ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => Victorian Education Discussion => Topic started by: slothpomba on September 19, 2010, 08:07:03 pm
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Hey guys, i was planning to do like a week of revision and then start practice exams second week of the holidays.
My chem teacher suggested we dont start practice exams until the first week back and just concentrate on the theory and book/checkpoint questions for the holidays.
My original plan was to spend the two week holidays making all my notes and finalising theory then just hit practice exams after that.
However, im staring at the calendar on the wall and i realised after the holidays, i still pretty much have 4 weeks untill my first exam (bio is on a friday). (Loong time) So i was thinking about even taking the first week back to still do a little theory also..(so id have about 3 weeks to do prac exams for most my subjects)
We had some elevate motivational speakers come to our school and they reckon, if you run out of time making notes and revising theory, just stop. Start doing exams, do them open book even if you have to. His idea was that you'd pick up more and learn as you went along in the exam and not waste time. *shrug*
I think its still a good idea to have a very solid understanding of the theory in-case the examiners throw you a curve ball and a question pops up you've never seen before.
This lead me to wonder when everyone is going to start practice exams, so what are your thoughts on this?
(of course this doesnt apply to subjects where you've already got a solid understanding of the theory... should probably just do exams then)
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I am going to focus on revision until I feel really confident with how much I know, and then start on practice exams, but I will use both methods concurrently anyway.
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Now.
I'm fairly confident regarding the content for my subjects. =]
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awkward poll.
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awkward poll.
+1
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Haha nice picture nomvalt
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started practice exams 2 weeks ago, mainly methods.
for methods I've done 7 exam 1's and 3 exam 2's.
physics done - 4
accounting - done 1
further - done 2
English done 8 practice essays.
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Wow nice...
You've already finished all your notes?
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i don't really have to do any revision/notes/theory for chem, methods or further, so im only do prac exams.
englang did some notes in the last week+practice, so will start essays in the week /practice and go over unit 3 for a few weeks.
pe finishing notes in a few days / memorising everything and so begin prac exams sometime after that.
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nah i dont do notes lol cbf i learn by doing a shitload of question.
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Ive started prac exams since each topic ive covered quite thoroughly throughout the year, thus I dont need notes for them
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The two should ideally be happening together rather than be two distinct phases. Exams are good for identifying where your weaknesses are, but there's no point identifying these weaknesses if you're not going to go back to your textbooks and actually study the theory behind it as well.
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Really.. i never really thought of doing the two together and i've never really heard anyone mention that strategy before now... i thought it would be kind of a bad idea to do exams if you haven't got all the theory down yet and you wouldn't be able to do that exam either (well maybe you would if you forgot all the questions and answers)
So i should start doing both together?
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Really.. i never really thought of doing the two together and i've never really heard anyone mention that strategy before now... i thought it would be kind of a bad idea to do exams if you haven't got all the theory down yet and you wouldn't be able to do that exam either (well maybe you would if you forgot all the questions and answers)
So i should start doing both together?
Well you need a good basis to begin with, don't just jump right into them. But once you have and then you start realising you've got certain areas that need work after you get questions wrong in them, isn't revising those areas an obvious choice rather than foraging through numerous more practice exams and hoping that they'll test that area again? Even if you think reading the solutions to questions you get wrong is good enough, getting a question wrong in a certain area is usually indicative of more than just a minor misunderstanding of a single idea, but rather, the fundamental concepts surrounding that entire topic.
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notes are procrastination
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I've started doing exams for all my subjects now. Methods I started the beginning of term 3, spesh about a month ago.
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Really.. i never really thought of doing the two together and i've never really heard anyone mention that strategy before now... i thought it would be kind of a bad idea to do exams if you haven't got all the theory down yet and you wouldn't be able to do that exam either (well maybe you would if you forgot all the questions and answers)
So i should start doing both together?
If you can, start with insight. Their detailed solutions are perfect for solidifying your theory. But once you are confident with most areas sifting through the solutions becomes laborious.
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yeah as shinny said, you should be doing practice exams and using your mistakes/interesting/obscure questions from exams to enhance your notes. I have a little book for each subject containing such questions and answers.
I'm not really one to write and re-write copious amounts of notes. Essentially for my revision/summarizing i just on the odd occasion sit down with the study design in front of me and just try to address every point and whilst doing so try to make as many links with my book containing past exam questions which i've got wrong
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probably not long before exams unfortunatly. only have a couple for each subject. damn
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English and Lit mean you're always studying them no matter what, then writing up essays on what you know.
But for maths and chem, I don't see what's wrong with doing the practise exams, i mean generally when studying those two, you're basically doing questions anyways so it made no real difference to me. Except maybe chem, when you're reading up on all the industrial stuff.
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Completed my first one for both my 3/4 subjects today. Not too bad but expecting improvements :)
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we have prac exams all next week at school argh. haven't started yet, i want some holidays
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We have prac exams all this week (school holidays my ass)
So this will be the starting point for my practise exams
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how many practise papers a day do u recommend?
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how many practise papers a day do u recommend?
approximately 15
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how many practise papers a day do u recommend?
How many subjects do you have? If you have 5, probably 1 each subject each day.
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approximately 15
2 hours approx to do an exam, 30 hours. Not enough hours in the day buddy. I hope you're being sarcastic
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approximately 15
2 hours approx to do an exam, 30 hours. Not enough hours in the day buddy. I hope you're being sarcastic
Yeah pretty much.
The day before the VCAA physics midyear exam I did 11 exams and didnt know 40% of the course the day before, it worked out :P
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^ I'm sure 15 is possible if you are good with the subject.
I can complete chem and further exams in an hour, and psych i did them in 45min.
So if i worked from 7am-11pm I could squeeze in 15 exams of these with breaks, but that's so inefficient i wouldn't even want to do that :p
I'd say 3-4 exams a day is good, given you aren't doing any notes.
So a pe ~2hr, further ~2hr for both exams, chem exam ~1hr & englang exam ~2hr = 7hours which is possible (not sure how long englang/pe will take though as i haven't started these subjects for exams yet..)
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According to derrick ha, you have to correct it as soon as you finish it. Note down your mistakes and write into your error book. Thus you need double the amount of time per exam.
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You get to a stage with methods/spec where you can finish exam 1 in half the alloted time, and exam 2 a little longer than half that time too (some people go as far as finishing exam 1 in 15-20 mins and exam 2 in 1 hour)
I've also gotten to the stage where I can finish chem exams in about 40 minutes, i dont bother rechecking, because i want to note down the errors i make on first impression on a question, rather than going back and then fixing it.
Physics I am hopeless at though, need to full 1.5 hours atm, but im sure it gets faster.
I think it's just in the arts/language subjects where you tend to actually need the entire exam time.
ps. that does not take 2x as long
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i dont bother rechecking, because i want to note down the errors i make on first impression on a question, rather than going back and then fixing it.
Agreed! Except I do so horribly.
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I don't recheck either, but might consider doing it from now on. Using dha method! whereby doing the question using an alternate method to ensure the answer is correct
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oh i do that sometimes but sometimes in spesh i overcomplicate it. zzz.
and sometimes there is no alternate way of doing things in chem?
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You get to a stage with methods/spec where you can finish exam 1 in half the alloted time, and exam 2 a little longer than half that time too (some people go as far as finishing exam 1 in 15-20 mins and exam 2 in 1 hour)
That never happened for me and it won't happen in the future because I treat practice exams like they're the real thing. I don't do practice exams just for the questions, I also do them to practice exam technique.
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You get to a stage with methods/spec where you can finish exam 1 in half the alloted time, and exam 2 a little longer than half that time too (some people go as far as finishing exam 1 in 15-20 mins and exam 2 in 1 hour)
That never happened for me and it won't happen in the future because I treat practice exams like they're the real thing. I don't do practice exams just for the questions, I also do them to practice exam technique.
Yeah I do them for the questions
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You get to a stage with methods/spec where you can finish exam 1 in half the alloted time, and exam 2 a little longer than half that time too (some people go as far as finishing exam 1 in 15-20 mins and exam 2 in 1 hour)
That never happened for me and it won't happen in the future because I treat practice exams like they're the real thing. I don't do practice exams just for the questions, I also do them to practice exam technique.
This is what some of us should be doing.. (ie me)
I didn't do this for chem mid year as i knew the content so well that it was like, don't bother?
But i lost so many marks on stupid 'exam technique' questions as i was speeding through chem exams in less then an hour and not taking much note of my silly errors. arghh
so listen to kyzoo, even if it seems boring & annoying..
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^ There is a secondary point in that if you don't recheck when you're doing practice exams, you get a feel of how many marks you will lose if you only get to do the exam once and have no time to recheck. That is why I don't re-check. By not re-checking everytime I do another paper I try to improve my accuracy the first time round and that includes being able to process exam technique WITHOUT having to re-check.
Then, when you get to the real thing and have time to re-check you can eliminate as many errors as possible.
different people, different tactics imo.
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I only recheck when I'm doing VCAA exams, because I try to make those as realistically exam style as possible, as a true gauge of my likely exam score.
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You get to a stage with methods/spec where you can finish exam 1 in half the alloted time, and exam 2 a little longer than half that time too (some people go as far as finishing exam 1 in 15-20 mins and exam 2 in 1 hour)
That never happened for me and it won't happen in the future because I treat practice exams like they're the real thing. I don't do practice exams just for the questions, I also do them to practice exam technique.
This is what some of us should be doing.. (ie me)
I didn't do this for chem mid year as i knew the content so well that it was like, don't bother?
But i lost so many marks on stupid 'exam technique' questions as i was speeding through chem exams in less then an hour and not taking much note of my silly errors. arghh
so listen to kyzoo, even if it seems boring & annoying..
Actually exams are more boring and annoying if I don't treat them like the actual thing. If rush through them, I find it very annoying when I actually have to think since I treat the exams as if I am pumping homework questions. And then I end up losing about 10 marks. Whereas if I focus and treat it like a real exam, I find the harder questions entertaining, even though I take longer to do the exam.
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harder questions totally throw me off if I can't do them lol!
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You get to a stage with methods/spec where you can finish exam 1 in half the alloted time, and exam 2 a little longer than half that time too (some people go as far as finishing exam 1 in 15-20 mins and exam 2 in 1 hour)
That never happened for me and it won't happen in the future because I treat practice exams like they're the real thing. I don't do practice exams just for the questions, I also do them to practice exam technique.
This is what some of us should be doing.. (ie me)
I didn't do this for chem mid year as i knew the content so well that it was like, don't bother?
But i lost so many marks on stupid 'exam technique' questions as i was speeding through chem exams in less then an hour and not taking much note of my silly errors. arghh
so listen to kyzoo, even if it seems boring & annoying..
Actually exams are more boring and annoying if I don't treat them like the actual thing. If rush through them, I find it very annoying when I actually have to think since I treat the exams as if I am pumping homework questions. And then I end up losing about 10 marks. Whereas if I focus and treat it like a real exam, I find the harder questions entertaining, even though I take longer to do the exam.
This...
My first exam or two for each subject is usually just a gauge to see how much i actually know, and i dont usually do it to timed conditions.
But yeah, when you really get in the mindset, when you see a tough question its actually a relief; instead of the hundreds of the same chem and physics questions you come across which are just the same thing reworded with different values.
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hmmmm
ummmmm
ive almost finished my prac exam "time"
and now im just mainly focusing on how to just better word my answers.
:)
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matt will get 99.15
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matt will get 99.15
lol nice sarcasm
i dont even think ill get 90+ anymore.
stupid methods .. fml
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50 psych 44 pe 45 english 38 methods 35 chem 7 methods
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50 psych 44 pe 45 english 38 methods 35 chem 7 methods
more like
44 pe
30-33 english
45 psych
13 methods
34-35 bio