, then you will still have the rest of the day free and you will have done a lot of work by the end of the holidays
- You are not going to be out partying the whole holidays - in downtimes when you would just be gaming or on your computer for like 5 hours use this time wisely
- You need to have a break as well so you don’t burn out, and relax and re-energise for the year ahead
Special credit to Immortality, emilios and Erique for their information
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