Tips to improve in science? (1 Viewer)

[gracegrape13]

Hi,
I picked chemistry and biology for my next year and wanted to ask for some tips on how to genuinely improve in these sciences. The thing is, I don't like any subjects in particular but I also don't hate any. I do decently well in all my subjects in general so I didn't have much direction to go in when picking subjects and I ended up picking these two sciences along with economics as my subjects because they seem to be quite useful. However, without having a passion or interest in them I find it hard to do well. Do you guys have any tips on improving?
Thanks!

 

[Life'sHard]

 

[gracegrape13]

View attachment 32805

i- that applies to almost every subject though, and kind of almost everything in the world lmao. I meant like tips related to science.

 

[dasfas]

i- that applies to almost every subject though, and kind of almost everything in the world lmao. I meant like tips related to science.

Try find something that interests you about it. That will make studying 10x less difficult and 10x more fun

 

[Life'sHard]

i- that applies to almost every subject though, and kind of almost everything in the world lmao. I meant like tips related to science.

idk what tips you would need for chem? Like acronyms and stuff? Even memorising those require some amount of practice. Learning how to answer 9 mark questions also require practice.

 

[may22]

Literally:

1. Practise
2. Do your HW
3. Don't fall behind
4. Don't be afraid to ask questions
5. Practise

Practise is important because it doesn't matter if you know the content, it's about how well you understand it and can adapt your knowledge to answer a question and get the highest possible mark for your response. And that only comes with practise

I took both those sciences and from personal experience throughout year 11:

- In chem:
I made a crap ton of stupid mistakes in all 3 assessment tasks. I have no idea why because I'm a very pedantic person and I always check over my work like 100 times...but it happened, so all I can do now is move on and work harder...and of course practise

- In bio:
I was doing great in the first two terms...come exam time, my lockdown-drained, tired, want-to-throw-my-laptop-out-the-window self only did 2 past papers, fooled myself into thinking I was set and....it ended up going from my best subject to my worst (in the exam marks, not my overall marks).

I think another thing to note is to not get complacent. The second you tell yourself that you don't have to study, or you don't have to do this or that or whatever it is, it's very hard to bounce back. You want to constantly be in the mindset of doing better and getting better.

 

[SweatyAsian#1]

Literally:

1. Practise
2. Do your HW
3. Don't fall behind
4. Don't be afraid to ask questions
5. Practise

Practise is important because it doesn't matter if you know the content, it's about how well you understand it and can adapt your knowledge to answer a question and get the highest possible mark for your response. And that only comes with practise

I took both those sciences and from personal experience throughout year 11:

- In chem:
I made a crap ton of stupid mistakes in all 3 assessment tasks. I have no idea why because I'm a very pedantic person and I always check over my work like 100 times...but it happened, so all I can do now is move on and work harder...and of course practise

- In bio:
I was doing great in the first two terms...come exam time, my lockdown-drained, tired, want-to-throw-my-laptop-out-the-window self only did 2 past papers, fooled myself into thinking I was set and....it ended up going from my best subject to my worst (in the exam marks, not my overall marks).

I think another thing to note is to not get complacent. The second you tell yourself that you don't have to study, or you don't have to do this or that or whatever it is, it's very hard to bounce back. You want to constantly be in the mindset of doing better and getting better.

For chemistry, did you use flashcards? (Ngl if you did, you would have put those mistakes from past papers into flashcards and gone over it to not make same mistake :/)

 

[may22]

For chemistry, did you use flashcards? (Ngl if you did, you would have put those mistakes from past papers into flashcards and gone over it to not make same mistake :/)

No I didn’t. Honestly I’m not a fan of flash cards. But even then, I didn’t do enough past papers in the first place. It was an arrogant mistake on my behalf, especially since the exams were pretty much open book. But it is what it is, and I’ve learnt from that experience at least

^also for chem, the assessment tasks were all very different so the silly mistakes I made didn’t carry on into the next. E.g. the second task was a depth study and I stupidly missed a small thing to include in the poster section. Got full marks on the report though, so that was good, but the things from the poster didn’t exactly carry on into the exam if that makes sense

 

[SweatyAsian#1]

No I didn’t. Honestly I’m not a fan of flash cards. But even then, I didn’t do enough past papers in the first place. It was an arrogant mistake on my behalf, especially since the exams were pretty much open book. But it is what it is, and I’ve learnt from that experience at least

^also for chem, the assessment tasks were all very different so the silly mistakes I made didn’t carry on into the next. E.g. the second task was a depth study and I stupidly missed a small thing to include in the poster section. Got full marks on the report though, so that was good, but the things from the poster didn’t exactly carry on into the exam if that makes sense

Yep, no worries. I didn't mean for it to be criticising lol, my bad
The only reason I'm leaning towards using flashcards is because I use tuition + online notes and instead of writing up new notes, I just use flashcards for the ROTE-learn aspects and to be integrated in my 1hr-1hr and 30min travel every weekday so that's also another reason.
I do believe past paper questions work but just need something to 1. Cover my silly mistakes/weaknesses 2. Something quick to refer to and study anytime 3. Another form of study that uses active recall + spaced repetition.

What do you think? Or do you see any flaws/what would you do differently?

 

[may22]

Yep, no worries. I didn't mean for it to be criticising lol, my bad
The only reason I'm leaning towards using flashcards is because I use tuition + online notes and instead of writing up new notes, I just use flashcards for the ROTE-learn aspects and to be integrated in my 1hr-1hr and 30min travel every weekday so that's also another reason.
I do believe past paper questions work but just need something to 1. Cover my silly mistakes/weaknesses 2. Something quick to refer to and study anytime 3. Another form of study that uses active recall + spaced repetition.

What do you think? Or do you see any flaws/what would you do differently?

All good lol, I hope I didn’t sound defensive
When you put it like that, I see why you suggested flash cards. I honestly don’t know why but I have...I guess a vendetta, for lack of a better word, against them lol

I remember using them as a kid for things like spelling words and stuff and I couldn’t stand them. But I guess I could try them out again this year if it comes down to it. I would have to see how I go because personally I’m a very “write-everything-down” sort of person. In saying that, I do want to try having a “mistakes book” this year, for subjects like math/chem. Perhaps if it gets too bothersome I can change it to flash cards

Also, this is just my judgemental opinion but don’t they take forever to set up? I wouldn’t want to make soft copy versions because I’m hopelessly not tech savvy and I hate reading off a screen; and writing them out...I don’t know tbh

You mentioned a 1-1.5 hour travel time...I live literally less than 10 minutes from my school so

As of now, I’m just focusing on getting through notes and relevant practise questions since we’ve pretty much not gone too deep in any subjects yet.
And, with regards to silly mistakes, in my case it’s not really content-based stuff. E.g. for chem it was small calculation errors and something where I counted wrong. Oh and a MCQ for which I circled the wrong answer by accident when I knew the right one

But yeah, to sum up, I’ll see how I go and probably give them a try. They DO sound helpful, I’m just hesitant I guess

 

[SweatyAsian#1]

All good lol, I hope I didn’t sound defensive
When you put it like that, I see why you suggested flash cards. I honestly don’t know why but I have...I guess a vendetta, for lack of a better word, against them lol

I remember using them as a kid for things like spelling words and stuff and I couldn’t stand them. But I guess I could try them out again this year if it comes down to it. I would have to see how I go because personally I’m a very “write-everything-down” sort of person. In saying that, I do want to try having a “mistakes book” this year, for subjects like math/chem. Perhaps if it gets too bothersome I can change it to flash cards

Also, this is just my judgemental opinion but don’t they take forever to set up? I wouldn’t want to make soft copy versions because I’m hopelessly not tech savvy and I hate reading off a screen; and writing them out...I don’t know tbh

You mentioned a 1-1.5 hour travel time...I live literally less than 10 minutes from my school so

As of now, I’m just focusing on getting through notes and relevant practise questions since we’ve pretty much not gone too deep in any subjects yet.
And, with regards to silly mistakes, in my case it’s not really content-based stuff. E.g. for chem it was small calculation errors and something where I counted wrong. Oh and a MCQ for which I circled the wrong answer by accident when I knew the right one

But yeah, to sum up, I’ll see how I go and probably give them a try. They DO sound helpful, I’m just hesitant I guess

Hey, don't worry about it
In regards to setting it up, I literally just refine my syllabus notes and whatever important information that stands out to me, I make a question for it and do the ctrl c, ctrl v typa thing lol.

Like, we have to revise our notes one way or another and opening a word document/file seems slightly demotivating and it can be super easy to just read over it instead of testing yourself at every dotpoint. Like, reading off a screen is a norm... cmon may, we've been on online learning for more than a term lol.

Definitely going to use it as a mistakes entry as well so ty for bringing that up, but yeah, possibly have this as a backup plan which I totally agree with
Have a good one.

 

[may22]

Hey, don't worry about it
In regards to setting it up, I literally just refine my syllabus notes and whatever important information that stands out to me, I make a question for it and do the ctrl c, ctrl v typa thing lol.

Like, we have to revise our notes one way or another and opening a word document/file seems slightly demotivating and it can be super easy to just read over it instead of testing yourself at every dotpoint. Like, reading off a screen is a norm... cmon may, we've been on online learning for more than a term lol.

Definitely going to use it as a mistakes entry as well so ty for bringing that up, but yeah, possibly have this as a backup plan which I totally agree with
Have a good one.

Yeah true about being online, guess you can tell I hate online learning and can’t wait to go back

I see what you mean. Will definitely try to keep an open mind to it and who knows, maybe I’ll play around with it in the 6 week holidays with whatever content we’ve covered as an experiment or something

Thanks for the insight!