The old veterans are the best of the best. I would love to have one
Tutoring is unnecessary, who cares about the top kids in your class
Learning ahead is useless - I've seen someone beat people that are two years ahead in terms of content
In the end it all comes down to you - if you are looking for questions, it is best to do trials or past HSC papers
Although you might argue that I am being biased because I do work as a tutor, I having recently been a student myself don't completely with some of things you have said:
'Tutoring is unnecessary'-I really do not feel that this can be generalised to every single student. Everyone is different. Some won't need it whilst some will. At the same time, I'm not saying that tutoring is necessary but it is entirely a
personal decision that you should make based how you feel about the subject. If things are working out on your own there's nothing to change, but if it isn't going to plan there's no harm in trying something different. That being said even some of the brightest people I know (who I am sure would have extremely done well without tutoring) simply attend because they care about the subject and don't want to miss out any special tips/advice they might have on their own or they simply wanted to have second opinion sometimes or... etc etc list goes on. TLDR: It's a personal decision
'who cares about the top kids in your class'-You're right because you should be caring about the top kids in the school
as well as the top kids in the class. In the end, the school internal rankings plays too big of a role in determining your HSC mark to be ignored. If they are jumping ship onto the tutoring boat maybe they have good reason (i.e. teacher is awful) and there's nothing wrong in trying to identify these reasons and considering your own position eg. whether they will be receiving what appears to be lacking in class or how far ahead would they be ahead in terms of resources and exam technique. The key to high school is not only worrying about your own world but others around you and how they are playing the game
'Learning ahead is useless'-how so? Some people may be learning the same content for the 3rd time by the time it's taught in class (1st at tutoring, 2nd time consolidating tutoring work and 3rd time at school), even if that piece of content isn't about rote learning and memory retention (where they will have an insane advantage) they would still have an advantage if it's about practically applying a skill or understanding a concept. Besides it is only through learning ahead that you can use vacant class time (if you have a bad teacher like OP does) to work on relevant, hard questions and make use of the time instead of completing a worksheet
'I've seen someone beat people that are two years ahead in terms of content'-I would argue that 2 years is the major problem with this point, a perfect amount of acceleration could be anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months but anything longer than that would result in the loss of familiarity with that piece of knowledge as time (and life) goes by and the advantages of acceleration in memory retention, understanding and autonomy no longer apply. So I am not surprised if someone beat someone who learnt something 2 years ahead, and it usually happens to accelerated individuals who become complacent thinking the 1st time is only time needed but it is less common in committed individuals who make use of their advantage
'In the end it all comes down to you - if you are looking for questions, it is best to do trials or past HSC papers'-agreed
