My advice which I give to all my top school and tutoring students:
-
Make YOUR OWN Notes (even if you use others notes to make your notes, make sure you make YOUR OWN notes) -- with most people, the act of writing the notes allows you to remember more than simply reading others notes/textbooks
-
Practicals: Ensure that you can write an aim/equipment list/method/diagram/discussion (including variables, reliability, accuracy, validity and precision) and construct appropriate graphs for ALL PRACTICALS -- easy marks are often lost here
-
Follow the 4 'DESE' steps to solving all equations, regardless of how easy it is, as I always say, the marker is marking what is on the paper, not what is in your head -- this ensures you always cover what examiners may be looking for in terms of answering the question -- remember, marks are never awarded for the actual answer, more the process of obtaining the answer.
- Take 1/3rd of the working space (RHS of the sheet) to allocate for the data you extract from the question.
- On the LHS write the equation you are going to use to solve the question -- rearrange if need be
- Substitute the values into the equation (converting if need be)
- Evaluate the question (remember UNITS and 2dp -- sig figs dont really matter in Physics)
- Familiarise yourself with the
BOS Key Verbs, in Physics the main ones used are words such as: 'describe', 'outline', 'explain', 'assess', 'evaluate', 'compare', 'contrast' -- ensure that you know what each one means, for instance if you answer an 'assess' question, you give all the positive and negative information, but you do not make an overall judgement, you will not recieve full marks. If you make a concluding statement and say something like "therefore, i think x was beneficial due to these positive impacts far outweighing the negative impacts" that will give you the extra mark. -- I drill this into my students from Year 11, and get them to memorise the templates for the different verbs, which I put in the examinations for them to fill in (and the marks from this do count!), by the time Year 12 comes along most of them are pro.
- Use a
variety of sources for your information - to make my notes I use 8 different textbooks (some of which are no longer around and some of which are university-level texts), 5 state rankers notes and several other Band 6 sets of notes I have obtained over the years. Each different resource is good at explaining different things. If you dont fully understand how a certain source of information is explaining a certain concept, do some research. Look on google, post the question on these forums or goto your school or local library, or of course, if you have a good teacher, ask them, they are invaluable (if they are good)
-
Work hard in class and out of class. Being a teacher myself, I can tell when students have studied and when they have not, as I know how well they should go. I tell my students, if you are having trouble, I will only help you if you show me you want help. I refuse to make appointments to help students outside of school hours who are not working to the best of their ability. Most teachers are the same. We will prioritise the hard working students, which I think is only fair, keeping in mind we usually teacher 6 classes or so, meaning around 150 students and we do not have an unlimited bank of time, yes I do like not going home to my wife, but I do want to see her, however occasionally. When you goto teachers for help, show them that you at least had a go at a question, teachers hate giving answers to questions if you give them a blank page as it doesnt show what you do not understand. We want to explain what you do not understand.
-
Past Papers: Probably the best thing to do, I have picked apart around 30 past papers and inserted them all through my notes in the relevant sections. We go through about half in class and half they are expected to do by themselves.
Ensure that you mark your answers!! Look at the marking scheme, see what they were looking for and think about why you didnt include some things -- marking schemes are not perfect, I disagree with quite a few, ask your teacher what they think. It is important to do practice questions all through the course.
-
More Past Papers: After you finish the core topics, you should go through one past paper per week (at least) -- allow yourself about 2 hours for the MC + Core section, of course these are different past papers to those mentioned before.
-
Past HSC Papers -- Success One: Do not even look at past HSC papers until you have finished the entire course, or at the beginning of Term 3 (whichever comes earlier) -- Work through one past HSC paper per week on top of one other Past Paper per week. [GET SUCCESS ONE BOOK] -- Have the past 10 years HSC Papers done by the end of Term 3
Then
practice, practice, practice -- until you can get 100% for all questions, you have not practiced enough. 80%-85%+ of the HSC exam are very generic questions, ones which you can easily prepare for and get 90%+ for. Keeping in mind the cutoff for Band 6 in Physics is usually 73-83, if you can do the generic questions extremely well, you are pretty much sitting on a band 6 if you can get a few marks in the harder questions -- so even students who are not 'gifted' physics students are capable of band 6 if they work hard enough and likewise, students who are 'gifted' physics students may not get a band 6 if they do not work hard enough.
The HSC and Physics is not a test of how smart you are.. The smartest students are not the ones who get 99.95, indeed you have to be intelligent to get 99+, but it is the ones which
work the hardest who succeed in the HSC.
I have had numerous extremely smart, but relatively unreliable students over the years get surpassed by not as smart, but extremely hard working students.
If you think you are guaranteed a band 6 in physics cuz you are smart, you are not.
I currently tutor students from top schools such as James Ruse, Baulko, Girraween, Kings, North Sydney Girls etc... and all of these students work extremely hard. Just remember, you are competing against the state, not just your school. Even if you are #1 in your school, there are always students out there working harder than you.
So don't be content with getting 90% if you are capable of getting 95%.
/end rant
