Starting HSC (1 Viewer)

[band19student]

Hey guys,

I'm starting HSC this term and I have a few questions about the year ahead

Subjects:
Maths
Maths Ext 1
English Adv
Geography
Biology
Chemistry

1. How different is the year from prelims (difficulty of exams)
2. Do you study every night? If so how much? Do you have a day off each week?
3. How do you study each night for science and maths?
4. Is the year really as stressful as its made out to be
5. Can anyone recommend a good way of organising study notes (filing cabinet? folders?)

Thanks

 

[Drsoccerball]

Arn't you a band 19 student you should already know these.

 

[HecticSandWitch]

Hey guys,

I'm starting HSC this term and I have a few questions about the year ahead

Subjects:
Maths
Maths Ext 1
English Adv
Geography
Biology
Chemistry

1. How different is the year from prelims (difficulty of exams)
2. Do you study every night? If so how much? Do you have a day off each week?
3. How do you study each night for science and maths?
4. Is the year really as stressful as its made out to be
5. Can anyone recommend a good way of organising study notes (filing cabinet? folders?)

Thanks

1. No change in difficulty, only content changes.
2. Don't count the hours, make the hours count. It's better to do three past papers a week year round then 20 hours a week highlighting some notes while you piss around on facebook.
3. Again, hours are irrelevant. Throughout the year I aimed for a past paper for maths per week and more during exam time.
4. Not if you're well organised and put in the work.
5. I have an HSC Folder on my laptop, with a folder for each subject, and a folder for each module.

 

[aanthnnyyy]

Everyone tries really hard in the first term but then it dies off... But the best will be consistent all year through !

 

[duhdevitt]

Here's some tips I have for the sciences you do(I did bio and phys)
- Learn the glossary of key terms like outline,describe,explain etc. I have some good outlines on what each term means and an example question and how to answer it
- For the sciences, make sure you make some thorough notes in your book or typed up. Use a variety of sources. The mistake I made this year was that I made notes just for the sake of it and never really understood the concepts. So probs during trials I rewrote all my notes again which helped me get some good marks but I couldve done it earlier.
- Do past paper questions based on the topic you're currently learning. This helps cement your knowledge and don't be shy to answer the questions without your notes, see what you know. When you write your answer, check their solutions and see what you missed out, and continue this throughout the year. Then when hsc approaches, you could do trial papers and mark them.
- Consistently study, don't put in like 8hours everyday, its not that effective. Just study what you want using a todolist
- For Biology specifically, these are some of the tricky concepts you should probably try understand during the Christmas holidays
Maintaining a balance:
- Those enzyme pracs
- change in chemical composition of blood as it passes through body
- How pulse oximeter and BGA work
-Xylem and Phloem
-Everything about the kidney(reabsorption is back into the blood, filtration only occurs at Bowman's capsule and secretion occurs for the rest of the nephron, if you want to know)
-Enantionstasis

BOL:
- Punnet squares
-Divergent, convergent , evolution, natural selection, selective pressures
- Pedigrees
-Sex Linkage
-Meiosis
- DNA Replication
-Transcription and translation
-Transgenics

SFBH
- Gene expression
- Immune response
- Epedimeologgy

-LEARN ABOUR VALIDITY, RELIABILITY, ACCURACY

that's pretty much it, best of luck and you can always hit me up on some bio questions. I'll probs make a bio forum where I'll explain some concepts that the next year 12 struggle with

Best of luck, have fun, its a really quick year make the most of it

 

[crowley926]

1. How different is the year from prelims (difficulty of exams)
2. Do you study every night? If so how much? Do you have a day off each week?
3. How do you study each night for science and maths?
4. Is the year really as stressful as its made out to be
5. Can anyone recommend a good way of organising study notes (filing cabinet? folders?)

Thanks

1. Exams aren't more difficult - standards have changed though so obviously you're expected to have higher quality answers than Year 11 (particularly for English). Competition may also be higher since more people take Year 12 seriously. Plus the content changes so even though you were doing well in Year 11 doesn't necessarily mean that will translate to success in Year 12

2. No I don't study every night (I normally don't start studying till 1-2 weeks before exams) but that works in my favour and I'm doing quite well whereas I know a lot of people judge my study programme haha. At this point you should have some idea of what an effective study regime is for you so you should just do that. I strongly believe in the study smart not hard thing - it doesn't matter how many hours you do but you must ensure that you understand everything you're going through and studying.

3. I don't do either but nearly everyone in my grade does maths and most of them practise every day (going through tutoring papers, homework, textbook questions, past papers) whether on the bus, free periods or at home. Maths is skills based so it's something you must be doing regularly to succeed in - you cannot cram for maths - but also make sure that you are understanding each concept properly and not just gunning through past papers for the sake of it. For science I don't know. I used to do biology and that was content based so I just wrote notes for each syllabus dot point.

4. Ah it depends what stress means for you. A lot of people are stressed over the fact that everything counts and there's always the fear of getting a bad ATAR looming over our heads. But I know a lot of people as well who are mostly chill throughout the year whether it's exam period or not (none of these people are the "I don't care about my ATAR" type if you were wondering). Me personally I don't think I experienced ridiculously high stress levels at all. Just be organised and make sure during exam periods you have a good plan so you don't leave yourself with one night to study four topics and finish two essays.

5. I'm the exact same as HecticSandwich. I type all my notes so I just have a big HSC folder on my laptop and then lots and lots of sub folders and sub-sub folders. If you hand-write notes just make sure you have a dedicated storage compartment for each subject (you will have a ton of notes accumulating throughout the year so if you're planning to file hard copies of everything I'd suggest something bigger and more substantial than just folders for each subject). Under each subject keep them organised by modules and make sure that you put everything in the right order and place and that you don't lose or throw anything away.

Also tip: I suggest when you are studying to draw weekly or fortnightly goals for each subject (e.g. by Friday finish all notes for Geography topic 1) then have a plan where you space out the workload so that you do a little bit every night. much better than cramming.

Good luck!

 

[atargainz]

1) Relative difficulty of the exams don't change that much, however the content you learn will become much more conceptually demanding and therefore be harder to understand.

2) Key here is consistency. Don't count the hours but instead set (reasonable) goals, I would say you should study consistently but casually and when exams are near ramp it up and remember quality of quantity (although both is preferable)

3) Math is purely past papers, you can do textbook work for specific topics if need be. The sciences should be treated like any other subject, make sure you learn and know the content extremely well and transfer that to past papers.

4) It really depends on your personality, but if you want me to be real then for the majority of the cohort, year 12 is stressful as fuck but hopefully it'll all be worth it once its over.

5) Personally I did nothing fancy with this, just subject folders with notes for each topic inside (prefer typed so its easier to search through). If you plan on handwriting notes then I would recommend binder folders.

When you start the HSC you'll think it's the end of the world but it's really not, but you should really try your best and make sure you have no regrets when you open your atar results. Good Luck!

 

[sharoooooo]

Hey guys,

I'm starting HSC this term and I have a few questions about the year ahead

Subjects:
Maths
Maths Ext 1
English Adv
Geography
Biology
Chemistry

1. How different is the year from prelims (difficulty of exams)
2. Do you study every night? If so how much? Do you have a day off each week?
3. How do you study each night for science and maths?
4. Is the year really as stressful as its made out to be
5. Can anyone recommend a good way of organising study notes (filing cabinet? folders?)

Thanks

1. similar. if you do well in prelim, you will do well in HSC. if you're average rn, work hard and you will do well.
2. no. no. and no. (i shouldve)
3. i did nothing in term 1 and 2. but starting from term 3, i did 1phys, 1 chem and 1 maths paper per week.
4. no. only right now im feeling the stress. but throughout the year, not really.
5. I have a square cabinet . its that exact one. really good to organise stuff. each square is a different subject very organise

 

[BLIT2014]

1. How different is the year from prelims (difficulty of exams)
Not much difference when it came to exams.
I found your classes tend to get more relaxed with each other.

2. Do you study every night? If so how much? Do you have a day off each week?

No, but it probably is better too. Consistency is better for memory rather then cramming.
3. How do you study each night for science and maths?
Notes/excercises for mathematics/past paper questions for mathematics (once you finish a topic), hand in past paper questions for your teacher to mark for sciences.

4. Is the year really as stressful as its made out to be

For some people, it is. Depends on your attitude, I found it more relaxed then prelims. A lot of the HSC is over hyped, and there is no need to stress if you stay consistently up to date.
5. Can anyone recommend a good way of organising study notes (filing cabinet? folders?)
I recommend the floor
On a more serious note, folders, with seperate on for class work/notes/hand outs and if you hand write notes(type?) folders for storing your non school study notes.

Thanks

 

[mrstripedshades]

This may sound stupid, but how do you do past papers for maths all through out the year when you haven't learnt most of the stuff? Do you guys mean topic based or specific questions for dot points? is there anywhere I could find such past papers?

 

[Loudvicuna]

1. The same except its the only year that counts

2. No, unless its leading up to exams, most people study a lot more at the beginning of the year but cbf toward the end when it matters, doing 0-4 hours a day to the HSC exams

3. For science (bio & chem) watch Lets learn science on youtube and do all syllabus points, math learn content -- past papers for both

4.Depends on the person and what your ATAR goal is

5. Desktop and books

 

[Loudvicuna]

This may sound stupid, but how do you do past papers for maths all through out the year when you haven't learnt most of the stuff? Do you guys mean topic based or specific questions for dot points? is there anywhere I could find such past papers?

Do topic based then the whole paper for trials and HSC once you've learnt all content

 

[BLIT2014]

This may sound stupid, but how do you do past papers for maths all through out the year when you haven't learnt most of the stuff? Do you guys mean topic based or specific questions for dot points? is there anywhere I could find such past papers?

http://www.pascalpress.com.au/excel-success-one-hsc-mathematics-2015-edition/

 

[jerresaaa]

1. How different is the year from prelims (difficulty of exams)
Not that different, constantly revise and work on your weaknesses and you'll be fine

2. Do you study every night? If so how much? Do you have a day off each week?
Yep after school usually for 3-4 hours, Friday nights were my break. Weekends I tried to be productive lol, but leading up to exams, assessments etc study would be more intense

3. How do you study each night for science and maths?
For chem and math, usually I did the homework if there was any, and if my teachers gave us past papers then complete that as well

4. Is the year really as stressful as its made out to be
If you're unorganised and don't discipline yourself then it will definitely be stressful esp around exam blocks (lol personal experience)

5. Can anyone recommend a good way of organising study notes (filing cabinet? folders?)
Use small folders to carry notes/work to school, and have a big folder at home to keep all the topics from every subject
Also make a formula book for math and 'reactions' book for chem, extremely helpful
Keep a summary of important dot points and chapters of the novel (for english)

 

[blackbird_14]

I'M DOING NEARLY THE EXACT SAME SUBJECTS AS YOU :O (except i'm dropping Biology)

 

[KotaBear99]

Hey guys,

I'm starting HSC this term and I have a few questions about the year ahead

Subjects:
Maths
Maths Ext 1
English Adv
Geography
Biology
Chemistry

1. How different is the year from prelims (difficulty of exams)
2. Do you study every night? If so how much? Do you have a day off each week?
3. How do you study each night for science and maths?
4. Is the year really as stressful as its made out to be
5. Can anyone recommend a good way of organising study notes (filing cabinet? folders?)

Thanks

Hi! I am just about to sit my HSC exam for English Adv. Here is what I have figured out has helped me over the year:
- If you study using past papers and alter the questions to fit Discovery or any of your modules, you will end up becoming greater at writing essays and you eventually become just adjusted to thinking critically when it comes to your texts and remembering them.
- I found that making mind maps for each of your texts enables you to map out conceptual arguments that you can memories to use in essays.
- Stick all your notes in places where you know you are going to look! I have used a folder, my bedroom wall and the back of the toilet door.
- I wouldn't study every night for English as the brain can really only concentrate on one thing for 40 minutes, breaks are good to have, so remember that

Have a great HSC, you're gonna do great!