Hey guys,
Just a question for people who have done trials or the HSC eco exam, are you better off doing essays first and getting them out of the way or leaving them to last? I always get so flustered towards the end of exams so I don't know if I should try this in trials or not risk it.
THANK YOU!!
A bit late on the comment sorry, but thought I'd give my two cents, having done my trial exam.
Multiple choice are generally quite hard, Short answers should be easier, and essays are long and require a lot of detail. So my advice would be to write a plan for both the essays first, because that way you have an idea of where you want to go with them, and as you go through multis and shorts you might find some information you want to add to your plan. (If you don't write up a plan I would seriously suggest you get into the habit of doing that, because it helps structure your essay appropriately).
Then I'd just do the paper in order, multis, shorts and essays like that (doing the easier essay first because I can get it over with and spend more time on the last one). But I should also add that when attempting to maximise your marks, I don't think you should spend the time on your essays like Essej suggested (sorry haha) unless your confident in your other sections. Here's why:
1. Essays are marked not according to quantity but quality. Therefore, if you have extra time and you're spending it writing MORE, then your marks are probably not going to increase, maybe it can push a 14 to a 15 or a 15 to a 16, but past that, the way you get marks is by including diagrams, statistics, trends etc.
2. Multiple choice are marked out of one so, like Essej said, if you spend more time on these you can be gaining extra marks instead of losing simple questiosn that you could have otherwise got correct.
3. Short answers are marked more according to the amount of content relevant to the question than the style or expression. That means if you have extra time, you can be spending it improving more than one of your short answer questions, e.g. bumping a 2/4 to a 3/4 and moving a 3/5 to 4/5. This means that in the same time that you MIGHT improve your essay mark, you can be definitely improving your short answer marks, and often by a lot more.
Of course if you're confident with your responses
during the exam then by all means spend time on essays, but it's probably more beneficial to do it in shorts
They're often neglected!!
Hope that helped and sorry if it offended anyone!