VCE Stuff => Victorian Education Discussion => The VCE Journey Journal => Topic started by: Marylen on April 10, 2020, 12:12:53 pm
Title: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on April 10, 2020, 12:12:53 pm
Hey everyone. ;D As of 11:48 am, I'm making my first ever VCE Journal. I decided it might be a good time to share my thoughts with the world amidst this chaos. This year, I'm taking two VCE subjects early; Further maths and psychology. My course counselors strongly advised me against doing so because they've seen way too many instances of students underestimating the amount of work required but I decided to grit my teeth and sign the paper. School is such a whirlwind! Homework is thrown at me left, right and centre on school weekdays! I've been using my quarantine time to revise over everything I've learnt so far so that nothing will fall out of my brain. I'm a very forgetful person and that's my greatest weakness when doing psychology :-\ Studying ahead also helps me greatly so I've just been reading over my textbook for psychology and answering some practice questions. For further maths, I've been crafting my bound reference and doing practice questions for an upcoming SAC which is likely being postponed due to the virus. >:(
Of course, having a break is extremely healthy after intense study sessions. I like music as a hobby and I've been playing the bass guitar and classical guitar in my spare time. I also try to study music theory so I can jam along to some of my favourite songs. Does anyone know how to use the circle of fifths and what it represents? At night, my brothers and I have been playing games to kill time during the quarantine. We recently bought unstable unicorns but I'm still unsure of the instructions :/ I woke up quite late today so my plan is to get as much work done as I can before 2pm when I'll go out for lunch and have a little break before going back in to study my unit 1/2 subjects. The greatest challenge for me this year is knowing how to ensure that my time is well spent on my 3/4s yet my 1/2s won't be jeopardised. Casablanca has also been on my film watchlist for a while so I'll be watching that after I finish my homework and study!
I've said this somewhere on the forums already but I really regret not using my time wisely during my junior school years. Time was no object when I was in years 7-9 and I remember going home and having homework free nights and thinking how life was so pleasant with little work and daydreaming... That wonderland is now gone! I could've done so many things back then, accomplished so many goals but I'll never be getting that time back. It is going to be a gruelling 18 months of my life but I figured, if I can stay afloat, maintain a consistent work ethic inside and outside of school, my teachers will maintain their trust in me that I'll be able to do well and I can prove the naysayers wrong! Every positive action has a reward. -Julian Casablancas
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: J_Rho on April 10, 2020, 12:19:07 pm
YAY! I can't wait to see how you progress this year! Do you have a favourite out of your 3/4's? What other subjects are you doing this year?
Hey J_Rho! I guess I like both subjects equally because math has been a strength of mine but I also like psychology because it's a very interesting science compared to the major sciences but I feel like I have a love hate relationship with it because I find that sometimes, I get mental blanks when writing an answer or I foolishly leave something out and then I score really low for a test :( I got an 82% on my first SAC and I was really sad but I told myself, being sad won't solve anything and a solution is to just revise my study skills and work on some more areas. I stupidly wrote that the freeze response was activated by the sympathetic nervous system during my first SAC! :(
I like further because the workload is easy to keep up with and I can easily figure out if an answer is wrong or right but math gets a bit boring sometimes lol
I've noticed that you're also doing units 3/4 psych as well! Are you enjoying it so far?
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: J_Rho on April 10, 2020, 12:40:06 pm
Hey J_Rho! I guess I like both subjects equally because math has been a strength of mine but I also like psychology because it's a very interesting science compared to the major sciences but I feel like I have a love hate relationship with it because I find that sometimes, I get mental blanks when writing an answer or I foolishly leave something out and then I score really low for a test :( I got an 82% on my first SAC and I was really sad but I told myself, being sad won't solve anything and a solution is to just revise my study skills and work on some more areas. I stupidly wrote that the freeze response was activated by the sympathetic nervous system during my first SAC! :(
I like further because the workload is easy to keep up with and I can easily figure out if an answer is wrong or right but math gets a bit boring sometimes lol
I've noticed that you're also doing units 3/4 psych as well! Are you enjoying it so far?
I am enjoying it! I'm finding the concepts fairly easy to grasp but I really need to work on my expression. For my first SAC I got 84% which I was disappointed with because the marks I lost were because I didn't answer some of the questions properly. I defs agree with what you're saying about further, the answers are very simple and i find that because some of the concepts are easy to grasp and apply I feel like I'm doing it wrong or missing something. The idea of if it's too easy you're prolly doing it wrong.
What sparked your interest in guitar?
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Chocolatemilkshake on April 10, 2020, 04:49:23 pm
Nice to meet you Marylen and welcome to AN! I'm excited to read your journal over the next few months and follow your journal.
Do you have any idea what you want to do post-school yet?
All the best for the next term :D - CM
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: eloisegrace on April 10, 2020, 06:00:24 pm
Hello Marylen! Nice to meet a new ANer like myself :)
What 1/2 subjects are you taking? Can't wait to hear more about your VCE journey 8)
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: lm21074 on April 10, 2020, 06:05:20 pm
Hey Marylen! Great to have you here :)
Looking at your profile picture, are you a Gilmore Girls fan? If so, who's your favourite character? ;D
Hope you enjoy the rest of your holidays!
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on April 10, 2020, 10:31:49 pm
Hey Everyone! Thanks for the warm welcomes! This year, I'm taking English, Methods, Accounting and Chemistry for my 1/2s! I actually made this account back in 2018 to check out the threads for selective school entrance and for the John Monash high school entrance exam but I didn't start posting until this year because I was still a bit shy lol A bit of a backstory... I tried out for the selective school entrance exam when I was in yr 8 and was utterly devastated when I didn't get in. I just felt so stupid and agitated because my older brother got into Melbourne High and I didn't. Regardless, I'm still super happy with my group of supportive friends at my current school. I had people in my junior classes who would fool around, make fun of people for studying and trying hard in academia and were exactly like Jonah Takalua which was why I desperately wanted to get out.
When I was younger, my parents enrolled me to take classical guitar lessons to keep me occupied and ever since, I've loved classical guitar and music. Since year 7, I've been playing the bass guitar in the school ensemble and I love it as well since you can play super cool bass licks and riffs and jam!
I love Gilmore Girls! I really like Rory Gilmore because she's such a diligent and hardworking person and I feel like I share a lot in common with her. I also like Sookie because she's such a boisterous and funny chef ahhaha ;D
How do you add the cute hyperlinks at your signatures? I just pasted my journal link and it looks so messy. :-\
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: JerryMouse2019 on April 10, 2020, 11:49:29 pm
Hey Marylen,
It's great that you're challenging yourself with taking further maths and maths methods. I could probably only do that in my dreams. I've taken the equivalent of further maths up here in Queensland (we call it general maths). We're only allowed to do one maths subject (unless if you want to do specialist alongside methods) throughout units 1-4. So we can't do a subject only for units 1-2. In my opinion, that makes the QCE system far more easier to understand than the VCE system. You mentioned in another post that maths is one of your strengths, so what do you believe helps you understand concepts in maths easily?
I quit learning the piano after 5 years last year so I want to know, how much awesome is it to be able to play the acoustic guitar?
I'm planning on learning the acoustic guitar soon and I wanted to know, what should I learn first (when it comes to the acoustic guitar)?
Good luck with your VCE journey,
Kind Regards JerryMouse2019
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: lm21074 on April 11, 2020, 12:41:07 am
[color=maroon][url=https://atarnotes.com/forum/index.php?topic=190779.0]Marylen's VCE Journal[/url][/color] Marylen's VCE Journal You can change the colour by clicking on the change color dropdown box below and putting the text between the two sets of brackets, like in the code above. The list is not exhaustive - the colour of this text is not on it! You can see the giant list of colours available here.
Have fun hyperlinking! :)
P.S. I think Rory and Sookie are great characters too 8)
mild spoiler alert if you haven't seen Gilmore Girls: A Day In The Life
Rory changes soo much though, but like mother, like daughter :)
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on April 14, 2020, 05:43:33 pm
It's great that you're challenging yourself with taking further maths and maths methods. I could probably only do that in my dreams. I've taken the equivalent of further maths up here in Queensland (we call it general maths). We're only allowed to do one maths subject (unless if you want to do specialist alongside methods) throughout units 1-4. So we can't do a subject only for units 1-2. In my opinion, that makes the QCE system far more easier to understand than the VCE system. You mentioned in another post that maths is one of your strengths, so what do you believe helps you understand concepts in maths easily?
I quit learning the piano after 5 years last year so I want to know, how much awesome is it to be able to play the acoustic guitar?
I'm planning on learning the acoustic guitar soon and I wanted to know, what should I learn first (when it comes to the acoustic guitar)?
Good luck with your VCE journey,
Kind Regards JerryMouse2019
Hey Jerry! Thank you! I guess ever since I was young I always enjoyed numbers and thought there was something magical about maths. One time in primary school, the teacher brought those chocolate mudcakes from Woolworths and taught us how fractions worked and what happens if you added a piece and subtracted a piece. I left class a different person that day. It was such a simple concept but I always found it fascinating since maths is extremely applicable to real life, even in the most basic circumstances; there is just math everywhere. This was one of the reasons why I chose further - statistics is extremely applicable in real life and it's interesting getting to understand what the data means. Methods is much more imaginative and tricky but I also like it nonetheless because the concepts and questions are like little puzzles for me. I also liked how with maths, if you know the formula and how to apply it, you're good to go whereas in English, there's no 'black and white' answer so it's harder for me in that sense. I would've loved to choose specialist maths as well but since VCE is such a short ride, I don't think I would have enough time for it if I have other subjects to revise for.
I love playing the guitar! I mostly read sheet music from my classical guitar book or I find sheet music online. I find music very therapeutic especially when I'm playing classical songs because it sounds romantic in a way I guess. I think that the best starting point is just simply start off by doing chromatic scale exercises to improve your finger dexterity on the fretboard. Feel free to shoot more questions and I'll try my best to help!
What other subjects have you been doing alongside general maths? Did you enjoy it? I agree - when I was picking my subjects, it got really convoluted so my course counselling session took such a long time.
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on April 14, 2020, 05:55:26 pm
[color=maroon][url=https://atarnotes.com/forum/index.php?topic=190779.0]Marylen's VCE Journal[/url][/color] Marylen's VCE Journal You can change the colour by clicking on the change color dropdown box below and putting the text between the two sets of brackets, like in the code above. The list is not exhaustive - the colour of this text is not on it! You can see the giant list of colours available here.
Have fun hyperlinking! :)
P.S. I think Rory and Sookie are great characters too 8)
mild spoiler alert if you haven't seen Gilmore Girls: A Day In The Life
Rory changes soo much though, but like mother, like daughter :)
Thank you!! I need to get on to the sequel soon!
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on April 18, 2020, 12:38:37 pm
Wassup everybody it's ya girl Marylen back at it again with another journal update. WHEW, online learning is such a massive transition for me. I never thought I would say this but I miss school, I miss the head of senior school telling me off for being late, I miss every aspect of schooling. I just feel so demotivated and sad. Its hard to explain but I haven't seen my friends or teachers for basically nearly a month now.
I've seen people do this so I thought I might do it as well. I think it's absolutely imperative to put my goals down in a public area so I don't become lazy and lose the plot.
GOALS AS OF 12:30pm 18/04/2020
ACCOUNTING: I need to get on top of my accounting homework otherwise my teacher will yell at me on my WebEx call. I am so behind I have so many balance sheets to do, income statements. This subject takes up SO MUCH TIME.
CHEMISTRY: Chemistry isn't bad at the moment. I have a SAC on intermolecular bonds and intramolecular bonds so I don't feel too bad at the moment.
EVERYTHING ELSE: I only have chapter 5 homework and chapter 6 homework to do before my methods test. Number notation is a bit confusing but I'm sort of getting the hang of it.
Further Maths: I'm moving on to financial maths. It seems a bit confusing since I jumped straight into 3/4 without doing general but I think I'll get the hang of it after doing more practice questions.
Psych: Psych isn't bad, I find that the subject requires a lot of rote learning but it's very interesting so I find myself coming back to it often. This week we're getting reading to move onto chapter 7, the reliability of memory so I've been reading the textbook inside and out and doing as many practice questions I can on the previous chapters so nothing slips out of my head. I also like to get a headstart on the topics I'll be doing so I won't crap myself later when the barrage of SACS come my way lol.
This week has arguably been the most unproductive week of my life YET. My teachers have been giving me work to do on Compass and catching up via email. WebEx calls won't start until next week. The only reason why I like to learn at home is because I don't have to get up early. Throughout the week, I've been making my psychology notes refined, practicing more psych exam style questions. I've been telling myself that if I don't work hard now, I'll have to bear the burden later of getting a crappy study score. I'm trying my hardest but I'm just so used to the classroom setting and going 'hey Miss I need help' and I can't really do that now :(
Accounting absolutely does my head in. It is EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING when the balance sheet does not balance.
I'm just working on my English analysing argument work at the moment so I can quickly get it out of the way to do my 3/4s. I want to go back to school :(
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on April 27, 2020, 09:11:58 am
Hey everyone Well, last week, I did a chemistry test on bonding.... I got a 63%. I feel so depressed right now because I've never gotten such a low score for any of my subjects before. I feel like if I get a 63%, it's just going to be a domino effect and next time I'll just get even lower.. :( Last night I couldn't sleep because of the score.
I have a methods test tomorrow, I feel pretty prepared since I've been studying for it bit by bit. I'll add an update later. Apologies for the negativity guys.
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on May 17, 2020, 10:45:04 pm
Hey Everyone ;) Apologies for the hiatus, I'll try my best to update my journal every once in a while to reflect on my journey. :-[ First things first... I have a Chem sac on Thursday. 1/2 chem SUCKS man. I'm not surprised if I'll get a 50% I nearly failed my last chem sac. Screw polymers I forking hate it My chem teacher is a lioness and last time she got extremely furious that someone 'accidentally' overslept and joined the videocall at 10am :/ Ok so that's off my chest, I have a psychology SAC within the next week. I get extremely angry when I forget things for this subject so I have been recording my voice on my phone and playing it before I got to sleep it's not even funny anymore. I also teach my soft toys. Not sure if my teddy bear was too keen learning about Alzheimer's but whatever... (Thank you Whys for the tip!!!) I also did some mathematics, just some light reading and a few exercises on the unit circle and some transformations to get a bit of a jump start... It's never too early amirite?... On the topic of maths, I want to jump off a cliff when I get a question wrong in further. Honestly, I had a test and I lost 1 petty little utterly stupid mark on accidentally calculating the seasonal index for spring instead of summer. -_- I find that my kryptonite is when the dreaded SAC comes along and for some reason they're all paired in the same week. It just sucks but I'm trying to cope with it but maintaining a consistent work ethic so I don't cram and then enter the exhaustion stage of GAS and potentially contract a virus or something. English is pretty cruzy right now. I had to record my orals and send it to my teacher the other week but I didn't know how to crop it because my phone kept on freezing so I pretty much sent her some 'behind the scenes' footage of me talking to myself, adjusting my phone several times because it kept on falling and some yoga stretches before I started.
Outside of studying, I managed to do a bit of gardening and some skipping rope exercises. Anyways, I was eating a bread roll outside and I threw some chilli slices from the bread on the ground in front of me and a pigeon came over and ate it... not sure if birds can tolerate spicy food but I hope so... I thought jumping onto the Netflix crime bandwagon would be a good idea so I decided to watch Don't F With Cats the other day. Despite managing to binge watch a whole 3 hours I was completely shaken by the heinous crimes so I reverted back to watching The Good Place for some light hearted humour. Regrets life decisions
I guess it's time for me to sleep now. Nite everybody.
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on June 24, 2020, 11:49:57 pm
ALAS... THE END OF THE TERM IS NOW IN SIGHT! Can someone assist me with adding images to posts? I'm unsure of how to do this... :-[ Hey Everyone! :) I've neglected my journal updates for quite a long time no so I thought I might give everyone an update on how things are going. My school hosted a remote assembly on WebEx. My ensemble teacher pieced together a clip of the band members playing 'Happy' on our instruments. Usually the band performance takes place in the middle of the assembly but instead, this hilarious clip played and surprised everyone. Some people dressed up in their cosplay outfits and played their horns! Of course, there was that one teacher who didn't know how to turn off their webcam so their nostrils and double chin was showing on the screen...
I had a barrage of sacs during these last few weeks. Although I had double sacs for psych and chem on the same day, I managed to complete everything to the best of my ability. I went ham before my psych sac and did as many papers as I could get my hands and listened to my own voice recordings so hopefully that went well :-[ Chemistry is that one subject where my scores just fluctuate so I'm trying my hardest to maintain a consistent work ethic.
Spoiler
I'm sure that some people are going to be really disappointed in me with these results so please bear with me :-[ Atomic theory SAC: 80% Organic chem SAC : 91% Unit 1 SAC 1: 72%
Since the end of the term is nearing, my methods teacher has decided to host a pizza party for us all to enjoy tomorrow. Random fact but she broke the news to us that she's now officially an Australian citizen!
I have my English SAC tomorrow for analysing argument. Fingers crossed I'll be able to nail it!
I'll be back with another update tomorrow :) Mary
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: lm21074 on June 25, 2020, 08:45:48 am
Hey Mary!
To add images, you might want to have a look at this thread (see the reply from J41).
Congratulations on coming so close to the end of Unit 1! :)
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: ashmi on June 25, 2020, 09:26:32 pm
Hey hey Mary!! ;D
I'm so happy to see another update to this journal! (I've been waiting for this) I must say, that assembly sounds so good (and you had me hooked with the 'cosplay' costumes). Also, amazing job on Chem! You are doing great and I'm so proud of you for the effort you put in ;D. It's quite normal for scores to fluctuate here and there so don't worry ;).
That Methods Pizza Party sounds like something any student would dream to go to🥺🥺. (Please update us on how the pizza party went). I'm super late to this but I hope you did fine on your English SAC!
Keep up the beautiful work Mary and I look forward to another update soon ;D
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: homeworkisapotato on August 04, 2020, 10:37:40 am
Hey Mary! Your journal has been a delight to read and I'm looking forward to reading more ;D
I went ham before my psych sac and did as many papers as I could get my hands and listened to my own voice recordings so hopefully that went well :-[
I could never listen to my own voice recordings so kudos to that..listening to your own voice recordings require another level of courage which I never have lol. I always quit halfway hahah
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on August 04, 2020, 10:55:41 am
Hello Everyone! I made a commitment to post the other day but I didn't keep my promise because I was bombarded with SACS and tests and validation tasks I forgot to do so :-[
Anyways, here's a brief rundown of how I'm going with my subjects so far:
FURTHER MATHS: Okie so further maths is my FAVOURITE subject so far. It's just something I understand so quickly and quite frankly, I don't feel too stressed when revising for it compared to my other subjects:
Spoiler
Here are my SAC results so far: DATA CORE SAC 1: A+ (95%) DATA CORE SAC 2: 95-100% Financial SAC: (This SAC got cancelled and will be pushed to the beginning of next term and this makes me SAD :(
I don't know if I'll be able to get a 40+ but I'm still trying! My goal is to ace this financial SAC I've got coming up soon and try to get through at least 3 exam practice papers by the end of this week. I did a mock examination on a website and I got 100% on the multiple choice examination 1 8) so I guess things are going pretty Gucci atm in terms of further overall. (PS: I studied for the geo and measurement module during the summer break and my school decided to pull that off the study design so I guess that was a waste of my time :/)
PSYCHOLOGY: Ahhh my beloved psychology. I love psychology but I always find that I need SOOOO much more work on structuring my answers and just revision overall. I've been hanging around the high eighties mark for my sacs so far and I'm hoping that I'll snag at east a 90% or above in my next SAC. The last SAC we had was our practical writeup and I tried my absolute best on that SAC but I just feel like I didn't do as well as I would've wanted. We've started to move onto REM sleep at my school so I guess in terms of the content, I find unit 4 so much easier to grasp compared to unit 3.
CHEMISTRY: Ohhh chem. Can I just say, this subject is the most challenging out of what I've done so far in VCE. Despite being in the Advanced STEM class in year 10, I feel like chemistry is my nemesis? I got a pretty crummy score on my unit 1 examination at school (really my fault for lacking the understanding) so I guess I'll need to brush up on calculating moles and just writing reactions in general. We've started moving on to chapter 15 in the heinmann textbook so hopefully this chapter will go well because I covered a lot of acid and base theory back in year 10.
MATHS METHODS: I lurve methods! Despite this, I feel like my unit 1 examination for methods didn't go as well as I had hoped :( I guess the only thing I can do now is to revise on transformations and continue studying and constantly revising graphs and equations here and there. In class we're doing the unit circle and it's not too bad at the moment!
ACCOUNTING: So far it's been pretty cruisy in accounting so far. I got my SAC results back and I got an 82%! We've started moving on to physical stocktake and I find this subject is a nice break from all of my science and mathematics.
ENGLISH: I've never been great at English overall so I hope I'll be able to do well for next year! I try to spend at least 30 minutes writing everyday (This does not happen all of the time!) or read the newspaper. So far we've been covering Night by Wiesel and we're going to compare it to a series of poems with similar themes to the book. Night has been the most poignant book I've read so far due to the description of the Nazi oppression of the Jewish people.
I guess that's all I have in mind for today! - Mary ;)
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on August 04, 2020, 10:57:22 am
Hey Mary! Your journal has been a delight to read and I'm looking forward to reading more ;DAHAHAH there's always that one teacher... I could never listen to my own voice recordings so kudos to that..listening to your own voice recordings require another level of courage which I never have lol. I always quit halfway hahah
I always feel slightly awkward listening to my voice but I've tried to pretend it's someone else talking hahahha. I hate the sound of my own voice! :-X
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on August 25, 2020, 04:16:07 pm
Hello avid students! :) It's Mary back at it again with another journal update.
further I'm feeling a bit stressed for the financial SAC my school will be hosting when classes reopen for SAC in 2 weeks time. I feel that after attempting a few practice SACS and questions, I've been able to wrap my head around the entire concept of loans, ammortisation tables, annuities, perpetuities... Only time will tell how I will go. I aiming for a 40+ for this subject but I just don't feel that I'm working hard enough to get that. I've done a few practice exams and I was quite happy with the score I attained on the 2015 paper 1! I just need to do some more to hopefully garner full marks for both papers 1 and 2.
psych I love psych! It's just that it needs a lot more love because I am a very forgetful person. Lousing around now will just not cut it for this subject and my class has nearly started moving on to Mental Health so I don't have long before I'll start my practice exams. For psych, I have a sac on Sleep, consciousness and interventions to treat sleep disorders next week onsite.
chem In class, my teacher has been hosting webex calls for acids and bases. So far, the content is going at a very fast pace but I feel that I am understanding it much better than when I started with unit 1 chemistry. I will have a SAC covering acids and bases and the solubility of water.
English This year, my school decided to switch out the film 'The Long Walk to Freedom' for a series of poems to compare with Night by Wiesel due to the disruption caused by covid19. Analysing poems is a bit dry. I don't particularly like to study English and it's beginning to dawn on me that I probably won't get a very good study score for this subject next year :(
methods I'm kind of stressed for my methods SAC on circular functions tomorrow! Graphing sine and cosine functions with transformations is a bit confusing but I think I've sort of got the hang of it! I've been neglecting methods for a bit because I've been preparing for my psych sac.
Accounting I honestly have lost the plot for accounting. It's a very dry subject and I find it very boring. I might switch it up for a different subject (currently thinking biology) because the content bores me and I don't have of motivation for this subject. However I might just keep it for the sake of doing a filler subject because only 10% will count towards my atar so I guess there's really no point changing.
Outside of school, I did the librarian's trivia and after successfully solving the dingbat, I've won myself a canteen voucher! My bass teacher has also scheduled some webex calls for me during school hours for me to catch up on my bass lessons.
- Mary
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: whys on August 25, 2020, 04:47:34 pm
Hi Mary!
Good luck for all your upcoming SACs - I'm sure you'll smash them! Glad to hear you're finding psych interesting, that's always good to hear! :D With regards to Accounting, if you don't enjoy it and can't see yourself trying much for it next year I definitely recommend swapping out of it if you can do so - it's better to do a subject you enjoy than one you don't. You never know which subjects will be in your bottom 2 (anything can happen!) so swapping to bio or any other subject you want to do seems to be the better option. Definitely think it over though, and I'm sure you'll decide on a fruitful solution.
I don't particularly like to study English and it's beginning to dawn on me that I probably won't get a very good study score for this subject next year :(
I can definitely relate to this, but don't give up!!!! You have plenty of time to improve your writing skills, and there are always ways to make this subject enjoyable if you find it dry. Perhaps bringing up your concerns to your teacher or forming study groups might help?
Have a great week. :)
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Coolgalbornin03Lo on August 25, 2020, 07:31:55 pm
SAC my school will be hosting when classes reopen for SAC in 2 weeks time.
Wait what do you mean? As in your school assumes school is starting again or your school is allowing you guys to go into school just to do the SAC?
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: homeworkisapotato on August 30, 2020, 05:01:45 pm
Hey Mary! I hope your methods sac went great and all the best for future sacs ;D
About swapping into Bio 3/4, I 100% recommend it. It's so so interesting and you gain such an appreciation for the world and how far we as humans have come not just in evolution but also technology. Also with English, I highly recommend a tutor, as it is in your top 4 and a good tutor can do wonders for your speed in improvement!
Looking forward to more updates :)
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on September 01, 2020, 11:30:52 am
I can definitely relate to this, but don't give up!!!! You have plenty of time to improve your writing skills, and there are always ways to make this subject enjoyable if you find it dry. Perhaps bringing up your concerns to your teacher or forming study groups might help?
Hey Whys! :D Thank you for giving me hope to do well! After reading this, I managed to gain serious motivation to just pull my socks up and give English my best shot because it has basically been one of my poorest subjects throughout my schooling.
Wait what do you mean? As in your school assumes school is starting again or your school is allowing you guys to go into school just to do the SAC?
Hey Coolgal! ;) Yeah, I went to school yesterday to complete the SAC! We had to socially distance ourselves and sanitise and go straight back home after completing the SAC.
Hey Mary! I hope your methods sac went great and all the best for future sacs ;D
About swapping into Bio 3/4, I 100% recommend it. It's so so interesting and you gain such an appreciation for the world and how far we as humans have come not just in evolution but also technology. Also with English, I highly recommend a tutor, as it is in your top 4 and a good tutor can do wonders for your speed in improvement!
Looking forward to more updates :)
Hey! My methods SAC went pretty well. I got 90% on circular and trig functions! yay! Good news is, my further SAC results also got released and I'm super duper happy with how I went so I'm hoping I'll ace the financial one which is next week. After reading why's suggestion and yours regarding the accounting and biology switch up, I'm definitely considering it! If the blockings won't match at school, I might have to choose something else and I'm probably thinking health and human.
I'll post an update after my further period ends!!
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: homeworkisapotato on September 02, 2020, 11:41:17 am
Hey! My methods SAC went pretty well. I got 90% on circular and trig functions! yay! Good news is, my further SAC results also got released and I'm super duper happy with how I went so I'm hoping I'll ace the financial one which is next week. After reading why's suggestion and yours regarding the accounting and biology switch up, I'm definitely considering it! If the blockings won't match at school, I might have to choose something else and I'm probably thinking health and human.
That's great about both your Methods and Further sac. HHD is a great subject too, although the 1/2 is pretty dry. However, 3/4 is absolutely worth it! All the best for your financial sac ;D
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on January 04, 2021, 01:01:41 pm
Hey all! Apologies for the hiatus! I threw my password in the bin after the psychology exam because I was in such a negative state after the exam I avoided all VCE related sites for pretty much until results day ahahah.
Anyways, let's get onto the results:
Psych Ohhh boy I thought I messed this one up. I walked out of the exam room (which was held in the science lab due to covid restrictions) feeling like crap and I remember my teacher asking me what was wrong and I told him that I didn't finish the 10 marker and skipped an MC question by accident. This pretty much bugged me for the entire rest of the day and I cried myself to sleep that night thinking that I was not going to get that 40+ goal I aspired to get at the beginning of the year. I really didn't want to disappoint my teacher and wanted to be his first 40+ student. I'm also happy I beat my brother who got a 38 in psych when he took it in 2011 ahahahah
I guess the vcaa examiners were lenient or were being nice but I somehow pulled a raw 40! It's not the most ground breaking result but I am still thrilled with it!
Further Ohhhh boy I messed up exam 2 really badly. Everyone left the exam hall getting different answers and I remember feeling so conflicted after this exam. I got a raw 39 for this subject but I've told myself that it's okay! I will use further as a learning experience for this year.
SHOUTOUTS I wanna deliver a few shoutouts to the ATARnotes familia so here it is:
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Whys 🦁: Whys, the MVP. Whys, you are my source of inspiration for thriving in psych this year. I couldn't have trekked the journey through the tropical land of psychology without you. Thank you for always having faith in me. Your support and assistance for me last year was unparalleled. Really, thank you.
Eloisegrace 👩🏻🦰👩🏻🏫: Eloise, arguably the mathematics queen of the century! Eloise, thank you so much for assisting me with further and other doubts I had with maths and chem! You worked so hard this year and your wicked scores proved that! I admire you hard work ethic so much!
Ashmi👩🏻💻: Ashmi! DR CAS! Thank you so much for dealing with my spontaneous FM questions throughout the year! Also, thank u so much for helping me fix the sliders on my CAS! You gave me so many valuable tips and tricks for further this year!
homeworkisapotato 🥔 Bio queen! Thanks for reading my journals and wishing me luck every step of the way! I needed lots of it and I'm pretty sure without it, I wouldn't have been able to do well on my sacs and exams!
Evolio ✨ Evolio, if you're reading this, I wanted to give a massive thanks to you. You helped me with my psych work and never brushed off a question, even the simplest one about adrenaline and noradrenaline I had way way back at the beginning of 2020.
lm 🐢 Hey hey lm! Thank you for clearing up the doubts I had for psych. Even when I asked you one simple question about the placebo effect, you responded with a literal essay explaining to me in depth with how it all worked. Patience is truly your virtue. Thank you!
Good luck to the class of 2021!
- Mary
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Bri MT on January 04, 2021, 01:13:57 pm
Congratulations!
A 40+ is a fantastic result and I'm happy for you that you were able to achieve your goal :)
39 is still great and puts you quite high in the cohort. Pretty incredible as well to think that this year you've done 1/3 of your subjects and will be able to use your insights from that in year 12. Best of luck!
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: ashmi on January 04, 2021, 07:44:09 pm
Hey Mary!😄
WHOOP WHOOP congratulations for the amazing scores!! You have done such a terrific job considering it was your first 3/4s (especially though the pandemic too) and make sure to give yourself a pat on the back. I'm incredibly proud of what you have been able to accomplish this year and you can now use your learning experience to help improve in the future.
Good luck for this year and I hope to hear some more exciting journal updates in the future!!❤️️
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: whys on January 04, 2021, 11:35:01 pm
Mary!!!!
I’m so proud of you! You’ve done so well and I loved the passion you had for psych - it was a pleasure following along your journey last year (I was almost about to say this year lol). You’re well set up for year 12, and I know you’ll do well. You’re determined and have a great work ethic. All the best for the future!
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: eloisegrace on January 05, 2021, 09:31:27 pm
Hey Mary!!
Congratulations ;D ;D ;D I am so so so proud of you for getting such great scores in the middle of a pandemic. You are so hardworking and kind and I have loved following your journey.
I am also HONOURED to be in your shoutout list ❤️ I have loved helping you (even when it takes me two weeks to reply sorrryyyy) and I hope that we can help each other more this year!
Spoiler
Also, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE that you put a red head emoji next to my name, you are a true follower of my journal. I remember posting about that once and the fact that you remembered that is very sweet to me 🥰
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: The Cat In The Hat on January 06, 2021, 07:21:38 am
Also, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE that you put a red head emoji next to my name, you are a true follower of my journal. I remember posting about that once and the fact that you remembered that is very sweet to me 🥰
Spoiler
You're a redhead also? ;)
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: eloisegrace on January 06, 2021, 09:40:30 am
2% of the population and here we are! I just hope I wasn't the only kid on Book Week primary school dressups who was Anne...?
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: homeworkisapotato on January 08, 2021, 04:06:35 pm
CONGRATULATIONS MARYLEN!! Your scores are amazing, I can only dream of getting 40 in psych especially with that hard assss exam! I am so excited to share my Year 12 journey with such a hardworking individual such as you! All the best and have an amazing holiday <3
AND thank you soo much for the shoutout I'm very honoured!!! You've been such a great support to me as well so I hope we can carry this forward this year ;D
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Evolio on January 08, 2021, 04:31:57 pm
Hey Marylen! ;D
Congrats on those results! I'm so proud of all that you've achieved and I can't wait to follow you on your Year 12 Journey. And I'm glad I was able to help you! :D All the best for the future!
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on May 29, 2021, 12:17:08 pm
Warning: This topic has not been posted in for at least 30 days... It's no surprise that some of you might've thought that I've fallen off the Earth and abandoned my VCE journal but no, luckily I'm still here and luckily, I'm still surviving year 12.
At school, my chemistry teacher handed me back my sac marks and I must admit, I did not expect to do this well. Last year, I was doing so poorly I'd be embarrassing myself if I mentioned my year 11 sac marks, let alone my mid and end of year exam results for chem, I was even considering dropping this subject but after mustering some courage and pushing myself, I'm so happy that this subject is working in my favour. I managed to get
Spoiler
98%
on my last sac, so I'm hoping that this subject will end up in my top four.
My school has decided to host the formal in term three which is kind of annoying because I was anticipating for it to be in term 1 or 2 so that it could've been swept out of the way for me to focus on my studies. As an introverted person, I'm worried that the formal will end up being an awkward night for me ahahahha
I know that lockdowns can be annoying but I'm trying to change my mindset (approach strategies for dealing with stress amirite hehehe) by telling myself that what I can control is the amount of study I manage to fit in. Studying with a stuffy nose, high fever and an unbearably sore throat only compels me to lie in my bed all day but I know that's super unproductive! Netflix has brought some joy into my life and I've managed to catch up on The Office and Gilmore Girls.
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on May 29, 2021, 12:25:42 pm
It was very rude of me to not post a reply! I'm so sorry y'all! 💕
Spoiler
Eloise: Eloise, thank you so much for taking the time to read my journal last year (and this year as well!) I have no doubt that you'll score your dream atar at the end of this year. You're so sweet and thank you so much for helping me last year! Can't wait to see more updates! PS: GO flex your study scores you maths queen go youuu!!! 👩🏻🦰
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Whys: Omg you're still lurking round here! Ty for the wishes!
Spoiler
ashmi Ashmi! I'm so happy for you that you got on the Top Designs list! Super envious that I couldn't hop on the school excursion to go and look at your amazing work (reserved for art students only) but I hope to go sometime soon on my own!
Spoiler
potato Hey potato! (Can I call you by this name?) I loved reading you journal last year! It even sparked some motivation within me whenver I felt lazy lounging around in bed, mindlessly scrolling away on my phone. So happy that you got a 43 for bio! Go flex that score go you!!! Keep hustling my gurl there's no doubt you'll get that 99 atar!!!
Spoiler
Bri Omg Bri you've been trailing along!? Thank you for the wishes! 💌
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on August 31, 2021, 10:30:06 am
Song of the journal update! (Inspired by Ashmi!) This song represents the internal mental conflict experienced by Mary and her experience with the dualistic struggle between determination motivated by extrinsic means and pessimistic outlook. In this essay I will
Look, I honestly don't really know what else to say at this point. I'm typing this during my Accounting blocking so again, I think this is a huge mutual time waster for you, whoever is reading this and myself. If you're not prepared to to read about my ramblings then I suggest you turn back and head off somewhere else where time is better spent.
When I was in year 11, My goal for VCE was to get an ATAR of at least a 95+
Spoiler
🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡 Yeahh this isn't happening. I don't know if it's the lockdown or if I've overestimated my ability to succeed but I'm definitely not satisfied with the way school is going for me and how I feel like such a massive failure
If you've even bothered to read past this point, thank you. Really. I mean it. Sincerely. Now let's nosedive into my subjects.
ENGLISH hmmmm English. English. There's no choice but to 'do well' in this subject. Am I meeting that criteria of 'doing well'? Nope. Am I trying as hard as I should? Nope. Am I writing essays? If that means one paragraph a week and half assing an essay a week, YEAH! My school has been speed running through the comparative for I Am Malala and the film Pride. Random tangent but I just find it so irritating when I hand in an essay for my teachers to mark and then she's like 'oh yeah definitely look forward to reading this!' and then I get it back two weeks later like 😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐 Im not trying to start beef with her (hope nobody here rcognises which school I go to... yikes) but honestly can you just please mark my work please I just need feedback. Considering English is my weakest subject, this is really concerning. I don't know if my school is just trash in general but the text response took the whole english cohort two months to mark. In that period of two months, I was able to finish the entire chem textbook (oh wait I still have to revise this subject. More on that later), vacuum the house from top to bottom, exercise (a rarity) and change my phone wallpaper. If you're wondering how I went on that text response essay for Extinction, I lost four marks. I'm not going to delve any further because English marks make my head spin but I will move on now and discuss my bipolar relationship with chem.
Spoiler
Hey, before you tell me to empathise with teachers because they are busy human beings, I get that. But just please mark my essay. I feel like this never-ending cycle of my teaching refusing to mark my essay turns onto me and makes me demotivated to write more essays because I know that they will never be marked... and I will never improve in this subject
Chem Ohhh chem. I realised that chemistry is another subject that I will just have to do well in because I will need it as a prereq (more on my course prefs later). My teacher finished the course two months ago (yep) and now I've realised that half of the u3 content has fallen out of my head. It's so annoying when you learn something quickly and you get it but then it doesnt consolidate properly and then you forget it later and then you come to learn it again and then your other subjects become weaker because you've neglected them for the sake of chemistry... I have a remote sac for chem later this week on food chem and I feel so underprepared I feel like I'm going to fail this sac. My days pretty much consist of me walking around the house chanting, 'OXYGEN IS ALWAYS THE OXIDANT in a fuel cell'.
Accounting: This is definitely a bottom 2 subject. I put zero effort into this subject. Good news is that I haven't failed a sac and I'm hovering in a 'good percentile' to get at least 30+ ss. My class is currently learning about the DU PONT method of ratio analysis and comparing analysis techniques, return on assets, liquidity...
Methods: I don't know why but it takes me like two hours to finish methods homework every night. At this rate, it will probably take me a day to finish exam 1. Sometimes, I just don't have time to finish everything so I cram everything for the weekends and thus, go on an entire maths methods marathon on sunday afternoon till sunday night finishing unfisnished chapters, worksheets, google classroom stuff. I wanted to vomit when I started doing the past exam questions. They require such a sophisticated level of thinking instead of the 'ready to eat meals' you get in the textbook. My teacher doesn't follow the textbook and instead prints us worksheets full of notes and past exam questions and booklets she expects completed every night. We just finished confidence intervals last thursday so now exam revision is awaiting. I hate disappointing my methods teacher. She works so hard to give us extra worksheets, stuff to revise and yet I'm still here finishing a booklet on sampling from last week.
On a more positive note, I hope that I am able to get into something related to health science/pharmacy/ pharmacy science. My number one goal and dream is to work in pharmacy. I've always thought that being a pharmacist is cool because you get to interact with members of the community and learn about drugs but then I realised there was this huge issue about the chemist warehouse monopoly... So then I decided if I were to graduate with a degree, I might as well work in hospital pharm. Sometimes when I feel hopeless, I remind myself how grateful I am to be able to attend school and how education is so valuable. In fact, education isn't just about learning cool shizz in science class and how lipids are formed... it helps you achieve social mobility and how to make a living for yourself. Although we need to sacrifice our personal time and money to achieve great marks, our education is so valuable to us. I didn't realise how privileged I am, after reading Yousafzai's memoir. A very eye opening read to say the least.
Mary
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on September 10, 2021, 06:55:53 pm
To my dear journal readers, Woah, y'all still reading this? Thank you. I'm speechless. I don't know what else to say. My anticipation was that if I had forgotten about my journal, others would as well.
No more waffling, here's the song of my journal update:
Perhaps it might make reading my journal more tolerable?
English hmmmm.... what more is there to say about this subject? I can definitely sense that my writing skills have improved within a span of one year. But will it still be enough to achieve my goal of a 35+ in English? In year 9 ish I was like oh yeah oh yeah 40, no problemo... It makes me chuckle when I look back on my mentality back then. Year 9 me spent 50% of my time on English, 45% of my time on maths and a measly 5% on science. but anyways, my point is that I made an unhealthy dedication to English in year 9 because when I heard some year 12s got raw 40s and above I wanted to be like them too. Will I get a 40+ ABSOLUTELY NOT. Will I try. Yes. YOLO
I've sent my English teacher a grand total of 4 and a half essays for my upcoming sac on Monday and I am so irritated that zilch essays have been marked. I checked my inbox to see if I had sent them in a reasonable time frame for them to be marked but looking at my inbox, Microsoft Outlook is telling me that I sent my first essay three weeks ago so I am still wondering what's taking the department so long to mark one damn essay.
I don't know how people have the mental capacity to memorise an essay, let alone one hundred and twenty something (according to the dude who got a 45 ss in English years ago at the college) so I've been revolving around the 'cause and effect' mindset for my comparative essays. Like eg, Malala engages in activism covertly vs Mark's overt display of activism.. but consequences are, they must make sacrifices to reach their dreams blah blah and then I switch over to discussing the impacts of the egalitarianism and elitism clash by those who abuse their power and the differences include the reliance of spreading prejudice vs the brutal tyranny exhibited by the Taliban...
This update is going to be shorter than the length of the decapitated twisty in my chip packet because I'm depriving myself of the luxuries on the internet and any 'PREDICT MY ATAR' posts because I feel that it's jsut an unhealthy mindset to engage with. One of my teachers told me that you can't control your atar and scaling but you can definitely improve your marks from an 80 to a 90% or from a 90% to even a 95%. And I think taking these small, tentative steps will reduce the stress I impose upon myself on factors I can't control and instead, focus on improving my praccy exam and (final) SAC marks.
I should stop eating chips.
Mary
PS: solemn reminder to youse all including myself but just do it. Okay. Just. Do. It. You only life once.
Title: Re: Marylen's VCE Journey
Post by: Marylen on October 15, 2021, 07:57:15 pm
Sup
First things first... IM SAC FREEEEEEEEEE My last sac was on last Tuesday and I feel so relieved. But 'don't be lazy now!' says my English teacher. Squid Game? What's that? 🦑 I haven't watched recreational TV for about a month now because I don't want to regret anything come results day. Some of you might be chuckling as you read this and think 'pftttt I haven't watched TV in a YEAR'. Sorry! I needed my dopamine kick from watching Andy performing in Sweeny Todd in June 🤷♀️
My school gave our mock english exams to an external marker and I finally got my highly awaited results today! I got: Section A = 8-9/10 (Idk marker highlighted both boxes so I'm assuming I'm an 8.5?... Pretty sure half marks aren't given on real exam though)
Section B = 5/10 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 guess who didn't finish their exam... (sigh, if only I had more time to talk about how both authors emphasise how courage and valour are reciprocated yet are also challenged in their respective spheres)
Section C = 8-9/10 (feeling pretty gooooood considering my sac marks for this was terrible)
The GAT exam on the other day went pretty well! One of the teachers at my school is an examiner and she gave us the analogy that the 'GAT is like a lawnmower' so 'push it in your favour'. Sounds bizarre and it became the biggest meme at school and on the College Discord server but tbh I really liked this notion and that was what I did in my exam - wrote an expository piece outlining the significance of time for the modern man and I grouped the information into buckets that I could dissect further into each body paragraph... and wrote a 'sassy' piece of writing outlining how us flawed humans should admit to our wrongdoings otherwise we would succumb to our innate desires of protecting our self worth. Super grateful that I sat the UCAT which gave me ample time management skills to apply on the mc! Hoping my marks for this year's gat will be better than my 31 for Maths and 33 for humanities which gave me the biggest eyesore ever..... I don't know why VCAA loved my report on the evolution of cars for mankind so much that they decided to give me a 42 for written com. Besides, you music fans out there would've spotted the irony and laughed your heads off upon reading the 'songs about cars' infographic... I know I did... (Ahem, who decided to put "Little Red Corvette" on there? 😂🤔🤨)
Muck up day is on Friday and I'm not sure what to wear. From dressing up as an uno card to dressing up as Hermione Granger, so many people in my cohort are wearing such creative outfits (I had to google that squid game guard to see what all the rave was about) but I'm frugal and I don't want to spend money on an outfit so I might just come dressed up in a tacky tourist outfit and call it a day XD. Besides, I just want to have fun and not stress out on things that are VCE unrelated because of how close exams are.
Keep studying y'all! You only live once!!!!!!!!!! 🦾🦾🦾