Looking for some advice as I start Year 11 (2 Viewers)

[notneccesarily]

Hey everyone!

I stumbled upon this forum as I was combing the internet for study tips and guides for year 11 HSC. Turns out there's no good guides or tips out there online and most articles end up linking to other articles, leaving you in a rabbit hole of five tabs above your browser and awfully long articles that could have been summarised within a paragraph. This forum seems different though and I'm hoping I can find some great advice here as I move in to the year.

My subjects are:

• Maths 3U
• English 3U
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Physics

I chose all three sciences because I genuinely enjoy science and also don't really understand or like the HSIE side of things. I have a good memory and prefer memorising content and understanding it, rather than writing out long reports for assignments. I'm not worried about the sciences but am worried about maths and english. I've always been awfully average in maths and haven't really gotten much more than a B. Same goes for english.

I'm aiming to get a 95+ ATAR so I can make it into medicine. I know this will require flawless performance in all the subjects I've chosen but I'm willing to do it. I'm hoping the scaling of the 3U maths and english I've taken also help me out in boosting my ATAR a bit. My plans for year 12 are completely dropping the extensions if I can't handle the maths and english. Otherwise, I'll most likely go with the same lineup.

I've been studying all three sciences since the start of the summer holidays and have covered all four modules for each of them so I've built a surface level understanding and also have notes to fall back on. For english and maths, I haven't done anything.

So now I'm turning to experienced members of the forum for Y11 advice. I'd like to know the experiences of anyone who's taken the same selection as me or something similar. I'm kind of nervous, anxious and really lost as to how I'm going to juggle year 11.

I'd really appreciate it if you could drop:

• your study tips
• Advice on creating timetables
• Advice on creating notes
• Advice on any must have stationery or tools
• Literally anything else that could assist me

Thank you to anyone that answers! If this thread blows up, perhaps it could be an all purpose guiding thread for other people going into Year 11.

 

[ExtremelyBoredUser]

Hey everyone!

I stumbled upon this forum as I was combing the internet for study tips and guides for year 11 HSC. Turns out there's no good guides or tips out there online and most articles end up linking to other articles, leaving you in a rabbit hole of five tabs above your browser and awfully long articles that could have been summarised within a paragraph. This forum seems different though and I'm hoping I can find some great advice here as I move in to the year.

My subjects are:

• Maths 3U
• English 3U
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Physics

I chose all three sciences because I genuinely enjoy science and also don't really understand or like the HSIE side of things. I have a good memory and prefer memorising content and understanding it, rather than writing out long reports for assignments. I'm not worried about the sciences but am worried about maths and english. I've always been awfully average in maths and haven't really gotten much more than a B. Same goes for english.

I'm aiming to get a 95+ ATAR so I can make it into medicine. I know this will require flawless performance in all the subjects I've chosen but I'm willing to do it. I'm hoping the scaling of the 3U maths and english I've taken also help me out in boosting my ATAR a bit. My plans for year 12 are completely dropping the extensions if I can't handle the maths and english. Otherwise, I'll most likely go with the same lineup.

I've been studying all three sciences since the start of the summer holidays and have covered all four modules for each of them so I've built a surface level understanding and also have notes to fall back on. For english and maths, I haven't done anything.

So now I'm turning to experienced members of the forum for Y11 advice. I'd like to know the experiences of anyone who's taken the same selection as me or something similar. I'm kind of nervous, anxious and really lost as to how I'm going to juggle year 11.

I'd really appreciate it if you could drop:

• your study tips
• Advice on creating timetables
• Advice on creating notes
• Advice on any must have stationery or tools
• Literally anything else that could assist me

Thank you to anyone that answers! If this thread blows up, perhaps it could be an all purpose guiding thread for other people going into Year 11.

If I was to give you a full run-down, you'll be reading a manual rather than some tips so let me just give some advice I'd wish someone gave me in Year 10. To preface, this is completely my OPINION, none of this is fact but just something I've seen from my experience and it can be very well that its not as applicable as to you but I hope you can get some use of it.

Physics:

Physics Term 1/2 is mainly basic maths as you'll be doing Dynamics and Kinematics, you'll learn Vectors to the bare minimum which you will extend if you undertake Ext 1 maths for your HSC. I highly suggest you come in with mastery in trigonometry/algebra for Physics if you want to settle in well, you'll find most questions require basic algebraic manipulation and the harder Qs regularly require some diagrams and trig (cosine rule or vector decomposition).

Kinematics is fairly short and easy given your maths is decent. Dynamics will be considerably harder since you'll consider forces on objects and you might want to briefly do some problems if you do finish Kinematics quite early. The maths itself isn't challenging but rather setting up the maths is (you have to be able to recognise how forces act on objects e.g weight forces, friction and so on).

Waves/Thermo and Magnetism is more theory based than the previous two but its not worth going over them since you won't start them until the next semester.

Physics is extremely rewarding if you do study it right, many of my peers who are extremely good at bio or HSIE subjects fail to do physics well because they rely way too much on memorisation/rote learning (Not to bash it, its def a vital skill but I feel this syllabus tries to dissuade people from using such methods so it might not be as effective).

The syllabus really requires you to get a conceptual understanding if you want to do well, there's very little if not any parts that are worth memorising as exams tend to throw Qs that seem obscure but are recognisable if you understand the content.

Ext 1 Maths:

Combinatorics is going to be the hardest topic if you're used to rote learning. The only real way to get comfortable with this topic is through grinding Qs so you can pick up the style but even then its ultimately up to your reasoning/logic. Might be worth going over before the start of term.

The rest of the topics are quite mostly extension of the adv topics, you won't find that much difficulty if you are regularly practicing them and the theory itself isn't difficult in comparison. You'll be just fine given you put in the effort IMO regardless of your skill.

 

[yanujw]

I've been studying all three sciences since the start of the summer holidays and have covered all four modules for each of them

You can't be serious. You've already studied 12 modules of science in 6 weeks?
I'd take it a bit easy but ensure that you get enough revision throughout the year.

 

[notneccesarily]

You can't be serious. You've already studied 12 modules of science in 6 weeks?
I'd take it a bit easy but ensure that you get enough revision throughout the year.

I actually started studying when school went online last year because I could scoot through most of schoolwork in about an hour.

Term 4 was also pretty lazy because everything was impacted by COVID and I put school on the back burner to keep revising.

I haven't studied too deeply and haven't revised anything. My intention was to just get familiar with the content

 

[notneccesarily]

If I was to give you a full run-down, you'll be reading a manual rather than some tips so let me just give some advice I'd wish someone gave me in Year 10. To preface, this is completely my OPINION, none of this is fact but just something I've seen from my experience and it can be very well that its not as applicable as to you but I hope you can get some use of it.

Physics:

Physics Term 1/2 is mainly basic maths as you'll be doing Dynamics and Kinematics, you'll learn Vectors to the bare minimum which you will extend if you undertake Ext 1 maths for your HSC. I highly suggest you come in with mastery in trigonometry/algebra for Physics if you want to settle in well, you'll find most questions require basic algebraic manipulation and the harder Qs regularly require some diagrams and trig (cosine rule or vector decomposition).

Kinematics is fairly short and easy given your maths is decent. Dynamics will be considerably harder since you'll consider forces on objects and you might want to briefly do some problems if you do finish Kinematics quite early. The maths itself isn't challenging but rather setting up the maths is (you have to be able to recognise how forces act on objects e.g weight forces, friction and so on).

Waves/Thermo and Magnetism is more theory based than the previous two but its not worth going over them since you won't start them until the next semester.

Physics is extremely rewarding if you do study it right, many of my peers who are extremely good at bio or HSIE subjects fail to do physics well because they rely way too much on memorisation/rote learning (Not to bash it, its def a vital skill but I feel this syllabus tries to dissuade people from using such methods so it might not be as effective).

The syllabus really requires you to get a conceptual understanding if you want to do well, there's very little if not any parts that are worth memorising as exams tend to throw Qs that seem obscure but are recognisable if you understand the content.

Ext 1 Maths:

Combinatorics is going to be the hardest topic if you're used to rote learning. The only real way to get comfortable with this topic is through grinding Qs so you can pick up the style but even then its ultimately up to your reasoning/logic. Might be worth going over before the start of term.

The rest of the topics are quite mostly extension of the adv topics, you won't find that much difficulty if you are regularly practicing them and the theory itself isn't difficult in comparison. You'll be just fine given you put in the effort IMO regardless of your skill.

Thank you for your advice and perspective. I really appreciate it and will incorporate it in my approach this year!

 

[idkkdi]

Hey everyone!

I stumbled upon this forum as I was combing the internet for study tips and guides for year 11 HSC. Turns out there's no good guides or tips out there online and most articles end up linking to other articles, leaving you in a rabbit hole of five tabs above your browser and awfully long articles that could have been summarised within a paragraph. This forum seems different though and I'm hoping I can find some great advice here as I move in to the year.

My subjects are:

• Maths 3U
• English 3U
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Physics

I chose all three sciences because I genuinely enjoy science and also don't really understand or like the HSIE side of things. I have a good memory and prefer memorising content and understanding it, rather than writing out long reports for assignments. I'm not worried about the sciences but am worried about maths and english. I've always been awfully average in maths and haven't really gotten much more than a B. Same goes for english.

I'm aiming to get a 95+ ATAR so I can make it into medicine. I know this will require flawless performance in all the subjects I've chosen but I'm willing to do it. I'm hoping the scaling of the 3U maths and english I've taken also help me out in boosting my ATAR a bit. My plans for year 12 are completely dropping the extensions if I can't handle the maths and english. Otherwise, I'll most likely go with the same lineup.

I've been studying all three sciences since the start of the summer holidays and have covered all four modules for each of them so I've built a surface level understanding and also have notes to fall back on. For english and maths, I haven't done anything.

So now I'm turning to experienced members of the forum for Y11 advice. I'd like to know the experiences of anyone who's taken the same selection as me or something similar. I'm kind of nervous, anxious and really lost as to how I'm going to juggle year 11.

I'd really appreciate it if you could drop:

• your study tips
• Advice on creating timetables
• Advice on creating notes
• Advice on any must have stationery or tools
• Literally anything else that could assist me

Thank you to anyone that answers! If this thread blows up, perhaps it could be an all purpose guiding thread for other people going into Year 11.

sorry to break your bubble, but you're gonna need way more than 95 to make medicine without bonus points.

 

[vishnay]

Physics is extremely rewarding if you do study it right, many of my peers who are extremely good at bio or HSIE subjects fail to do physics well because they rely way too much on memorisation/rote learning (Not to bash it, its def a vital skill but I feel this syllabus tries to dissuade people from using such methods so it might not be as effective).

have to slightly disagree bc phys is a lot of rote esp in mod 7 and 8

syllabus practically forces u to rote learn that shit

my friend actually rote learnt a bunch of theory style questions night before and got 97 ext

 

[ExtremelyBoredUser]

have to slightly disagree bc phys is a lot of rote esp in mod 7 and 8

syllabus practically forces u to rote learn that shit

i mean for year 11 first two modules, Waves/Thermo requires some extent of memorisation, cant say for year 12. u can prolly speak abt that.

 

[notneccesarily]

sorry to break your bubble, but you're gonna need way more than 95 to make medicine without bonus points.

Seriously? What about Newcastle or Western Sydney? I do want to score around 99 and make it into one of the more prestigious unis but I'd be comfortable with Newy as well

 

[notneccesarily]

i mean for year 11 first two modules, Waves/Thermo requires some extent of memorisation, cant say for year 12. u can prolly speak abt that.

Gotcha! What's some strategies you're using for memorisation? I'm personally going to try and set up Anki Flashcards as I've heard they're really effective

 

[idkkdi]

Seriously? What about Newcastle or Western Sydney? I do want to score around 99 and make it into one of the more prestigious unis but I'd be comfortable with Newy as well

western sydney doesn't take atar into consideration above a certain point. newcastle i'm honestly not too sure of. but generally you want 99+ to be competitive without bonus points, including if you go interstate.

 

[5uckerberg]

Gotcha! What's some strategies you're using for memorisation? I'm personally going to try and set up Anki Flashcards as I've heard they're really effective

Mnemonics mainly for Chem, and a bit of mathematics. Quite handy.

 

[may22]

I see there's already some tips for maths, chem, physics, so I'll do a quick run down for bio and 3u english (goes hand in hand with advanced)

Biology:
- make sure you understand the content, but practise the technique of answering questions. You will need to structure your responses properly to score a band 6
- for the depth study assessment...start early. Create drafts, edit it, etc. Same goes for the other sciences. Ensure it's structured properly as well. The depth study will be time-consuming, but it will likely be worth a great chunk of your overall year 11 marks

3U English:
- the skills you learn in 3U will be transferable to advanced, and vice versa. Only difference is that with 3U, you go WAY more in-depth with your analysis/approach to an essay question, creatives need to be more sophisticated, etc.
- personally, I enjoy 3u more than adv. Less texts to study for/memorise quotes, but you'll unpack the stories + composer's context + structural features etc and be able to weave that into an essay
- try to have an open-mind when coming into 3u. You'll want to consider many different perspectives, and it will be good when you are faced with an unseen essay question
- make sure you know literary techniques like the back of your hand...if you take 3u to HSC, there will be 1-2 unseen texts in section 1

Best of luck with your senior years

 

[chaevely_park]

Hey everyone!

I stumbled upon this forum as I was combing the internet for study tips and guides for year 11 HSC. Turns out there's no good guides or tips out there online and most articles end up linking to other articles, leaving you in a rabbit hole of five tabs above your browser and awfully long articles that could have been summarised within a paragraph. This forum seems different though and I'm hoping I can find some great advice here as I move in to the year.

My subjects are:

• Maths 3U
• English 3U
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Physics

I chose all three sciences because I genuinely enjoy science and also don't really understand or like the HSIE side of things. I have a good memory and prefer memorising content and understanding it, rather than writing out long reports for assignments. I'm not worried about the sciences but am worried about maths and english. I've always been awfully average in maths and haven't really gotten much more than a B. Same goes for english.

I'm aiming to get a 95+ ATAR so I can make it into medicine. I know this will require flawless performance in all the subjects I've chosen but I'm willing to do it. I'm hoping the scaling of the 3U maths and english I've taken also help me out in boosting my ATAR a bit. My plans for year 12 are completely dropping the extensions if I can't handle the maths and english. Otherwise, I'll most likely go with the same lineup.

I've been studying all three sciences since the start of the summer holidays and have covered all four modules for each of them so I've built a surface level understanding and also have notes to fall back on. For english and maths, I haven't done anything.

So now I'm turning to experienced members of the forum for Y11 advice. I'd like to know the experiences of anyone who's taken the same selection as me or something similar. I'm kind of nervous, anxious and really lost as to how I'm going to juggle year 11.

I'd really appreciate it if you could drop:

• your study tips
• Advice on creating timetables
• Advice on creating notes
• Advice on any must have stationery or tools
• Literally anything else that could assist me

Thank you to anyone that answers! If this thread blows up, perhaps it could be an all purpose guiding thread for other people going into Year 11.

Focus on your English!! I regret not focusing and improving on my English much more in Year 11 (I scraped As for most of my assignments and essays). English can literally your make-or-break - by this, I mean that even if you do amazing in all of your subjects, you have to do well in English for an amazing atar because it is the single subject that every single student has to sit for their HSC exams. I highly highly recommend reading and analysing your texts ahead of class, writing a couple of more essays and consistently handing them into your teacher for feedback. If you don't know something, ASK - you don't want your ideas turning out wrong in your essay or assessment task.

For maths, I really recommend setting up a schedule for constant revision of topics. First, go through the syllabus and see which dot points you are weak at. Make a list of those weak areas, and maybe some other past papers, other topics you want to further solidify or get ahead on. Then, make a schedule - I like to format mine kind of like a giant timetable (A4 sheets of paper, horizontal --> split into 3 weeks) and space out all of your revision to-dos on there over the course of the term. Obviously you have to prioritise your weakest areas and topics you need to revise before your upcoming exams, but this will keep you accountable for consistent maths revision. PLEASE make a good relationship with your teacher (not just for maths, but for literally every subject) because they will be willing to help you with ANY question. Don't be afraid to ask questions, because teachers are the best resource you can use during school!!

hope this helps! good luck!! don't take it too hard, year 11 is just a pre-run of year 12

 

[notneccesarily]

Focus on your English!! I regret not focusing and improving on my English much more in Year 11 (I scraped As for most of my assignments and essays). English can literally your make-or-break - by this, I mean that even if you do amazing in all of your subjects, you have to do well in English for an amazing atar because it is the single subject that every single student has to sit for their HSC exams. I highly highly recommend reading and analysing your texts ahead of class, writing a couple of more essays and consistently handing them into your teacher for feedback. If you don't know something, ASK - you don't want your ideas turning out wrong in your essay or assessment task.

For maths, I really recommend setting up a schedule for constant revision of topics. First, go through the syllabus and see which dot points you are weak at. Make a list of those weak areas, and maybe some other past papers, other topics you want to further solidify or get ahead on. Then, make a schedule - I like to format mine kind of like a giant timetable (A4 sheets of paper, horizontal --> split into 3 weeks) and space out all of your revision to-dos on there over the course of the term. Obviously you have to prioritise your weakest areas and topics you need to revise before your upcoming exams, but this will keep you accountable for consistent maths revision. PLEASE make a good relationship with your teacher (not just for maths, but for literally every subject) because they will be willing to help you with ANY question. Don't be afraid to ask questions, because teachers are the best resource you can use during school!!

hope this helps! good luck!! don't take it too hard, year 11 is just a pre-run of year 12

Thank you! This has got to be the most useful advice I've received in this thread. I really appreciate you taking the time to write all that out

 

[icycledough]

Seriously? What about Newcastle or Western Sydney? I do want to score around 99 and make it into one of the more prestigious unis but I'd be comfortable with Newy as well

Both Newcastle and Western Sydney only look at ATAR as a threshold; for Newcastle, it's 94.3 and for Western Sydney, it's 95.5. So getting a 99 ATAR vs a 96 ATAR won't matter for either. But I agree with idkkdi that in general, you'll need at least 99+ to be competitive for as many unis as possible.

 

[icycledough]

Seriously? What about Newcastle or Western Sydney? I do want to score around 99 and make it into one of the more prestigious unis but I'd be comfortable with Newy as well

Don't worry about prestige when it comes to universities; for e.g graduating from UNSW vs Newcastle doesn't make a difference when graduating and working as an intern; they won't value one medical degree over the other, the most important thing is getting into a medical degree in the first place.

 

[Blokxs]

If you don't mind me asking, how are you going now?

 

[stu(dying)]

Hey everyone!

How'd you go? Did you end up dropping any units?

 

[notneccesarily]

How'd you go? Did you end up dropping any units?

I went pretty well. Graduated last year with a 98 ATAR and band 6s in my sciences and maths. My English just never reached that band 6 level lol.

After year 11, I dropped English extension. I was never really good at it and the course was very in depth and demanding. My school teachers marked ridiculously harsh and it was just all round inconsistent between teachers.

In it's place I picked up extension 2 maths. My maths improved a lot throughout my HSC mostly thanks to my private tutor who was able to really cover up my weakness and teach me all the techniques. Ext 2 maths was the best decision I ever made. Not only does it give you a massive advantage in Ext 1, it's also very rewarding in terms of scaling. You only have to get 65% for a 90!

The sciences have always been my strong point and I thoroughly enjoyed them in both year 11 and 12 with all of them having really interesting course content (although bio could be repetitive at times). The way they connect and the transferable skills between them just made it a breeze to study for them. You tend to master your study techniques for the sciences and then it's multiplied three fold if you're doing three of them - very efficient.

English advanced was the big pressure point and a major headache throughout the HSC. I only really started to engage with it properly in Y12 and lifted my marks up to a higher band 5 level. Honestly, it was more of a mindset thing. I thought I was too good for English and the subject was pointless and easy. Bad marks were blamed on inconsistent and biased marking. Later on, I realised that just like any subject, there was a specific formula for success. I would say that if I had taken the subject seriously from the beginning I probably could have done much better.

Are you going into year 11 this year? If so I'm happy to answer any other questions you got.

As a passing note, it's absolutely astonishing how quickly these two years passed by. I got your reply notification on this post and honestly do not even remember making it. Rereading it just brought so much nostalgia from two years ago. I can still remember how anxious I was, but remember that one day you too will be surprised how quick time passes and reap the rewards if you put in your best these two years