Your schooling life is about to end.
Is that good or bad? Well, I don't know. You have a thing called 'life' coming up, and you can be the one to determine if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
The stress levels among the 2017 cohort has probably started to increase quite noticeably if not escalating or spiking. Everyone should be feeling mixed about where exactly they are at right now. Discussions about ranks, marks, ATAR and what not are pretty common. However, you mustn't forget one thing: You aren't finished yet.
For nearly all of you, your trials are probably coming up. There's no point in commenting on anything related to studying for trials anymore, besides you should have a plethora of ideas already. A certain bunch would've made it through the trials already. However the line is probably drawn here - some people still have their trials coming up, and rather quite soon.
1. During the trial block
Legit, the trial exam period feels the same as that of the half-yearly in terms of duration. They go by pretty quickly and your exam schedule may be a tad congested. The difference lied in that you actually had more time to study for them so they shouldn't feel as hard as the half-yearly papers in your mind. If you studied for them properly, you are probably ready to start attacking some exams.
a) You had one exam today
Spoiler
We get it. Exams are rough. They drain you out because they force you to consistently use your brain for a decently extended period of time, and jab everything you know (that is relevant) onto the paper. For this reason I suggest you do take it somewhat easier on yourself after you have an exam.
In the exam:
i) Make sure you answer the flipping question. Too often do HSC students make a habit of derailing from the main point and then losing marks because they were talking about the wrong thing! Do not fall into this trap. Read the question, and then actually reread the question (or if it's an essay, a plan as well) once you're halfway through your response. Know what you are aiming for.
ii) Plan your responses. Sometimes maths can be a bit daredevil and you have to use trial and error, but more often than not you should always have an idea about where to head. Regardless of if you are a humanities or science student, you should always be planning your 6+ mark responses and having ideas as to where the marks are, and how you should be headed. (And if you don't plan for English, I have no comment.)
iii) Balance out your time. Do not rush, yet do not waste time. If you rush, you have an increased likelihood of missing information or adding in a silly mistake. If you spend too much time on one question, you lose valuable time that could've been spent on fishing for marks later in the paper. The rule of thumb of Total time/Total marks = Time per 1 mark is a rough indicator of how much you should spend on each question but it's obviously not indicative. Take your time in writing a suitable response to the question, and ditch it once you feel you've burnt too much time on it (unless you're that concrete on having sufficient time and aren't afraid to answer heaps, which is rare - that happened to me only once).
iv) Check your work. When you do this is up to you, but check it. Force yourself into checking it. In the last 15min of the exam you may feel like ugh I just want to get out of here - if that's you, check when you still have 30min left and the only unattempted questions are the ones that are damaging you. A lot of students find something they missed, an inaccuracy in computation or even just little grammatical errors through checking through their work, and thus a chance is 'allowed' upon them to gain their marks back. Also, double-check if you have the time. Nothing should ever be holding you back from checking twice unless you're in serious time trouble if you do so.
v) Highlight and underline. This may sound pointless, but sometimes despite reading the question over and over people still miss key points. Make the key points stand out - the HSC allows you to bring highlighters into the exam for a reason.
vi) Utilise that reading time. A lot of the time students are tempted to look at the multiple choice (English exclusive; you have no choice but to start planning your essays out) and begin doing them. What's the point though - you're gonna spend time doing it again later. That or you're memorising 10 M/C answers off by heart only to just forget them and colour in the bubbles later. In your reading time, you should be flipping through the paper, understanding exactly what you're being examined on as well as considering (briefly) how to actually go about the questions at hand. The idea of reading time is so that you can begin to get a rough idea of what the exam will be like early on, so you don't freak out and blank halfway through the writing time.
vii) Do not obliterate your answer with crossing out. Examiners will read stuff that has a line or something through it but is not blacked out by your pen's scribbling over. Who knows? It might get you one tiny extra mark. Nek min that's how you got a band 6 and not a band 5.
viii) Drink some water if you're dehydrated. No joke, if you have a 100% clear water bottle then bring it; who knows when you're gonna get thirsty.
Ok but what about after the exam? Well, like I said, I suggest taking it a bit easier. This means that if you have an exam, allow yourself sufficient time to recover (3-6 hours maybe?) Then, you can attempt to start studying for something else. (This also allows you some time to get over potential sadness over your exam. Do something relaxing, and then put that exam in the past until it's time to face your marks.)
This is especially true if you have a morning exam - you wake up because your alarm or your body told you to, and you just have to sit in there and do a paper. When you get home you probably just want to do something relaxing if not go back to the bed. If your exam is in the afternoon then, well at least you have the luxury of getting a sleep-in the night before. Utilise it. And then following your afternoon exam, it is potentially nighttime when you're studying again.
b) You were unfortunate as to having TWO exams in the one day
Spoiler
This is brutal. If you're here then I know you wish you weren't. Especially if your exam is the one that's right after English Paper 2. You're going to be out of it.
Most of the above tips still hold for your first exam, however depending on who you are you might change a bit for your second.
i) Try to redevelop that working brain mode. If you have the ability to apply ALL of the tips to one exam days, just do it. Nothing holds you down from it.
ii) Ignore your earlier exam. What's done is done - get rid of the questions in this new paper now.
iii) Revitalise between the exams. Occasionally (possibly frequently) students do not know what to do in the 1-2 hour block between the two exams they have on the same day. There are many important things that should be taken into account here. Firstly, go have lunch and something healthy to drink (by that I mean water). Try to have it basically as soon as you leave the exam room so that your stomach can digest it earlier, and you won't feel lazy during your second exam. Secondly, if you studied well but just have some very tiny last minute things to worry about, worry about it now and get it in your head. Otherwise, just go back into it e.g. find a classmate to quiz each other before the exam.
iv) Concentrate. A bit of a redundancy you might say, but just ensure you concentrate. It's not over until the supervisor says so.
v) Be confident. Depending on how you feel about both the papers you had, you may be shattered by one of them being inferior to the other, be it the one you're doing in the morning OR that of the afternoon. Don't let that shatter your ability though - keep answering what there is to answer.
Now, honestly this is the only scenario where I'd persuade not studying at all for the rest of the day. The reason why I say 'persuade' is cause this is highly disputable - some will say that you should still be studying for the next exam, especially if that one is tomorrow in the morning. If your timetable offers leniency, probably reduce the amount of time you spend studying to just 2-4 hours, but the overall idea is to be realistic - pick something good for you.
c) This is a day where you have no exams
Spoiler
Good. You should be studying.
Boo. But fact is you don't take an extended break until your last trial exam ends. When you don't have an exam this day, think about how you are going to study. Here's some general advice (not strictly binding - specific cases are easier to address, especially given students' relative strengths and weaknesses.)
I. There's no exam tomorrow either: You might want to just keep reading on. Because if there's no exam in the second day then you really have to consider when your next exams are.
II. You have one exam the next day, and none the day after: Just study for that upcoming one. Nothing much to be said here.
III. You have two exams the next day: If you had two days to study for the two exams, you should've been studying for both subjects at once.
IV. You have one exam the next day, and one the day after: On this day, mostly try to study for the one tomorrow, but add some of that on day 2. Then, the next day, just study for the one on day 2
V. You have one exam for each of the following THREE days: Most likely you had at least two days to study for these three exams. What you should do is generally similar to case III.
VI. You have three exams being packed into TWO days: This is perhaps the toughest realistic combination (I would like to see evidence of if you have 4 exams jam packed into 2 days). You should've had at least 3 days to study for these so you would study around 2 subjects per day, or a bit of all 3 per day if you can make it effective.
VII. You have three days off till your first exam happens: Try using a mixture of the above cases.
VIII. Weekends are splitting up the above cases: Utilise the weekend. If your exams are put in Thur/Fri/Mon/Tues, split the first two up with the last two. Sat and Sun are basically two days for you to prepare for Mon.
IX. Your exam is after an English paper: Well, you didn't really have time to study for those three properly. Make use of Friday (depending on the scenario it may be worth tuning out of useless courses) and really make sure you know your stuff on Sat/Sun.
X. Your case is too specific: You could post it here if you want and I'll offer commentary. But if you do so, please indicate what you're good at and most prepared for and etc.
Reminder: For most subjects, the trials have a weighting of at least 35%, if not even 55%. Trials are generally one of the best ways for you to reestablish your rank after having a rocky semester. I can vouch for this.
English: 30 -> 22 out of 56
Physics: 10 -> 5 out of 27
Chemistry: 7 -> 2 out of 27
This is because the students better equipped for exams always have a chance to show their true capabilities. If you prepared well enough, you have a solid chance at allowing it to pay off. (If you're not intimidated by the weighting of the trials, minus some natural being scared, you will probably be the one utilising the advantage.)
2. Straight after the trial block
You just went through a taste of the final exam. That's the sort of stuff you are expecting to see in October. And now that you know what you're up against, you need to rest.
a) The period between your last exam and returning to school
Spoiler
Ok, this is pretty straightforward. Take it easy already!!! You just went through a ton of the most important exams of the year. Once you get back to school it's going to be back to work yet again. But don't go drinking excessive alcohol and killing your brain cells until actually after your FINAL HSC exam.
If you think you're going to study during this period, you are going insane out of stress. If you're really going to stress, start applying to UAC or something instead - Get your 9 preferences in there already. Oh, speaking of which...
You have NINE preferences you can put in. Your first preferences should be your absolute dream degree at your most preferred university. Without being too ridiculous (putting in a preference that's potentially 20 ATAR points above what you can earn, unless you have the determination to earn them) just leave it. And then, work your way down. Your first realistic one doesn't have to be until option #3 or #4 in my opinion. Also, if you're going to use all nine preferences, make sure your #9 is an absolute last back-up plan.
Of course, nobody is saying you HAVE to use all 9 preferences. I only used 5. But let's be honest, paranoia is something we need to take into account here. Some of you may also apply to Notre Dame or another university independent of UAC. These are mostly up to you to research, but yes, they are basically a 10th preference for you to utilise.
But seriously. No matter how anxious you were to get your exam marks back (like me), don't fuss over it. I remember making the most out of this time by playing heaps of League of Legends.
b) Returning to school and getting your marks/paper back
Spoiler
The idea is to prepare for the worst. You would rather be prepared for a bad mark than have high expectations and only to be let down. This isn't the attitude you were meant to take into the exam with you, but it's probably a good cover up once it's over.
But that's about all that can be said as for prior to receiving your marks back. They are, after all, just your marks.
Generally, the instant you receive your marks is the same instant you receive your paper back for the first time. Sometimes, marks are unjustly taken away from you, regardless of if the teacher didn't intend to or did. There are a few things that need to be done once you get them back.
i) Pull out a calculator and sum up the marks first. This should hold priority, because it's something you can easily forget later on. If you add up your marks, and it equals the big number written on the front page, then all good. Otherwise, you should probably bring that up to your teacher. They just went through marking a whole pile of papers; it's quite easy to get one number entered wrong.
At least, that's if the sum of your marks is less than what was written. Of course, your teacher will also verify it one more time to make sure you weren't bluffing. If the sum of your marks was MORE than what was written then, well, that depends on your conscience what you do. lol
ii) Listen to your teacher if they go through the guidelines with the class. Occasionally, some teachers are nice enough to devote time in class into sorting out everyone's problems. If they have good memory of the cohort's performance they will also tell you where the weaknesses and strengths were. If you got a 6/6 then you probably satisfied all that was asked in the criteria. If you got say a 3/6 then you might want to listen to any input he/she has to give. Jot it down and file it for use later. You will need it in your study time to come so that you don't make the same mistake(s) again.
iii) Review the marking criteria. Whether your teacher goes through the paper or not, the marking criteria always has all you need anyway. That's basically your number one go-to if you intend to dispute your marking. If you got full marks in a question, all you need to do is just compare their marking guidelines with your work, so that you understand how you got the marks. If you didn't, then try to figure out where they were lost. On the marking criteria, highlight the key points that you missed in your response. Make an annotation as to whatever you didn't include. Also, if your teacher wrote on your paper (e.g. evidence?) consider it. Make sure the mistake doesn't happen again.
iv) Dispute (if possible). Even if it's just one measly mark, if you feel that you had done what was required to earn it, fight for it. Especially if you were marked wrong when the marking guidelines/sample answers had that correct.
Transcription errors in calculations can generally be fought back. In your worded responses, however, you never know what to expect. If your teacher can give you an actual, legitimate reason as to why your marks were deducted then you're going to have to absorb it in. Otherwise, keep fighting for it.
The (slight) exception - English: There are heaps more English essays to mark this time round. The teachers are probably drained. But if you feel that your essay was marked too harshly this is what you should do. (Apart from, of course, typing your essay question and response up for Elyse or Jamon if you have enough posts):
i) Compare between your mates. If the entire cohort got marked too harshly then most likely you will have to suck it up, but your rank won't be too damaged if everyone suffers. However if you feel you got marked with bias then figure out who it was.
ii) Identify the teacher that marked it. Arrange a time (or if he/she is free, just show the essay to them at that point you see them) and inquire about your essay.
iii) If you feel as though there's reason for you to claim more marks, you should have them prepared. If the teacher gives you no comment whatsoever, just ask your questions and they will respond to what you have to say.
iv) If you feel their feedback was actually legitimate, well done on your bravery. If you got more marks, well done on your persistence. If you're still unhappy, you're going to have to take it to the English coordinator and go up the ranks.
3. Between accepting marks and the start of HSC stuvac
Once you have dealt with all the issues regarding marks, there's more generic stuff that should be done now.
a) Drop down the workload
Spoiler
You just went through a ton of hardcore study and lots of exams. Are you sure you want to be studying for the finals so quickly? You should do yourself and take it easy on yourself.
That being said, what do I mean by taking it easy?
i) You're probably not done with the entire syllabus for some of your subjects. Realise that for these subjects, you still have to do some learning. Ew. But when you're not done learning the content, that always holds priority. Push through, and learn the remainder of what hasn't been taught.
ii) Do not EXCESSIVELY study. During this 8 week or so block, my study was mostly study that my teachers gave me. They were like oh yeah we're just gonna do these past paper qns or do an essay in two days or what not. That was about it though. I just studied whatever my teachers told me to study; I didn't really bother with my own study at this point in time.
iii) Rather than get straight into HSC study, set up the grounds for HSC study. What does this mean? Spend time now to create an HSC study schedule that's going to push you, but is not unrealistic either. Two choices:
1. You can make your schedule go by on a weekly basis, or
2. You can have a new schedule every day
Also, figure out your notes NOW. During the HSC study period you do NOT want to spend even a MINUTE on writing up your notes. If you were writing notes during the trial study block that is persuadable, because you were still learning content. However, if you're still writing notes during the HSC study block, you have fallen well behind. Just download them and get straight into more effective studying techniques such as past papers.
iv) Finish up your notes NOW. You definitely do not want to be dealing with unfinished notes during your HSC stuvac.
v) Don't do what you would do until HSC ends either. Drink the alcohol AFTER the final exams
The process of moderation is made so that your internal assessment ranks are preserved regardless of what your external exam marks are. This means that an entire cohort's marks must be considered. If you are at the very least near the top of the cohort, you actually want to share your notes and services. There are two reasons for this.
I. If they beat you in the final exam it doesn't matter. Sure, their external mark will be higher than your's, but you will take their mark for your internal assessment mark if you were ranked higher.
II. Offering your services gives you the added study technique of studying by teaching. This is almost as effective as past papers as you are the one explaining how the concepts work and really gives you the chance to reconsolidate your knowledge.
b) University administration
Spoiler
A majority of you will have plans to going into tertiary education. Very briefly, this is what you need to sort out now and not later.
i) Apply. Even if you forget to do a whole other bunch of stuff, the least you have to do is apply ASAP. This is simply because it costs to apply, and the costs are increased for applications at a later date. You will be sent a 4 digit PIN number in your letterbox. In the application process, use your BOSTES student number with your UAC PIN, and most of the application is self guided (it is all online). There isn't much of a hassle here; the only thing that can be time consuming is getting some credit card details to use.
ii) Read through key pages of the UAC guide. Hopefully by now you actually have an idea of where you want to be headed in life, or at least, sort of. Look up your degree, and any university that interests you in any way about your degree and so on. Do some research about degrees you're interested in online if you feel a need to, but the UAC guide should give you most of what you need.
iii) Your UAC preferences are not fixed for a while. Heck, even after you get your ATARs you still have about three weeks to change your preferences. So don't stress if you put in 9 preferences now and want to revoke/change some later.
iv) Make a note of open days. Open days are great for two reasons.
1. They're valuable. There are heaps of lectures regarding useful information you can attend to get more information about your degree, and there's also people designated from their faculties to answer your questions regarding the faculties themselves. You can inquire further about your degree, your intended profession or even simple things like what will you be learning etc.
2. They're fun. Open day is one of the most liveliest of all days in the university year. You will rarely see the university be THIS lively again until pretty much, the next year. They are designed to really influence Yr 12 students into deciding that's where they want to go and learn. Not to mention there's a lot of free stuff for you to be grabbing.
v) Scholarships, cadetships, early admission and etc. I only have one tip here: Apply for everything you want to apply for. You can never be faulted for failing; only not trying when you could've gotten it. Take the time to research these carefully and decide which you want to apply for. Most universities will give you instructions as to how to apply for them.
c) Start making the most out of your last days
Spoiler
This is self-explanatory. Everyone's sick of school, but you probably won't see some people for a long time ever again, if not never. You never know who it is - I've heard stories of best friends becoming distanced from my SOR teacher. So legit, just take it easy.
Especially on graduation day and formal night.
4. Entering HSC stuvac
The absolute latest you can enter your study mode is three days after the last day of school. Without a good reason to start lter, start feeling bad instead. Starting earlier than this is of course, fine, however due to the problem of tiredness and loss of motivation, I don't exactly recommend beginning your stuvac mode two weeks before your last day of school.
Because you have experience on studying for the trials, this section won't be as exhaustive as you might expect. Instead, here's a list of what you should be doing.
Spoiler
a) With your study space cleared out and timetable sorted and etc. from the previous period of time, begin applying/using/implementing what you have created.
b) Ensure you actually follow your timetable.
c) Implement the strategies you found effective for the trial block once again
d) Share notes and services. The classmate that chooses not to be helpful AFTER the trials is a jerk. In fact, if you can partner up with a few people then try marking each other's exam responses. I did this quite frequently.
e) Gun out the past papers. I feel like I only did 3-5 past papers for physics/chemistry prior to trials, but before the HSC I did at least 10 for both of them. Keep in mind, because stuvac is for a full 4 weeks without school anymore, your time span increases.
f) Don't be afraid to email your teachers for help. Some are desperate to help you.
g) BOSTES sample answers typically suck. They have a tendency to pick a random band 4 response and just smack it there. Purchase something such as Excel Success One which has much more comprehensive solutions to follow. Contrary to public belief, they are actually amazing. You can buy a slightly older version - it just means the past papers are a bit older. (Or you can loan it from the library if another student didn't get in before you.)
(For Mathematics Extension 2, I recommend buying the MANSW (maths association) version as Excel Success One does not exist for this course.)
h) Persist. If you ask me, the biggest challenge of all now is persistence. But if you persist, I assure you that it will pay off.
i) One last thing - Mix up your study environment if it's too much. I started studying in the library after deciding studying at home was ineffective.
Personal recommendation - The HSC study guide app for iOS was pretty decent for me to help study for physics and chemistry. However note that it costs $5 per app.
5. The HSC exam block
Generally speaking, your HSC exam timetable is going to be much more lenient than your trial timetable. This is because the HSC exam block goes for a full four weeks, not two. (I love and simultaneously hate how physics, chemistry and MX1 got spaced out much more this year.)
This means that there's more leniency with how you study for this exam block, as opposed to during the trials. However, during the HSC block there is much less room for "take a day off". Every day without an exam should be study.
(Also, make sure to have some BLACK pens packed. And do your multiple choice in PEN using crossing out where necessary - it'll take too long to go over pencil in pen again. If you're uncertain like me, circle the answer in the book as well.)
a) English is on Thursday and Friday this year
Spoiler
This is good. Because English is isolated to being right before a weekend, the one week leading up to it can be full of English (although obviously, make sure it's not the only thing you study except maybe on Wed). In preparation for English, you should have:
i) Just done as many past questions as you feel necessary for paper 1 section 1
ii) Planned on multiple occasions how to adapt your creative (or just your skeleton plot) to various stimuli (to get stimuli, use past papers or images.google discovery)
iii) Know what's needed of your essays off by heart
iv) Increased your handwriting speed to sufficient - writing about 1000 words per long response.
v) Developed the ability to write for 2 hours non stop
And more. But that aside, the reason why it's good is that you have a weekend following it. Put enough focus into the one subject that has to count to get as close as possible to that band 6. Because fact is the upcoming Saturday is going to be the perfect instant to start studying for any exams coming up.
You do music
Unfortunately, you have to add that into studying for both paper 1 and paper 2. But fortunately English papers aren't 3 hours long so paper 1 shouldn't drain you to the worst possible scenario. It's also arguable that you get a sleep-in, since the exam starts at 10:20am instead of 9:25am. But don't be late to your exam ever!
b) To what extent should you be more lenient on studying between exams
Spoiler
So because your schedule is permitted to be more spread out now, what will become more unlikely is that you have two exams on the same day. It's not an impossibility, just an unlikeliness.
i) In the event you have two exams on the same day, make sure you have your lunch between exam periods, have your bottle of water ready, have enough pens to not randomly run out of ink and persist. Then you can reward yourself with the rest of the day doing just multiple choice or some more relaxed study technique.
ii) If you have exams on two or three consecutive days, you most likely had an equally long break period before them, if not longer. You should've studied for all of these subjects at once where applicable.
iii) If you have an extended period with no exams (5 days or more), you might want to study for almost all of your remaining exams. Extended blocks of no exams are basically screaming at you to just keep studying and studying. But you have to balance it out. Don't bias one subject; make sure you study evenly for all of them.
iv) If you have an extend period but only two or one exam left, just gun them. Try to get a band 6 in them.
v) Rather than having 1 exam every consecutive day or consecutive two days, it generally tends to be 1 exam every 2 or 3 days in a row now. So always keep in mind that this should mean you have more time to study for shit.
Once again, feel free to comment if you have a special case that you feel needs more consideration.
c) Your will to study will most likely decay
Spoiler
After each exam passes by, your laziness will increase more rapidly than what it would normally. By the time you're left with your last exam, you're probably out of it already. (I remember just not studying physics the day before the exam and be like sure I'll help you out and that's it.) Your timetable may also feel less binding than it used to as well - just study this study that oh ok procrastinate yep yep. But you really need to just keep pushing.
I'll be hypocritical if I tell you to study the day before your last exam, so I'll say something else. Don't start doing what you shouldn't do until AFTER the exam. THEN, take it easy.
But otherwise, just keep doing your best. Even second last day I'm pretty sure I did some work. (Though for me a lot of my motivation got sapped once my maths exam ended.)
Everything else is basically the same as the trial exams block. And that's basically it until your final exam ends.
6. And now you wait...
Congratulations on finishing high school!
Mod edit: tweaked formatting slightly for easier reading :) <- Thanks Heidi :)