Chemistry: Write notes or start doing past papers? (1 Viewer)

[itsagre]

Trials are soon (in around 4 weeks) and I still haven't written notes for chemical monitoring and management and my option yet, so I'm wondering if it's more worthwhile to keep writing my own notes for these topics, or to just print off notes that I can find online and start doing past papers.
Thanks for any help!

 

[Drsoccerball]

Trials are soon (in around 4 weeks) and I still haven't written notes for chemical monitoring and management and my option yet, so I'm wondering if it's more worthwhile to keep writing my own notes for these topics, or to just print off notes that I can find online and start doing past papers.
Thanks for any help!

You can write notes in 3 days and thus earn a solid understanding of the concepts. So heres your options:
1)Write notes for 3 days then do past papers till trials
2) porkenolastos

 

[enigma_1]

Nah honestly just find someone else's notes (Ahmad Shah's) and get onto doing past papers asap. The earlier the better because for chem no matter how much you study, you need to kow how the aswer the questions perfectly, whilst looking at what yhe verb asks for. Structuring your responses correctly is important and you still have plenty of time

 

[BLIT2014]

I agree past papers using someone's else's notes.

 

[Chris_S]

Same as Blit and enigma do past papers with someone's notes

 

[Kaido]

What's after papers? I can't seem to find any NEW questions :O

 

[Chris_S]

Do them again or answer the syllabus in your own words. Do these without your notes and the ones that you cant do put them as priority, and try to learn them

 

[anomalousdecay]

There is no one way to go about this as everyone learns with different methods.

One suggestion is that you learn everything in those modules from a few different sources while using some other notes available. Add a quick note of anything that the notes missed so that you have a complete set of what you need. Make sure you check the syllabus for what is necessary and what isn't before writing some extra stuff down.

Then start doing past papers.

 

[enigma_1]

What's after papers? I can't seem to find any NEW questions :O

Does that mean you'll get 100%? And what papers are you doing?
Do papers from every different school as well as CSSA, Independent, HSC papers.

@OP if you don't know the material well yet (and that's completely fine), do the papers open book and then mark your answers and compare them to the marking criteria. Eventually you will see that some questions are repeated like 8374382 times and you'll be able to do them with your eyes closed without thinking too much. So keep practising until it's perfect. And chem is hard, so your past paper practice will not go to waste. Doing them open book initially allows you to get comfortable with structuring your answers, once you're good with that, you'll remember your information better.

It's like if you keep reading your notes, you wont remember them. If you actually do something with them (ie use them to answer past paper questions) then it's a better form of revision and you're doing two things at once, hence it's way more efficient.

 

[snowflakeptical]

do you guys have really long notes or something? When you get someone else's notes you can always simplify it down further and scribble down extra bits to it

 

[Flop21]

Write up some simple notes / flashcards with all the basics of every dot point. You pretty much need to do this before past papers because it ensures you actually know all the content.

Also, it will benefit you more in the long run. Remember HSC is not long after the trials, and you will need the notes you've written up when studying for that. So IMO, might as well write them up now.

I always use someone else's notes to write my own. Usually get two different sets of notes and make my own from that. But try to just address everything first, without making them super detailed. You can add detail on later when you have the basics set in your head.

 

[Kaido]

Does that mean you'll get 100%? And what papers are you doing?
Do papers from every different school as well as CSSA, Independent, HSC papers.

@OP if you don't know the material well yet (and that's completely fine), do the papers open book and then mark your answers and compare them to the marking criteria. Eventually you will see that some questions are repeated like 8374382 times and you'll be able to do them with your eyes closed without thinking too much. So keep practising until it's perfect. And chem is hard, so your past paper practice will not go to waste. Doing them open book initially allows you to get comfortable with structuring your answers, once you're good with that, you'll remember your information better.

It's like if you keep reading your notes, you wont remember them. If you actually do something with them (ie use them to answer past paper questions) then it's a better form of revision and you're doing two things at once, hence it's way more efficient.

Yup, but I think I'm plateauing and on a decline since I now rush the entire paper, and often fail those 'tricky' (wording) questions. Should I take a break, or is the grind still optimal?