Re: How to excel in senior year studies (yr 11/12)
Do i seriously have to read 1984? I never read before and used notes and got 95%
No you don't have to, it is a choice and I have heard of people who've gotten high marks without reading the book. However, I personally think not having read the book decreases the development of a personal understanding and ENJOYMENT of the subject, so I could not recommend it but there is nothing stopping you from doing what you like and what works for you.
When is the best time to prepare for UMAT?
As soon as possible. However, always be prepared you might fail it, I have some friends who prepared for the UMAT for at least two years and still failed. If you are determined enough to get into Med, you will continue to find other pathways once you get into uni. I usually find people who after failing the UMAT in the HSC and giving up on Med to be individuals who actually don't really want to pursue med intrinsically.
To summarise it up:
1. how do you deal with parental stress and expectations?
2. how did you deal with the stress? Did it ever get to you?
3. How did you continue to motivate yourself, in the case when you get "shot down"
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Hi Nekoccino,
Firstly you seem to have been through a lot, so I am really delighted that you have learnt to adopt a positive outlook-an optimistic attitude is so important for academic and actually success in life in general. I will try my best to reply to your questions as best as I can-if you still have anymore questions, feel free to ask me
1. Regarding to how I dealt with parental stress, I actually never felt much stress from my parents. I was extremely lucky to have highly supportive parents and some of the depression problems I had experienced throughout my high school period was due to a combination of another illness which made me more vulnerable to have volatile mood swings and my own very high expectations. Often I would basically put a lot of pressure on myself. I think the hardest kind of expectations I had to dealt with was from my peers and teachers, by year 12, I had been the most outstanding student of my grade for three years in a row successive, hence naturally there is a lot of pressure (unspoken) on me to perform at a very high level(essentially need to come first) for all the subjects I was studying. How I learnt to deal with these pressure is to zone out, when the teacher talks about scaling or anything related to calculation of HSC ATARs, I would physically force myself to continue doing whatever work I was doing at a particular moment, and just focus on myself, by not caring-at least pretending I didn't care and always focus on my intrinsic emotional state-aiming for a stable one-I was able to perform well despite expectations and despite sometimes getting below my expectations. One of the major reasons I was able to maintain long term academic success was because I developed a more resilient mindset than the majority of my peers.
2. I am not going to lie, HSC is a very stressful journey, and in a way, even as I have completed my first year of uni, I still believe HSC was the most stressful period of my life so far, even though first year of uni is often tougher than the HSC. I strongly recommend you to read through my reply to another BOSER called Kittyrules on this page if you haven't-scrolled up and you should see it-it is a post on 30 October 2014-that reply encapsulates a lot of my motivational strategy. One of the major stress I used to cope with stress is I made sure I did something I liked every day, i.e. watching Hong Kong dramas, and I also strategically opted for a low scaling subject such as Visual Arts in my subjects to use the time in doing my major work to relax myself a little bit-and maintain a balanced perspective on the HSC progressively. Always take care of your body-when you have a healthy body and routine, you will be a little closer to academic success and able to maintain a more positive outlook on life. Stress often got to me-but I tried to reduce it before it overwhelmed and drowned me-often did some dancing when I felt very stressed-it is a strange habit of mine, during exam periods, even during uni, the more stressed I am, the more frequent I dance-some sort of exercise is always good to release some good old endorphins and soothe stress.
3. The answer to this question is basically encapsulated in my response to Kittyrules on this page, but essentially, I had one motto I adopted throughout my HSC-when you fail, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again. I also only listened to motivational songs on my iPod, you would not have been able to find a single romance song on my iPod during my HSC-songs like Miley Cyrus' The Climb, David Guetta's Titanium, Kelly Clarkson's What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger, even the 2010 Haiti earthquake song-collaboration from various artists was on frequent repeat countless times during my HSC-listening to them not only motivated me but to always remind me there are more unfortunate events and less fortunate people in the world-and this makes me even more grateful to study. I also came from a migrant background, and I personally gained a great appreciation for all the sacrifices my parents made for me to be in Australia and get the opportunity to pursue a territory education, so that really at the end was the strongest motivation-I really didn't want to let them down-so I couldn't stop fighting until the very last second of the HSC exam-I had to give it my best shot regardless of what failures I had encountered. I had this feeling-of fighting hard to prove myself worthy to be called an Australian ever since I came-almost 10 years ago now-and in many ways, the struggle continues-but I never give in and I will never foreseeably give up-hence I saw the HSC as a kind of short finale to all the years of extra effort and study I had put in, unlike most people who probably had more comfortable lives than me(particularly in terms of learning English) and so put a lot more effort in senior years compared to others. For me, I didn't have much of a choice, from my memory, and I still try to do this, I put in 110% in every single thing I devote myself to-a principle and philosophy that has continued with me today in arenas beyond study.
Believe in yourself, persevere in your optimism and always pursue your passion, drop 4 unit if you are finding it too stressful, I got a 99+ ATAR without doing extension two english or maths, in fact, besides music, I had almost identical subjects to you, unlike you, I did extension one english and visual arts to complete my 12 units. Hope this helped a bit-may you DEFINE your HSC results, and NEVER let your HSC results define YOU!
Happy New Year to everyone and I hope you all celebrate well in this wondrous festive season!