I'm pretty sure this is how it works. You just want to make sure you have the best ranking at your school before the HSC exams so in your Trial exams. After the trial exams you want to make sure all your school friends do well so that their marks are pushed to the maximum.
I find that being really open to the parents help. After I started telling them about my marks and the little improvements I was making, they started to trust me a little more.
Before that, my parents used to say this all the time!