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How I went from being a D-student to scoring a 95+ ATAR (at a public school) (1 Viewer)

LuqmanA

Active Member
Joined
Mar 14, 2024
Messages
29
Gender
Male
HSC
2022
Hey everyone!

My name is Luqman, and I graduated the HSC in 2022.

I am writing this thread to inspire those who are doubting their ability to score the ATAR of their dreams...

Those who are disadvantaged and don't go to the best schools...

And those who have never had the best grades.

Table of contents:


  • I am going to share with you my story of how I went from being a D student who had no hope of academic success, to scoring a 95+ ATAR - at a 300+ ranked public school and lower scaling subjects.

  • 3 key lessons I want you to take away

  • Action steps I want you to take.

This is going to be a long one, but I wish I had another student like me sharing their story of how they went from failing to success when I was in year 12. I wish had I a student who didn't go to a good school, tell me how they defied all odds.

I promise you that you won't regret reading my story.

My Journey:


C’s and D’s…

These were my grades from year 7 till 10. In fact, these were my grades all my schooling life.

I never studied.

I never cared.

The only things I cared about was playing video games and hanging out with the boys.

While everyone else would stress out that our yearly exam worth 50% of the grade was due tomorrow…I would be relaxing and watching Netflix.
I used to tell myself and believe that:

‘If I read the slides right before I enter the exam room, I’ll have all the information I need to do well’
Spoiler Alert: I was wrong.

Every year of high school passed by, and not once did I even bare to worry about my future.

I was called stupid.

I was called dumb.

I was laughed at.

I was the student that the school wanted to drop out…

I disappointed my parents and those around me.

I simply didn’t care. School wasn’t for me. I hated it.

However, on one strange evening while I was on a family trip, this had all changed…

While sitting alone in the hotel room, gazing out the window at the beautiful view…something hit me hard.

I had suddenly realised that I’d literally wasted 4 years of schooling…and year 11 was only 2 weeks away.

I had barely passed year 7 till 10, and yet year 11 was right around the corner…

I realised that this was my final chance…

My chance to change the course of my entire life and career.

I began to comprehend that if I wanted to get into a good university and study any course that I had desired, I must pull my socks up.

If I wanted to transition from being a student who wasted their time, played video games all day and had no discipline…I need to actually put in the work.

And so, with worry and excitement buzzing throughout my body, I set the most ambitious goal of my entire life…

I set the goal of scoring a 95 ATAR.

And I wrote this:
1710408242868.png

These were the thoughts that echoed in my head constantly.
1710408544037.png


But they didn’t stop me.

I knew that I could do more. I knew that deep within me I had the potential to achieve anything I wanted to…I just needed to put in the work.

And I did just that - my year 11 and 12 journey began.

From the start of year 11 and onwards, I began to reflect upon my previous mistakes and extract lessons from them.

I had read, watched, and listened to 100's of books and videos on self-improvement and on how to succeed.

I studied the science behind success and what it takes to excel in whatever you do in life, no matter the obstacles that are in front of you.
And so, with my final two years of schooling left, I decided to put in my all…

Every day, I woke up in the early morning and studied...not just hard, but smart.

Everyday, irrespective of whether it was my birthday, a celebration or a holiday, I put in blood, sweat and tears towards achieving my ambitious ATAR goals.\

And after many lessons,

After many setbacks,

After many failures along the way…

I had defied all odds...I had made it.

Not only did I achieve my goal ATAR of 95…I achieved much more.

At a 300+ ranked public school, from being a D-student who was laughed at and with lower scaling subjects, I achieved:

  • 97.90 ATAR
  • DUX of the cohort
  • All-rounder (band 6 in all subjects)
  • AAA scholarship to study at one of Australia's top universities (UNSW)

Absolutely shocking everyone around me, and proving everyone who doubted me, wrong.

I do not show you these achievements of mine to impress you, not at all.

I show you these achievements to express to what’s possible if you put your mind to it.

And now, in a pursuit to help, guide and inspire other year 11 and 12 students that are in a similar to position to what I was in, I share my proven strategies to boost their productivity and improve their study skills, so that they too can achieve their ambitious ATAR goals.

My personal message to you, my reader, is this:

No matter what school you go to,

No matter what subjects you’ve chosen,

No matter how bad your previous grades have been…

You CAN succeed. You WILL succeed.


If I can do it, you can too 🙂

You just need to use the right strategies and techniques to do so…and that’s why I’m here.

I’m here to guide you along every step of your ATAR journey,

To teach you the skills that your school hasn’t taught you…

And to ultimately take you from being a D student to an A student, to a mystery mark student to a 95+ ATAR student.


✍ 3 Powerful lessons from my story
  1. It’s never too late.
  2. Mindset is everything.
  3. There is no light without dark. No success without failure.


✅ Action Steps
  1. Let go of your past, and focus on the present and future. I don’t give a sh*t what anyone says, you can still succeed no matter where you are!

  2. Set Ambitious goals, and don’t let anyone or anything think you’re unable to achieve them — more on this in the upcoming issue.

  3. Reflect and Learn from Mistakes — reflect on your past mistakes and failures, and use them as valuable learning experiences. Identify what went wrong, why it went wrong and what you can do differently in the future to improve.
 

Gantor

Banned
Joined
Feb 4, 2024
Messages
36
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
Hey everyone!

My name is Luqman, and I graduated the HSC in 2022.

I am writing this thread to inspire those who are doubting their ability to score the ATAR of their dreams...

Those who are disadvantaged and don't go to the best schools...

And those who have never had the best grades.

Table of contents:


  • I am going to share with you my story of how I went from being a D student who had no hope of academic success, to scoring a 95+ ATAR - at a 300+ ranked public school and lower scaling subjects.

  • 3 key lessons I want you to take away

  • Action steps I want you to take.

This is going to be a long one, but I wish I had another student like me sharing their story of how they went from failing to success when I was in year 12. I wish had I a student who didn't go to a good school, tell me how they defied all odds.

I promise you that you won't regret reading my story.

My Journey:


C’s and D’s…

These were my grades from year 7 till 10. In fact, these were my grades all my schooling life.

I never studied.

I never cared.

The only things I cared about was playing video games and hanging out with the boys.

While everyone else would stress out that our yearly exam worth 50% of the grade was due tomorrow…I would be relaxing and watching Netflix.
I used to tell myself and believe that:

‘If I read the slides right before I enter the exam room, I’ll have all the information I need to do well’
Spoiler Alert: I was wrong.

Every year of high school passed by, and not once did I even bare to worry about my future.

I was called stupid.

I was called dumb.

I was laughed at.

I was the student that the school wanted to drop out…

I disappointed my parents and those around me.

I simply didn’t care. School wasn’t for me. I hated it.

However, on one strange evening while I was on a family trip, this had all changed…

While sitting alone in the hotel room, gazing out the window at the beautiful view…something hit me hard.

I had suddenly realised that I’d literally wasted 4 years of schooling…and year 11 was only 2 weeks away.

I had barely passed year 7 till 10, and yet year 11 was right around the corner…

I realised that this was my final chance…

My chance to change the course of my entire life and career.

I began to comprehend that if I wanted to get into a good university and study any course that I had desired, I must pull my socks up.

If I wanted to transition from being a student who wasted their time, played video games all day and had no discipline…I need to actually put in the work.

And so, with worry and excitement buzzing throughout my body, I set the most ambitious goal of my entire life…

I set the goal of scoring a 95 ATAR.

And I wrote this:
View attachment 42699

These were the thoughts that echoed in my head constantly.
View attachment 42700


But they didn’t stop me.

I knew that I could do more. I knew that deep within me I had the potential to achieve anything I wanted to…I just needed to put in the work.

And I did just that - my year 11 and 12 journey began.

From the start of year 11 and onwards, I began to reflect upon my previous mistakes and extract lessons from them.

I had read, watched, and listened to 100's of books and videos on self-improvement and on how to succeed.

I studied the science behind success and what it takes to excel in whatever you do in life, no matter the obstacles that are in front of you.
And so, with my final two years of schooling left, I decided to put in my all…

Every day, I woke up in the early morning and studied...not just hard, but smart.

Everyday, irrespective of whether it was my birthday, a celebration or a holiday, I put in blood, sweat and tears towards achieving my ambitious ATAR goals.\

And after many lessons,

After many setbacks,

After many failures along the way…

I had defied all odds...I had made it.

Not only did I achieve my goal ATAR of 95…I achieved much more.

At a 300+ ranked public school, from being a D-student who was laughed at and with lower scaling subjects, I achieved:

  • 97.90 ATAR
  • DUX of the cohort
  • All-rounder (band 6 in all subjects)
  • AAA scholarship to study at one of Australia's top universities (UNSW)

Absolutely shocking everyone around me, and proving everyone who doubted me, wrong.

I do not show you these achievements of mine to impress you, not at all.

I show you these achievements to express to what’s possible if you put your mind to it.

And now, in a pursuit to help, guide and inspire other year 11 and 12 students that are in a similar to position to what I was in, I share my proven strategies to boost their productivity and improve their study skills, so that they too can achieve their ambitious ATAR goals.

My personal message to you, my reader, is this:

No matter what school you go to,

No matter what subjects you’ve chosen,

No matter how bad your previous grades have been…

You CAN succeed. You WILL succeed.


If I can do it, you can too 🙂

You just need to use the right strategies and techniques to do so…and that’s why I’m here.

I’m here to guide you along every step of your ATAR journey,

To teach you the skills that your school hasn’t taught you…

And to ultimately take you from being a D student to an A student, to a mystery mark student to a 95+ ATAR student.


✍ 3 Powerful lessons from my story
  1. It’s never too late.
  2. Mindset is everything.
  3. There is no light without dark. No success without failure.


✅ Action Steps
  1. Let go of your past, and focus on the present and future. I don’t give a sh*t what anyone says, you can still succeed no matter where you are!

  2. Set Ambitious goals, and don’t let anyone or anything think you’re unable to achieve them — more on this in the upcoming issue.

  3. Reflect and Learn from Mistakes — reflect on your past mistakes and failures, and use them as valuable learning experiences. Identify what went wrong, why it went wrong and what you can do differently in the future to improve.
You push me the wrong way unauthentic as hell and considering your white im not surprised
 

LuqmanA

Active Member
Joined
Mar 14, 2024
Messages
29
Gender
Male
HSC
2022
Hey everyone!

I’m not sure exactly how much time you have, but I’m assuming around 1-3 weeks.

Either way, It doesn’t matter.

In this post, I’ll show you my exact proven 95+ ATAR steps to preparing for your upcoming exams so that you can ace them, regardless of where you’re at right now.

The 3 Steps to Exam Preparation

🔍 Step 1: Identify


List out all the topics that are going to be in your exam. This should be on your exam notification. If not, ask your teacher specifically what’s going to be in there.
Once you’ve found these topics, list them all out.

With each topic presented in front of you, use the stop-light method to identify what you do and don’t know.

🚦 Stop-light Method

You can do this either digitally or on paper.
  1. Take out the syllabus
  2. Using three different highlighters, go through each of the points that will be in your exam and mark it based off of the criteria below:
    Green - ‘I know this!’
    Orange - ‘I kind of know this. Need to revise it.’
    Red - ‘I don’t know this at all!’
  3. Now you can clearly see what you need to work on
This is a very important step, as you don’t want to be wasting your time studying the topics that you already understand and are competent in. Instead, you want to spend more time on filling in your knowledge-gaps.

📚 Step 2: Learn

Revise or learn the topics that you’ve identified in step 1 in the order of:

Red -> Orange -> Green

How exactly do you do this?
  1. Understand:
    • Read over the textbook
    • watch videos on the content
    • ask chatGPT for help
    • ask your teacher for help
    • Make a mind map
  2. Memorise:
    • Make active recall questions to test yourself on the knowledge (flashcards work too)
    • Teach the content to others (or yourself by speaking aloud)
    • Blurting — write down everything you know about the topic on paper without looking at your notes to test yourself

📝 Step 3: Practice

The most CRUCIAL step…

PRACTICE!

Do as many practice questions and past paper exams as possible. Make sure you’re not just doing them blindly, but doing them effectively.

I know you may not like to do them, but if you’re serious about success, then you MUST do practice questions.

Think about it, you’re preparing for an exam.

So logically, wouldn’t the best way to prepare be to do practice questions?

Follow this 6-step formula when doing practice questions/past papers:
  1. Do the question/past paper
  2. Review
  3. Make notes from the past paper
  4. Revise over weaknesses and mistakes
  5. Do targeted practice questions
  6. Repeat
-----
I’d suggest you read my free E-book on how to effectively do past paper exams. The lessons in this book applies to any sort of practice questions, and goes through each of the points above in detail.

Let me know if you'd like a copy down below

-----

💤 The Night Before

The night before your exam, don’t do any more practice questions.

Why?

If you do practice questions the night before your exam, you may get something wrong or come across a question that stumbles you.
You’ll then end up stressing and start to question how much you really know, which will lead to extreme anxiety and ultimately, poor exam results.

Instead, do the following:
  1. Read over the mistakes that you made during the practice stage (step 3).
  2. Brush over your notes - during your sleep, you form connections in your brain which consolidates your memory!
  3. Do a relaxing activity to take your mind off of the exam (for me, this was reading, watching a TV show, exercising or meditating)
  4. Have a good night’s sleep and tell yourself that you’re confident and will smash tomorrow’s exam!
P.S. I always did the least amount of study on the day before the exam.


🌅 The Day of the Exam


On the day of the exam, try your best not to stress yourself out. I know this is easier said than done, but try to have a 'I don't care' attitude.

What do I mean by this?

Tell yourself that you've done everything you can and that you're going to SMASH the exam. Have you ever heard of the saying 'Fake it till you make it?'

Well that works with confidence! Act confident, even if you're crapping yourself.

In addititon to the above, do these:

1. Have a good breakfast
2. Read over your mistakes that you make (step 3 above)
3. Take deep breaths!


-
I hope you found this post helpful.

If you have any questions, ask below!

-

I wish you the best of luck in your upcoming exams.

Put in the work and ANNIHILATE THEM!

Go and make me proud 😃
 
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