"I've the emotional fortitude to say my school has dropped so much since 2008."
Ok, but how much your school has dropped has nothing to do with you. Yes, perhaps it might be indicative that the quality of the succeeding cohorts since 2008 wasn't as strong as the one in 2008, however, that is no indication of the quality of the cohort of your year. And anyways, you determine your own results-with your attitudes and persistent effort, not your cohort. I think the most pragmatic thing to do right now is to stop complaining and start working to improve your internal ranks for each subject.
"I feel terrible in saying that I do the lamest subjects and I still get a disgusting rank..Yes they don't count towards anything but it reflects the type of person I am and it's not good. ."
It is a very simple equation, if you put enough effort in, then with any combination of subjects you can get your desired ATAR. It is useless to keep worrying and thinking about worst case scenarios if you do NOTHING towards trying to prevent them besides contemplation. 'Lamest subject' might be lower scaling subjects, however, you just need to work extra hard and extra smart then other people to get the same results. As to 'getting a disgusting rank'-you can change it, if you have tried your best and studied smart and still gotten these ranks, then they are by no means 'disgusting'. However, if you haven't tried all that you can and didn't studied smart, then you should be 'disgusted' about your past lack of efforts, and should further be motivated to WORK HARDER TO CHANGE THESE 'DISGUSTING' RANKS into AWESOME ones. I do commend you on the fact you are not finding any excuse for your past poor performance, which is a very good sign. Identify the factors that have contributed to your poor marks-i.e. poor time management, excess exam stress, erratic sleeping patterns, too much commitments etc, and adopt appropriate strategies to turn your marks and ranks around. Those marks may reflect the TYPE OF PERSON YOU WERE, but they will not REFLECT THE TYPE OF PERSON YOU ARE NOW IF YOU DECIDE TO CHANGE YOUR ATTITUDE AND YOUR STUDY METHODS AROUND. It is up to you whether to define your own marks or let your marks define you.
Recently my school had assessment block 1 for Year 12 and all I know is that for PDHPE I received 85%, English was 63% with rank =143 and Maths was 74%.
Have you consider why your English and maths are so weak? Is it because you are not doing enough practice? Is it because you are not dedicating enough time? Are you using your teachers to ask questions whenever you don't understand and asking them to mark essays and creative? Your marks is not going to change in the space of one day of hard work, or even one term, but if you continue the effort through the entire year, I guarantee you will achieve your desired results and maximise your chances to get into the university course you desired. You need to EVALULATE ALL YOUR PAST ASSESSMENT TASKS FOR EACH SUBJECTS TO MAKE SURE YOU IDENTIFY THE SOURCES THAT HAS CONTRIBUTED TO YOUR RESULTS AND MAKE SURE YOU DON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES AGAIN.
You should be taking more responsibility for your self-learning, you need to make sure you have consistent performance in all your subjects-consistency is very important-both in your academic performance(I am talking about at optimal levels) as well as consistency in your study routine, learning methods and sleeping patterns-don't study 24/7 because you will wreck your body and by then your atar will become meaningless if you destroy your health-take care of yourself.
Someone please motivate me or something
You've got SIX WEEKS of summer holidays to CONSOLIDATE on the knowledge you have learnt and practice so that you catch up to other people. THIS IS ESSENTIAL AND VITAL TIME, do not WASTE IT. Lost time cannot be retrieved. The same thing goes for regrets and lost marks and what not. Don't ruminate over what you can't change, which is basically everything that happened in the past, but you can change your present which in turn shapes your future. The winner is not always the person with the highest ATAR, but rather it is the person WHO HAVE TRIED THEIR HARDEST to get the highest ATAR that they can. It is not detrimental that you may have failed in the past and may be feeling like a failure now, but IT IS DETRIMENTAL IF YOU DON'T take actions to ENSURE you don't fail now. I live by this mantra, "When you fail, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again".
However, no advice, including mine, can motivate you if you don't find an intrinsic source of motivation to work towards yourself.
It is all up to you. You need to adopt new study strategies and transform your study attitudes and outlooks to achieve YOUR PERSONAL BEST. HSC is a marathon race, success is as much about maintaining a positive psychological mindset as it is about consistent effort in EVERY SUBJECT on a daily and weakly basis. Make sure you set goals that are realistic and achieve your final goals with smaller goals, you can't get to where you want to be in an elevator, you can only get to it through stairs-step by step, day by day. I truly wish you all the best for this year, if you have any questions on English, feel free to pm me
Poor performance in one term may be a bit set back, but if you are capable of getting 85% in PDHPE, then you are surely capable of getting at least that in all your other subjects, and once you achieved that goal, you can improve on it. May your HSC year be defined by you having tried your best and HAVING NO REGRETS as a result-best wishes
