ATAR Notes: Forum

VCE Stuff => Victorian Education Discussion => Topic started by: Twenty10 on March 20, 2010, 10:08:02 pm

Title: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: Twenty10 on March 20, 2010, 10:08:02 pm
As the mid-year exams creep up on us...
How many weeks out from the exam should we begin doing practice exams?
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: physics on March 20, 2010, 10:11:12 pm
i havent started yet...i'm slowing eating the study guides and on the holidays i'm planning to start the exams and do the parts that i have learnt already and do the questions as i learn tehm at school :)
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: darkphoenix on March 20, 2010, 10:47:40 pm
I'm planning to start on the holidays. But we'll see how that pans out.. :)
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: physics on March 20, 2010, 10:50:12 pm
I'm planning to start on the holidays. But we'll see how that pans out.. :)
i told myself i will start but i highly doubt it :P
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: kyzoo on March 20, 2010, 10:52:21 pm
I am nowhere close to being ready for practice exams
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: stonecold on March 20, 2010, 10:54:15 pm
so far I am on track to hopefully do a chem exam or two over the holidays. :)
need to learn AoS 2 for bio so I can get onto prac papers for that as well!
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: EvangelionZeta on March 20, 2010, 10:55:38 pm
Term 3 holidays.  Doing them too early will just burn you out...=/
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: Albeno69 on March 20, 2010, 10:56:43 pm
yea i have no hope my teacher wastes periods unnecessarily.
last lesson he gave us donuts and said its a relaxation period. so im getting as much theory done on holidays maby one prac exam
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: Visionz on March 20, 2010, 10:57:04 pm
probs get onto my midyear practice exams a month before the real one.
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: stonecold on March 20, 2010, 10:57:36 pm
lol yeah, i think we're just talking science subjects here
....and accounting
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: Ilovemathsmeth on March 20, 2010, 11:03:11 pm
Please begin in July for Methods. I'm serious, makes a hell of a difference.

The rest - at least a month in advance. I started 1.5 months before midyears and a month before end of years for Accounting, Chemistry and for Further, I began in July like Methods.

But for English, do consistent work - start exam style questions in July. I did this, and really improved for language analysis and Hard Times. I'm quite annoyed actually because I didn't do so well on only Context during the exam, but my school and tutor told me that this was my best section and not to do as much work for it compared to the other two. So lesson to learn is: do the essays even if you're told that you're good with them :P
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: superflya on March 20, 2010, 11:08:24 pm
if i started in july, id get bored come september :P
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: LFTM on March 20, 2010, 11:08:48 pm
Starting accounting in holidays.
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: jimmy999 on March 21, 2010, 07:01:20 pm
This time last year was when I started Methods exams. Spesh and English exams started at the end of Term 2. Unit 3 chem exams i started about 4 weeks beforehand (just before we finished the course)
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: m@tty on March 21, 2010, 07:03:26 pm
This time last year was when I started Methods exams. Spesh and English exams started at the end of Term 2. Unit 3 chem exams i started about 4 weeks beforehand (just before we finished the course)
Out of interest, how many Chem exams did you do for each unit?
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: physics on March 21, 2010, 08:43:46 pm
this group called 'study sensei' pretty lame name ( and they admitteds it themselves lol) told us to do a minimum of 5 exams practise XD i can do that!
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: appianway on March 21, 2010, 08:55:54 pm
I definitely think I'd burn out if I started now.

I won't be doing any chemistry papers until after Taiwan anyway. Hopefully I'll get a good deal done in the few weeks leading up to the U3 exam though.
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: darkphoenix on March 21, 2010, 08:57:48 pm
This time last year was when I started Methods exams. Spesh and English exams started at the end of Term 2. Unit 3 chem exams i started about 4 weeks beforehand (just before we finished the course)

Wow thats dedication right there!
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: kenhung123 on March 21, 2010, 09:00:30 pm
Is it advisable to start prior to finishing the course i.e. do what you've learnt so far? Also, is it advisable to redo exams?
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: superflya on March 21, 2010, 09:02:49 pm
Is it advisable to start prior to finishing the course i.e. do what you've learnt so far? Also, is it advisable to redo exams?

yea if u cant find any other exams, no harm in it.
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: the.watchman on March 21, 2010, 09:04:41 pm
Is it advisable to start prior to finishing the course i.e. do what you've learnt so far? Also, is it advisable to redo exams?

yea if u cant find any other exams, no harm in it.

Yeah, nothing wrong with redoing them, as long as there is a long enough gap between doing it, so you dont remember all the questions :P
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: m@tty on March 21, 2010, 09:06:20 pm
If you think you will learn from doing it, then do it.
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: kenhung123 on March 21, 2010, 09:09:36 pm
Is it advisable to start prior to finishing the course i.e. do what you've learnt so far? Also, is it advisable to redo exams?

yea if u cant find any other exams, no harm in it.
Hmm well actually what I am wondering is whether it is beneficial to redo and kinda like master particular questions in a set of exams rather than spamming lots of new exams.
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: darkphoenix on March 21, 2010, 09:48:15 pm
Is it advisable to start prior to finishing the course i.e. do what you've learnt so far? Also, is it advisable to redo exams?

yea if u cant find any other exams, no harm in it.
Hmm well actually what I am wondering is whether it is beneficial to redo and kinda like master particular questions in a set of exams rather than spamming lots of new exams.

I think i would prefer to spam, no point in dwelling on questions you got wrong, chances are the exam will produce different ones.

But i would suggest you check the solutions for some of the ones you got confused on and make sure you know what went wrong etc.
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: kenhung123 on March 21, 2010, 09:55:20 pm
Thanks for advice
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: m@tty on March 21, 2010, 10:00:41 pm
Have a good think about what you want to get out of completing exams, then create a method by which you will realise these goals. My advice is document your errors and expunge them; particularly recursive ones, as these are the errors likely to assail you in the exam if you don't eradicate them. Make sure you know how to do every question you come across(which is relevant to Unit 3 Chem), as any of these can appear in the exam.
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: akira88 on March 22, 2010, 12:00:49 am
I always hear of people on VN saying they've done "30 practise exams" and I'm literally :O How on earth do you GET that many practise exams?! My school only provides the VCAA ones (lol so stupid as we can already get them ourselves from the website), and my only other option is to buy them (what a rip off, around $30 for a package). But that still doesn't add up to 30 exams...
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: natty on March 22, 2010, 12:06:59 am
I always hear of people on VN saying they've done "30 practise exams" and I'm literally :O How on earth do you GET that many practise exams?! My school only provides the VCAA ones (lol so stupid as we can already get them ourselves from the website), and my only other option is to buy them (what a rip off, around $30 for a package). But that still doesn't add up to 30 exams...

You get them from this forum ;) By about a month before exam time there's usually around 20 or more practise exams for each subject from the past few years. That's how I got all of mine last year.
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: slothpomba on March 22, 2010, 12:10:10 am
Yeah you can usually scrounge heaps of them off this forum.

My school has mandatory practice exams - in the hall exam style and all and they hand out quiet a few.

Try the forum and maybe consider going to a 1 day revision program from one of the companies, i think they offer practice exams too.

In regards to the question of when to start, i'd say..when you are ready (duh).  If you wanted a bare minimum time when you should start, id say 1-1.5 months before the exam.
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: TrueLight on March 22, 2010, 12:25:00 am
yeah if u want to get really high marks... otherwise [dont] follow my advice... start around 2-3 days before the mid exams lol
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: kenhung123 on March 22, 2010, 07:40:45 am
If you full on spam exams the entire day (extremely tiring) you can do up to 8
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: moekamo on March 22, 2010, 08:13:46 am
If you full on spam exams the entire day (extremely tiring) you can do up to 8

depends what exams you do, if they're english exams then thats impossible if you include reading time :P
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: GerrySly on March 22, 2010, 10:10:17 am
I always hear of people on VN saying they've done "30 practise exams" and I'm literally :O How on earth do you GET that many practise exams?! My school only provides the VCAA ones (lol so stupid as we can already get them ourselves from the website), and my only other option is to buy them (what a rip off, around $30 for a package). But that still doesn't add up to 30 exams...

Last year I managed to get 94 Method exams (47 sets) and 56 Spesh exams (28 sets) ranging from 1997 to 2009.

Is it advisable to start prior to finishing the course i.e. do what you've learnt so far? Also, is it advisable to redo exams?

yea if u cant find any other exams, no harm in it.
Hmm well actually what I am wondering is whether it is beneficial to redo and kinda like master particular questions in a set of exams rather than spamming lots of new exams.

I think it would be better to do an exam, then keep track of the errors and master the questions after you've done the exam. Don't do an exam, then keep redoing it till you get 100%. Do it, record errors and ways to combat those errors then move on. That way by the end you've seen tons of questions and you can then combat similar unknown questions with a tactic instead of just 1 question you have done 10 times.
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: akira88 on March 22, 2010, 07:48:51 pm
I always hear of people on VN saying they've done "30 practise exams" and I'm literally :O How on earth do you GET that many practise exams?! My school only provides the VCAA ones (lol so stupid as we can already get them ourselves from the website), and my only other option is to buy them (what a rip off, around $30 for a package). But that still doesn't add up to 30 exams...


You get them from this forum ;) By about a month before exam time there's usually around 20 or more practise exams for each subject from the past few years. That's how I got all of mine last year.
Lol I'm such a noob though, the only way I find them is when I accidentally come across one in a thread- just the other day I thought OMG practise unit 3 exams for biology! So i downloaded them, did one and wondered why it was easy- oh- it was actually for unit 1 biology :( Is there a thread for practise exams?
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: qshyrn on March 22, 2010, 07:59:11 pm
ive tried doing a few methods papers last week and its not looking good..  too many mistakes . its definitely better to wait a while till youve gotten enough practice.
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: the.watchman on March 22, 2010, 08:27:27 pm
ive tried doing a few methods papers last week and its not looking good..  too many mistakes . its definitely better to wait a while till youve gotten enough practice.

Yeah, it depends on how much practice you've had, but there is no harm doing them early.
In the end it's your own decision, but it should boil down to whether you can cope with textbook questions easily and with little error (except careless :P)
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: tram on March 22, 2010, 10:32:40 pm
I always hear of people on VN saying they've done "30 practise exams" and I'm literally :O How on earth do you GET that many practise exams?! My school only provides the VCAA ones (lol so stupid as we can already get them ourselves from the website), and my only other option is to buy them (what a rip off, around $30 for a package). But that still doesn't add up to 30 exams...


You get them from this forum ;) By about a month before exam time there's usually around 20 or more practise exams for each subject from the past few years. That's how I got all of mine last year.
Lol I'm such a noob though, the only way I find them is when I accidentally come across one in a thread- just the other day I thought OMG practise unit 3 exams for biology! So i downloaded them, did one and wondered why it was easy- oh- it was actually for unit 1 biology :( Is there a thread for practise exams?

is there?? i would very much like some chem ones myself
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: vexx on March 22, 2010, 11:23:31 pm
I always hear of people on VN saying they've done "30 practise exams" and I'm literally :O How on earth do you GET that many practise exams?! My school only provides the VCAA ones (lol so stupid as we can already get them ourselves from the website), and my only other option is to buy them (what a rip off, around $30 for a package). But that still doesn't add up to 30 exams...


You get them from this forum ;) By about a month before exam time there's usually around 20 or more practise exams for each subject from the past few years. That's how I got all of mine last year.
Lol I'm such a noob though, the only way I find them is when I accidentally come across one in a thread- just the other day I thought OMG practise unit 3 exams for biology! So i downloaded them, did one and wondered why it was easy- oh- it was actually for unit 1 biology :( Is there a thread for practise exams?

is there?? i would very much like some chem ones myself

i don't know if this has been posted here already but http://www.mediafire.com/cleoxo has quite a few :)
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: akira88 on March 22, 2010, 11:31:18 pm
Thanks :) I think I bookmarked it before but I'm just hoping more practise exams surface soon!
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: iffets12345 on March 24, 2010, 07:52:46 pm
The only problem I have with doing the Chemistry and Specialist stuff now is, I HAVEN'T LEARNT ALL THE BLOODY COURSE!
Obviously those who are starting now are ahead/smart/dedicated, but I mean, for chemistry, I can't start in the holidays since I haven't done any organic chem and have only just touched on mass spec.... so how am I supposed to do them?
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: m@tty on March 24, 2010, 07:55:35 pm
Learn the stuff first? Just read your book + wikipedia + ask questions here. Then you can move into a position from which you are able to start exams if you wish.
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: iffets12345 on March 24, 2010, 08:44:47 pm
m@tty... lol.... because I am genius enough to learn the differentation stuff in spesh by myself :).
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: m@tty on March 24, 2010, 08:49:46 pm
m@tty... lol.... because I am genius enough to learn the differentation stuff in spesh by myself :).
Okay, then don't. Not like you're any good at maths anyway.:P If you can't do that you're screwed next year in uni..... or is it this year?.... :P

Nah, seriously, you could do it. If you think you can't, then just wait....

Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: kyzoo on March 24, 2010, 09:58:43 pm
The only problem I have with doing the Chemistry and Specialist stuff now is, I HAVEN'T LEARNT ALL THE BLOODY COURSE!
Obviously those who are starting now are ahead/smart/dedicated, but I mean, for chemistry, I can't start in the holidays since I haven't done any organic chem and have only just touched on mass spec.... so how am I supposed to do them?

Hahaha same, I've spent too much time on English this term and not enough on other subjects =/.
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: kyzoo on March 24, 2010, 10:49:06 pm
So far two and a half since I had English SAC till 6
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: kyzoo on March 24, 2010, 10:53:05 pm
A little bit. I'm probably not going to touch language analysis for another half-year or so xD just finished the relevant SAC today.
Title: Re: When should we begin practice exams?
Post by: akira88 on March 24, 2010, 10:54:32 pm
You are such dedicated people lmao. I'm just too lazy to do anything :P