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VCE Stuff => VCE Science => VCE Mathematics/Science/Technology => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE Biology => Topic started by: Dr Curryface on April 27, 2011, 07:13:24 pm

Title: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: Dr Curryface on April 27, 2011, 07:13:24 pm
anybody know?

how much should I do?
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: kushwoho44 on April 27, 2011, 07:19:51 pm
At least 100+ to even stand a chance of gettin 40+

EDIT: I was clearly joking...
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: dooodyo on April 27, 2011, 07:21:14 pm
Haha lol man  :D

Its not about how many practice exams you do that counts its about how well you know
the course. Instead, practice exams should be there to help you just jog your memory
and well really to help you with wording your answers.

And for an example I know a friend who did about only 17 practice exams for biology
and then ended up getting a 50
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: pi on April 27, 2011, 07:21:42 pm
well, for sem 1, I did around 3 (maybe even 2), and I ended up with 40+ (for the full hatred of bio).

HOWEVER, i would recommend around 15. I know some ppl who did 30+ (per unit) and ended up lower than me.

Overall, just do as many until you feel comfortable with your scores, and leave VCAA until the end. GOOD LUCK! :)


EDIT: forgot parenthesis, grammar fail
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: Greatness on April 27, 2011, 07:23:05 pm
1, 5, 10, 20, 30 what ever you fancy. Some people may only need to do 8 or 10 and they will be able to get high exam scores. Depends on the individual. What i advise you to do is read the assessment reports and learn how vcaa want you to answer questions this is what i didnt do last year.
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: jbebbo on April 27, 2011, 07:41:06 pm
I agree with swarley - I only did VCAA practice exams and really focused on the assessment reports. The biology marking scheme is really annoying; they make you use specific words in certain explanations, and explain things a certain way. I had access to CSE, STAV and TSFX papers, but I didn't use them, because I found that the questions they asked, while good questions, weren't really the same as the VCAA ones and therefore weren't quite as helpful.
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: jbebbo on April 27, 2011, 08:04:42 pm
could you post up the CSE ones possibly? Thanks a alot
they were hard copy only, and i gave them to some friends last year ... sorry!
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: nacho on April 27, 2011, 08:06:15 pm
At least 100+ to even stand a chance of gettin 40+

EDIT: I was clearly joking...
no... really?

Anyways, im not doing bio, but in general, know your theory very well before the prac exams, (or at least don't try to learn it through practice exams)
Then, when you do practice exams and mark them, make note of all your mistakes and make sure you never repeat them.
Don't just do exam after exam after exam, ending up doing like 30, but not making note of your mistakes
that = waste of time, likely exam score = <A+
Be efficient, be effective
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: BoredSatan on April 27, 2011, 08:42:48 pm
last year i did quite a lot of practise exams which worked for me cause pretty similar questions came up on the exams! :D

but the most important thing is not how many you do.. its about looking at how they mark the exams. how many marks they allocate to each point for each question.
after you do a few questions you will see that the questions are similar and you can pretty much just remember those.

oh and a good tip is to use dot points when answering the short answer. saves a lot of time and also shows how many points you have for each question. usually its 1 point per mark.
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: pi on April 27, 2011, 08:50:20 pm
EDIT: I was clearly joking...

My bad, some ppl on here are actually serious about the 100+ thing... (-1 removed) :)


Swarley's advice is gold.
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: The Detective on April 27, 2011, 09:07:12 pm
30+ OR MORE!
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: totaled on April 27, 2011, 09:17:39 pm
Generally I've noticed in many subjs, if you do 20+ you're likely to get 40+ (of course there are other cases) , however, the rest depends on how carefully you do them, whether you properly correct them and stuff, but to answer your question, you should aim for 20 or above if you're aiming for 40+
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: BoredSatan on April 27, 2011, 09:38:32 pm
oh and a good idea, if you can, is to get someone else to mark them for you. that way you will know if you are expressing yourself clearly or not.
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: simpak on April 27, 2011, 10:09:49 pm
As many as you have access to.
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: HERculina on April 28, 2011, 12:23:29 am
wats CSE?
oh and a good idea, if you can, is to get someone else to mark them for you. that way you will know if you are expressing yourself clearly or not.
this IS a good idea. i shall try this actually. :)
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: Greatness on April 28, 2011, 06:40:18 am
Quote
wats CSE?
It's another external company exam.
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: taqi on April 28, 2011, 09:39:33 pm
I would have said "everything you can get your hands on"
however, that was what I would have said without VCE notes, which seems to supply everyone with hundreds of exams
Just do enough so that by the end of it you feel your repeating yourself too much and seem to be dieing of answering the same exact questions. Which would be about 20.
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: BoredSatan on April 28, 2011, 10:02:02 pm
do enough until you start 'enjoying' to do them..
then the exam will be a breeze
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: scocliffe09 on April 28, 2011, 10:48:40 pm
I think the magic number is 20, personally. Checkpoints counts for 4. Clearly the VCAA ones are most important.
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: taiga on April 28, 2011, 10:55:48 pm
It would be a struggle to get less than an A+ if you've done more than 15 and learnt from your mistakes.
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: 34590 on May 03, 2011, 07:14:58 pm
This depends on how well we learn our stuff.
And how serious we treat each practice exam.

However I would guess around 10 at least.
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: Charmz on May 03, 2011, 07:18:40 pm
How do you all attempt the practice exams? Do you do M.C first or S.A first, which one works better for you and why?
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: Jdog on May 03, 2011, 08:02:01 pm
its probably been said, but the main thing is to really thoroughly go through the vcaa assessment reports
they are porbably the best resource. and get others to correct it especailly those who are great at bio, since they will most likely be harsher than what is really done. and also if you correct them yourself really correct them very harshly, dont  be afraid to get low 50's or even high 40's/75 for the first 5.
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: Russ on May 04, 2011, 05:36:45 pm
How do you all attempt the practice exams? Do you do M.C first or S.A first, which one works better for you and why?

If it's a practice exam I just work through it from start to finish. When I'm doing them under timed conditions I do the same but I skip hard MCQs and come back to them
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: christine1994 on May 05, 2011, 11:07:17 pm
where do i get that many practice exams?? apart from the vcaa ones?
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: scocliffe09 on May 06, 2011, 05:20:39 pm
where do i get that many practice exams?? apart from the vcaa ones?
VCAA ones plus here: http://www.mediafire.com/cleoxo#ei5q01s5xf5oe,1 should get you started
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: pi on May 07, 2011, 11:10:04 am
where do i get that many practice exams?? apart from the vcaa ones?
VCAA ones plus here: http://www.mediafire.com/cleoxo#ei5q01s5xf5oe,1 should get you started

+1

I think a few members on here (eg. Bazza16) have about 40-50, look through their request threads or maybe PM them for more.


EDIT:
some links (there are more):
http://vce.atarnotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,36966.msg395475.html#msg395475
http://vce.atarnotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,36966.msg396018.html#msg396018
http://vce.atarnotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,37758.msg400156.html#msg400156
http://vce.atarnotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,40288.msg419391.html#msg419391
http://vce.atarnotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,36966.msg394813.html#msg394813
http://vce.atarnotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,41175.msg424912.html#msg424912

There are more links, but PM-ing might help
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: ezye21 on May 11, 2011, 07:45:40 pm
clearly the solution is simple ... the dumber you are the more practice exams you need to do.
in my opinion if you need to do more than 10 practice exams to get a score of over 40 in a subject like biology , you shouldn't be doing VCE in the first place. :uglystupid2: :idiot2: the important thing to do is to go over past VCAA examinations and read the reports and clearly see what they are trying to test, not bombard your self with practice exams hoping that if you do 50 of them your study score will reflect the same number. :knuppel2: :knuppel2: :knuppel2: :knuppel2:
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: Jdog on May 11, 2011, 08:24:55 pm
clearly the solution is simple ... the dumber you are the more practice exams you need to do.
in my opinion if you need to do more than 10 practice exams to get a score of over 40 in a subject like biology , you shouldn't be doing VCE in the first place. :uglystupid2: :idiot2: the important thing to do is to go over past VCAA examinations and read the reports and clearly see what they are trying to test, not bombard your self with practice exams hoping that if you do 50 of them your study score will reflect the same number. :knuppel2: :knuppel2: :knuppel2: :knuppel2:

this is not what to do, these comments are quite ridiculous, and i very much doubt this person actually did biology.  do as many practice exams as you feel necessary and confident with, the ke is to do them thoroughly
Title: Re: how many practice exams does it take to get 40+ in bio?
Post by: ezye21 on October 01, 2011, 10:31:40 pm
mmm well reflecting on my mid year score on bio i might be tempted to take back what i said... having only gotten an A for my mid year after only doing the VCCA past papers i must say i should have done a few more papers.... lets see how this time i go having done 20 apart from the VCCA papers and see how i go this time around and hopefully get that A+