Hello everyone!
It’s been a pretty long time since my last update. Can you believe I used to update this journal every day after coming home from school? This is going to be a long one, so sit back, relax and let’s dive right in.
UCATIt’s been 2 days since I completed my UCAT and honestly I’m so over it. I’m ecstatic that I can just focus on my 4 beautiful subjects without that extra thing.
Deets about experience:
Spoiler
I did it on the Monday so I missed a lit period and my chem sac for this. My dad and I set off about 2 hours before my test appointment and we still had an hour and a half left when we arrived. We waited a bit and finally decided to enter the building. Going in, I was anxiously wondering whether they would have keyboards with the numpad, but it turned out that they had one and the facilities were much better than expected! I was shown to a tiny room and was told to start whenever I was ready. I don’t know why but I felt so happy in that moment that I smiled. The writing was horrendously stretched across the screen which was a bit of a shock but I quickly became used to it and started the test. I found VR to be alright in the beginning but after another candidate entered, all hell broke loose. It was super duper distracting because the supervisor entered like 5 timed in total and they were speaking quite loudly. I lost my concentration and focus and my heart started beating dangerously fast. All hell broke loose. I ended up losing my calm state and completely botched the section. It was tragic. I was relieved for DM because it was a much more relaxing section for me personally. It went alright but some questions were straight up weird. QR was next and the questions were generally easy but I probably lost a lot of my marks due to silly mistakes. AR was alright but I left it with a sinking feeling, thinking I’d gotten below 800. After that, I was so scared that I’d failed and my brain just decided to give up. I was thinking about how I might’ve gotten really low due to my poor performance and how everything was a waste, and how all the work I’d done was wasted. I wasn’t really thinking straight in SJ so I’m surprised with the mark I got for the section.
On the drive home, I was super anxious and devastated. My whole mind and body closed up and I was frozen with shock. After my 3rd try, my results were finally available.
Results: VR: 590 (yuck)
DM: 680
QR: 800
AR: 800
TOTAL: 2870
SJT: 659 (pretty proud of this, actually)
Deep down though, I sort of expected a score around this because I only started mindfully studying for 3-4 weeks. The preparation before that was mindless and I was just doing preparation for the mere sake of it.
According to last year’s percentiles, this would have given me a 92 percentile which I was aiming for BUT, I made a big mistake. I should’ve aimed higher. It didn’t occur to me that if I was to maximise my chances of getting into MonashMed, I had to achieve for the highest. I thought that if I get a 90 UCAT, then I’m definitely going to get an interview offer (provided my ATAR was decent).
After that, for the whole day, my emotions kept fluctuating between sorrow, disappointment, happiness, discomfort, anxiety and joy. All these questions swirled through my mind: what if the percentiles change so drastically that I end up with a super low score? What if I fail my ATAR? Have I just decimated any chances of getting into MonashMed? Why am I like this? Should I be happy or sad? Do I deserve to celebrate? What should I do now? Did I mess up again? DEFINITELY. I kept thinking how if I hadn’t gotten distracted, maybe, just maybe I could’ve gotten a 2900 which would have increased my percentile anyhow. I’m still thinking that.
I’m so grateful for my parents for being so supportive. I don’t know where I’d be if it wasn’t for them. I’ve just got to focus on maximising my ATAR and forgetting about this experience until the percentiles are released in mid-September. Future me can worry then. Present me needs to focus on the chem sac + ATAR.
After talking with my parents, I rewatched a really nice movie which really calmed me down and marched upstairs to study for my chem sac the next day. The chem sac went alright.
Anyways, I’m not sure if I’ve said this before but I’ve really got to STOP comparing myself to others. I’ve seen so many people achieve/aim for 3000+ scores and that was part of the reason why I started aiming for 3000 myself, because I thought my goals weren’t good enough (getting 2880). I didn’t always compare myself to others. It came about when I moved to my current school and after going on various forums online, where extremely high achievers were common. It made me think that I wasn’t good enough and that I was a ‘bad’ person for not getting good study scores or good sac marks. I need to drill into my mind that this is MY journey and everyone’s journey is different. I might fail, yes, but I might also succeed so I need to keep going, focusing on my line of sight rather than other people’s. I need to live my own life, rather than getting caught up in other people’s. I need to do this for myself because it is MY LIFE, for crying out loud. I need to be looking after myself.
Okay, onto my glorious VCE subjects. I haven’t put any effort whatsoever into any of my subjects lately since I’ve just been preparing for the UCAT. So, as you can imagine, they are real train-wrecks. Specialist Mathematics
HAHAHA. You have no idea: I
totes regret picking up this subject! I wished I had chosen Further instead. Anyways, I got my past sac mark back and I got a 78%. I got this when all I cared about was UCAT, but in class, as I inputted my scores into the calculator, and it churned out that abysmal score, I could feel my soul closing up and my face growing hot. That was very disappointing, Evolio. Very disappointing. So many silly mistakes. I ran out of time. I missed easy marks. Every dumb thing I could possibly do accumulated into this low score. Anyways, I’m over that, but I have my next sac in 12 days. ARGH! You know, I’m actually so angry because when students asked when our next sac was, teachers always said ‘oh, don’t worry. It’s like in week 8’. So, I became super relaxed after that. BUT THEN, they dumped a super soon sac date on us and left us crumbling to pieces. It is just one chapter, but it’s literally the hardest and most unfamiliar chapter in the entire course: Differential Equations. I hope 12 days is enough to prepare adequately for this sac. I also want to prepare in strict timed conditions because this sac’s going to be another of those ‘modelling sacs’ and I really suck at those and they don’t give us much time.
Psychology
I got my last sac back. 85. I lost 4 marks, only one more than the last one, but it was out of 27 so it dragged down my percentage quite a lot. I made so many dumb mistakes, as always, despite finishing comfortably on time. The average was 72, I think. My rank’s plummeted, for sure. Our school doesn’t give us our ranks but Psychology’s my only subject where we’re given the average, so I’m grateful for that. My next sac is in the same week as Specialist (what fun), 2 days later and I better ace that, otherwise my dreams of getting 45+ are crushed. Psychology’s probably the only subject that I still have high hopes for.
Chemistry
Yeah, the sac was ok. I have a feeling I failed it though, because I always do that. 🤦♀️We got our last sac back, after 10,000 years. It was so long ago that I didn’t care that I got an abysmal score. That, and also, everyone did bad so it’s fine. I didn’t answer questions properly and didn’t link back to the question and all that jazz (sweet memories of bio are racing back). Anyways, I HATE organic chemistry. Like, it’s so much memorisation and I hate that. Seeing all those reaction pathways for all the different molecules, makes me want to tear my hair out and scream with frustration. Anyways, I’m still aiming for the highest in this subject.
Literature
Ahh, apparently we’re getting our sacs back soon so joy. We’re just talking about all the different theories, and it’s turning my small brain mushy because I can’t understand anything that’s going on in class because of UCAT. I need to continue sending feedback to my tutor.
Uni preferences
I know what my first preference is but I’ve also become interested in possibly studying Bachelor of Biomedicine at Melbourne University with a Chancellor’s Scholarship. Wow, slow down, Evolio, you know you need a 99.90 ATAR for that, right? AKA, you gotta be MENSA GENIUS smart?! Yeah, I know, dudes, but it’s a pretty sweet opportunity and I’m going to try my hardest. Like, if I don’t get into MonashMed (which is looking pretty likely), it’s a pretty good option to fall back on. Also, I’m thinking of going interstate if I get into unis there. Like, I don’t know how I’ll survive but that’s another option, however my mum’s hesitant so gotta convince her if things don’t work out.
This has gotten really long but I just had to get this down. Also, I found these memes I thought I'd share. The second one is literally me after every assessment before collapsing onto one of my friends. I hope everyone's staying safe! See yas.