Typical 40+ student

[Orb]

Well, im screwed then.  What rank were you?

I was rank 25 at the end of 2014.

That scaled to 94/100 as a SAC grade

[IndefatigableLover]

I was rank 25 at the end of 2014.

That scaled to 94/100 as a SAC grade

Scotch rankings too OP ;O

But in all seriousness, if you go to a school which sets harder SACs and has a relatively above average cohort then rankings won't matter as much if you're ranked in the above average section of the cohort (provided your cohort also does well as a whole).

[Cosec]

I was rank 25 at the end of 2014.

That scaled to 94/100 as a SAC grade

Interesting. Well, im rank 1 in a very weak cohort, so i guess ive got that going for my self. Just as i thought my confidence was back up, down again. As if, how did you do that well on the exampro's? I must just be full retard now.

[Orb]

Interesting. Well, im rank 1 in a very weak cohort, so i guess ive got that going for my self. Just as i thought my confidence was back up, down again. As if, how did you do that well on the exampro's? I must just be full retard now.

To be perfectly honest if I hadn't bombed out on a few really stupid questions (careless errors), my actual Study Score would've been significantly higher (hence the redo).
I don't think i'd get a much higher score on the exampros (maybe 90% average this time around) except i'd be aiming for somewhere like 49/50
So in fairness, for a 40+ you'd be aiming for 70-80% averaged out

[Gentoo]

then later just start doing prac exams. I only did about 40

ONLY?! People do more than this many unique practise exams? Where were you getting all of these exams from?!?! I was just re-doing the VCAA ones towards the end lol.

EDIT: Wait, just saw a post from somebody who did 40+, woah.

[Orb]

ONLY?! People do more than this many unique practise exams? Where were you getting all of these exams from?!?! I was just re-doing the VCAA ones towards the end lol.

EDIT: Wait, just saw a post from somebody who did 40+, woah.

There's around 8 sets per year from the various companies
x2 = 16 (exam 1 and exam 2)

Current study design has been out for 8 years (assuming 2014)

That's 16x8 = 128 possible practice exams.

There's way more than 40 out there

[wunderkind52]

There's around 8 sets per year from the various companies
x2 = 16 (exam 1 and exam 2)

Current study design has been out for 8 years (assuming 2014)

That's 16x8 = 128 possible practice exams.

There's way more than 40 out there

Yeah as hamo94 said - there are HEAPS. Sometimes schools get lazy or money-conscious and hence don't purchase all the exams (my school never bought any NEAP or Kilbaha exams). But having said that, I found that after a certain point, doing more practice exams doesnt help much! I think if you do 20 youre "pretty set" (depending on who you are), but by te time you get up to 50 they become a bit pointless imo. I'm not sure if it was just me but I actually feel like the quality of trial exams has declined over the past few years (subject verb disagreement in NEAP 2014 comes to mind). I think they just run out of nice questions to ask!

[Orb]

Yeah as hamo94 said - there are HEAPS. Sometimes schools get lazy or money-conscious and hence don't purchase all the exams (my school never bought any NEAP or Kilbaha exams). But having said that, I found that after a certain point, doing more practice exams doesnt help much! I think if you do 20 youre "pretty set" (depending on who you are), but by te time you get up to 50 they become a bit pointless imo. I'm not sure if it was just me but I actually feel like the quality of trial exams has declined over the past few years (subject verb disagreement in NEAP 2014 comes to mind). I think they just run out of nice questions to ask!

the gradient of improvement from 1-20 : scaling a mountain

the gradient of improvement from 20-50: slight incline on a treadmill

gradient of improvement from 50+: flat ground

[Gentoo]

There's around 8 sets per year from the various companies
x2 = 16 (exam 1 and exam 2)

Current study design has been out for 8 years (assuming 2014)

That's 16x8 = 128 possible practice exams.

There's way more than 40 out there

Point taken. :p

I think part of (not entirely though) what explains the diminishing returns of doing tons of practise exams is that a lot of the practise exam companies get pretty lazy with their question ideas and just copy the previous VCAA exam's specific question types (for instance the Heffernan 2014 pretty much just blatantly copied the 2013 final exam 2 A(k) question with slight changes) so you end up doing a lot of the same stuff over and over again, when in reality VCAA can pull any number of totally new obtuse and difficult questions from out the wazoo and no amount of practise exams will directly prepare you for them, outside of sharpen your problem solving/abstract thinking skills (which repeating the same type of question multiple times doesn't really do as efficiently).

In this regard, doing pre-2006 (pre-study design) VCAA exams can actually be worthwhile just for the sake of doing the harder questions.

[Zealous]

In terms of specific marks, I'm probably not the most qualified person to answer since I too was aiming for 40 and ended up with a 50.

Woah. I would've loved that.

the gradient of improvement from 1-20 : scaling a mountain
the gradient of improvement from 20-50: slight incline on a treadmill
gradient of improvement from 50+: flat ground

Yep, you improve a crazy amount at the start. My results jumped up heaps in my first few sets, but honestly after doing over 30-40 exams I sort of just did the practice exams because I had so much time back in Year 11 and I "might as well".

I posted this last year when someone asked about practice exams:

Spoiler

40-50 range should be more than enough. As you are well aware, the number varies between people, but here is what my experience is like:


(Scale not included, intentionally)

The first few make the biggest difference as you notice the massive gaps in your knowledge, and the last few provide the smallest improvement, but can still make a difference.