Disclaimer: Take my advice with a grain of salt, because my study score isn’t looking good atm! Also, what worked for me may not work for you!
Study methodsOverall, know the content really well and practice applying it so you can apply it really well during SACs and exams. Here’s how I tried to do that.
HolidaysThings that would be helpful:
- Make flashcards for definitions and revise consistently – I personally used Quizlet to make flashcards for the definitions of the dimensions and indicators. I included cues – e.g. Aspects of spiritual health and wellbeing (5) (Note: when linking to dimensions, mentioning aspects that might be in your textbook – e.g. strong immune system for physical health and wellbeing – can make it easier to make the links).
- Revise them over the holiday period to get them into your long-term memory so that the relearning process over the year takes less time.
Learning the contentAt the start of the year, my class used the “flipped classroom method” – taking notes for the upcoming lesson(s) at home as a form of learning the content and then the teacher goes over the content in class very quickly, so we have more time to do questions. A benefit of this method is that you can use class time for consolidation as you’re not learning content for the first time. As a potential downside, it takes time outside class to do your notes beforehand. Alternatively, another way you could learn the content is to read the textbook, do the review questions and then make notes as a way of consolidation. Or even doing a light reading of the textbook before class.
You can definitely keep up by simply going to class and being exposed to the content for the first time, rather than doing notes at home. It’s up to you!
Notes Closed book notes at home might be useful – the idea of this is to read a section of the textbook, close it, and make notes based on what you remember. This isn’t the greatest use of time when you have to copy a definition word-for-word into your notes but is more of an “active recall” strategy to test yourself, rather than mindlessly copy chunks of text, which might make the content stick better. Also, make your notes short (or have very detailed notes and summarise them by using revision strategies like the ones I mention below). I made mine really long at times, which wasn’t entirely helpful come SAC time because I would only little bits of those notes.
Formatting – tables, especially for the factors section in U3 AOS 1 (DP 5), can make a world of difference to your revision. It’s so much easier to pick out factors by looking at a table than looking at giant blobs of text. Some of the factors, particularly biological, are the same for different population groups which can give you less to memorise.
Revision – revise consistently and give yourself time before a SAC (something I didn’t do and regret)!Summary sheets – I mentioned having really long notes at the beginning. This is where summary sheets can be helpful. Before a SAC, I made summary sheets for each dot point / concept in a dot point (depending on how much content there was in a dot point). Usually when I made these, I’d try to refer to my notes as little as possible (this is almost what I did for the mind-maps albeit in a slightly different way). Also, with them being summary sheets, I'd try to write as concisely as possible and aim to use one page per dot point or concept depending on the amount of content I needed to cover.
what I'd include on a summary sheet
e.g. WHO Prerequisite for health: Peace
- Definition
- How it promotes each dimension of health and wellbeing (in point form) and health status (you can come up with points on the spot during a SAC but I guess it helps to have prior exposure beforehand).
For instance, one of the key skills for U3 AOS 1 is identify the WHO’s prerequisites for health and explain their links to improved health outcomes.
This is asking you to link the prerequisites health status and health and wellbeing. A question type that has appeared in past exams is to link how the prerequisites can act as a resource for optimal health individually, nationally and globally. Here, you end up doing what the Key Skills mention - linking to health outcomes.
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Mind-maps – I mentioned having really long notes. With mind-maps, I picked a dot point and wrote everything I knew about that dot point on a piece of paper. Then, going through my notes, I added information that I may have missed or didn’t know in a different coloured pen. Rinse and repeat.
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Teach others (or your wall) - something I did often is explain the content to my bedroom wall without notes (my dog would rather play than listen to me talk about HHD
). The process of verbalizing what you've learnt can help you pick up what you do and don't know.
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Past SACs – Doing these in timed conditions once you’ve finished revising for a SAC (or even before to see what you know). Mark them yourself and then getting your teacher to mark it if you’d like can serve as a greater learning experience.
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Have examples for everything – YouTube is an awesome platform for this, especially in U4 (I’ll have to make a post soon with YouTube links relating to the content for HHD). To see something you’ve read about in a textbook in the real world helps it make more sense and can act as an aid in remembering the content.
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Practice questions – after learning the content, I would do the textbook questions that my teacher assigned as a form of testing and applying my knowledge (if you have the Jacaranda book, excuse the reference). The application questions of the textbook are usually the better ones, especially as you approach U3 AOS 2. These textbook questions do not mimic SAC / exam-style questions incredibly well so that was a downside. My school encouraged us to do the textbook questions but I'd recommend doing practice exam questions instead. A useful way of doing this for me was, in class, we were given a practice VCAA question based on what we’d covered in class that week and we’d answer it within a time limit (HHD timing-wise is 1.2 minutes a mark, so you can gradually ease into this and give yourself more time if need be and perhaps even give yourself slightly less time as you approach the exam (but the latter isn’t incredibly necessary). Afterwards, we’d mark our own response based on the exam report and then give it to someone else to mark to see if they’d agree. This helped to prime me for answering exam questions.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help / clarification! Answering questions in a nutshellBreak down mark allocation – say you’re presented with the following question:
Jett is a 23-year-old who has been experiencing migraines since he was 15-years-old. He has visited his GP, who has prescribed him pain relief medication for his migraines. Over time, John has developed the ability to identify what triggers his migraines and recognise their onset. Jesminder is 12-years-old and recently experienced her first migraine, which she found to be extremely painful. Using the scenario, describe how health and wellbeing is considered to be dynamic and subjective. (4 marks)
Possible mark allocation
- 2 marks – describe how h&w is considered to be dynamic (with a link to both Jett and Jesminder’s situation) - mention definition of dynamic in a h&w context
- 2 marks – describe how h&w is considered to be subjective (with a link to both Jett and Jesminder’s situation) – mention definition of subjective in a h&w context
- Use modals – “could impact”, “can contribute to”
- Use shorthand (write in full first) – e.g. “physical h+w” instead of “which promotes physical health and wellbeing” – saves time. Fun fact: the abbreviations DALY and HALE are already accepted according to the study design so you don't have to write these out in full (Yay!
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tl;dr:
- Revise consistently
- Practice consistently
It's getting a bit late so I'll stop here, but hope this helps!
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