ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => Victorian Education Discussion => Topic started by: elaine on November 21, 2007, 09:51:02 pm
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I know it's early, but from your experience, what are the best study guides?
Leading Edge
A+ Notes
Neap guides
TSSM English guides
Checkpoints
Or any others?
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the VCAA study design?
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lol nah i mean the supplement books that help you understand the concepts, not what is required.
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I know it's early, but from your experience, what are the best study guides?
Leading Edge
A+ Notes
Neap guides
TSSM English guides
Checkpoints
Or any others?
Checkpoints - Economics, Methods
Legal Studies - A+ book is great
Accounting - NEAP is great
English - NEAP for individual books
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i bought cambridge and insight guides for some of my english txts...
for chem n physics and spesh i got NEAP smartstudy theyre great
also bought A+ exams for methods and spesh which arent bad.
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I know it's early, but from your experience, what are the best study guides?
Leading Edge
A+ Notes
Neap guides
TSSM English guides
Checkpoints
Or any others?
It would depend on the subjects you're doing, as some companies specialise in certain subjects :) so which subjects are you doing next year?
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Checkpoints for methods? You reckon? Isn't most if not all of it simply made up of past exam papers you can get for free from VCAA?
Generally Checkpoints is awesome though and probably has the best reputation on the whole - just didn't have the impression it was for methods/spesh so I didn't fork out there.
I don't mind those Jacaranda study packs - the cards? There are a few odd bits of irrelevant material in some of them, but on the whole I found them quite handy to flick through spontaneously. I found it quite satisfying/motivating sorting the cards I knew from the ones I didn't, and seeing the latter pile getting smaller and smaller.
Those Revise in a Month books were quite good - the ones I had anyway. Apparently wasn't too great for HHD. Don't splurge on these... coupled with the study design, a good text and one or two study guides worked into your routine during the year should be plenty. You can always invest more come exam time if you run out of material and still don't feel 50-confident.
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I used A+ for legal last yr and psych this year and i easily thought they were the best ones i could find. Our teachers even used them and set homework from the books, which the study guide has all the answers to lol
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Physics checkpoints are the best. I used the summaries as preparation for the exam. The first physics trial exam I did I got 65% lol. Read the physics checkpoint summaries, did a few questions and never got below 95% or so for the rest of the year. :wink:
Unlike physics, I think in chemistry you don't have to do many problems to get good at it. For unit 4 the most helpful thing for me was going through the VCAA 2005 and 2006 exams the night before. The VCAA exams pretty much followed the content in the heinemann book, so just reading that was usually enough to do pretty well.
English erm. Most of the insight books aren't so great, although they have a few ideas. Some are better than others, for example I liked the Romulus, My Father one but hated the Generals Die In Bed one.
:)
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Checkpoints for methods? You reckon? Isn't most if not all of it simply made up of past exam papers you can get for free from VCAA?
I agree with this, for maths, checkpoints are just made up of a collection of past exam paper questions. Definitely not worth it.
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English erm. Most of the insight books aren't so great, although they have a few ideas. Some are better than others, for example I liked the Romulus, My Father one but hated the Generals Die In Bed one.
:)
Yes..I had those insight books too for my texts and well...I guess they were a waste of money because they were not that detailed...everyone in my class bought them so i decided to buy them too....stupid me..and it did not even help me in the exam....
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Checkpoints for methods? You reckon? Isn't most if not all of it simply made up of past exam papers you can get for free from VCAA?
Yes thats correct but I honestly found it great because all the multi choice questions were grouped under topics and in the once spot with worked answers. I didnt end up doing any extended response because i started doing full exams our school gave us by that time. So yeh, for the multi choice i think it was worthwhile but its up to u. I would go into the store and have a flick through it and see if you want to invest in it or something else.
There are lots and lots of other methods study books and i think another one i purchased was titled "Exam 1 Buster" or something - that was ok.
Oh yeah and for legal A+ is absolutely awesome so i highly recommend you get that.
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[Oh yeah and for legal A+ is absolutely awesome so i highly recommend you get that.
yeah I was about to say this one. This book was my teacher
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oh wow thanks for all your advice everyone :)
did anyone get a guide for 'a man for all seasons' for english?
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Checkpoints for Physics
Insight and NEAP also provide pretty good summaries.
Leading Edge questions are a bit weak/unoriginal.
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English erm. Most of the insight books aren't so great, although they have a few ideas. Some are better than others, for example I liked the Romulus, My Father one but hated the Generals Die In Bed one.
:)
Yes..I had those insight books too for my texts and well...I guess they were a waste of money because they were not that detailed...everyone in my class bought them so i decided to buy them too....stupid me..and it did not even help me in the exam....
Insight guide books are TERRIBLE.
I could've written a better studyguide whilst learning the texts this year. NEAP are quite good and incoporate relevant discussion
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Yeah NEAP is good for english ^_^
A+ for bus.man, further maths and psychology
Checkpoints for R+S... own notes can be more useful though
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I know it's early, but from your experience, what are the best study guides?
Leading Edge
A+ Notes
Neap guides
TSSM English guides
Checkpoints
Or any others?
Checkpoints - Economics, Methods
Legal Studies - A+ book is great
Accounting - NEAP is great
English - NEAP for individual books
checkpoints for eco is a waste of time lol. that's what i think anyway.
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checkpoints for eco is a waste of time lol. that's what i think anyway.
Really? I found it very useful, it not only has past questions but it also has topic summaries with detailed info. Oh well.
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checkpoints for eco is a waste of time lol. that's what i think anyway.
Really? I found it very useful, it not only has past questions but it also has topic summaries with detailed info. Oh well.
everyone to their own ay ? [does that even make sense lol] haha
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I used the A+ "Physics Notes" books for Physics and "Chem Notes" for Chemistry... Both were quite good and helped me a lot :)
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leading edge are so crap. its like they use a template for every subject and just adjust the title to match the subject.
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buy the old checkpoint books. sometimes during the year, A&G sell some old checkpoint books (left over stock) for like 5/10 bucks. so check out the store regularly. thats when its worth buying.
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being a study guide whore during the year,
maths: neap smartstudy is really good and quite difficult, a+ is so so but a bit too easy, don't bother with checkpoints because they only consist of past vcaa papers
english: from experience, i've found that insight is the best, followed by cambridge and then neap was the worst, as it simply summarised the text for minimum of two (except the newer red neap ones are a MAJOR improvement from the old ones)
science: for revision, i've found that the a+ and tsfx notes are by far the best (even to the point of being better than the textbook). neap smartstudy is really good for questions, but again i'm not a big fan of a+ because they're often irrelevant or easy
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i bought them all for methods. i liked the A+ study notes one because it had lots of questions and good solutions. checkpoints steals them from vcaa so you end up not being able to do practice exams properly. i HIGHLY RECOMMEND EXAMBUSTERS ABOUT A MONTH PRIOR TO THE EXAM.
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you wanna know what's the best way to perfect your chances at getting that 50!
DO ALL OF THEM =)
plus get some help when it comes to "Exam Strategy", where you have to deliver everything you've learned. (Practice exams help, under exam condition - try doing these ASAP)
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tbh nothing beats the practice you get from doing heaps and heaps of trials. everything falls into place as opposed to glancing at your year's notes.
for maths, i'd simply bind the notes, but put a cheat sheet on the front with all the hard questions you've encountered throughout the year.
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I liked TSFX notes(from the lectures), Exambusters, and the NEAP SmartStudy for methods. The Excel revise in a month book was alright as well, just a bit bland to be honest.
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I liked TSFX notes(from the lectures), Exambusters, and the NEAP SmartStudy for methods. The Excel revise in a month book was alright as well, just a bit bland to be honest.
Yeah, TSFX notes are quite good :)
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I liked TSFX notes(from the lectures), Exambusters, and the NEAP SmartStudy for methods. The Excel revise in a month book was alright as well, just a bit bland to be honest.
Yeah, TSFX notes are quite good :)
seconded...i went to their chem end of year lecture and they gave us material as comprehensive as the textbook we use..so its very good for studying...tbh i didnt even use my textbook alot this year for physics or chem.
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I made my own notes for most of my subjects. I used checkpoints for spec, though I'm not sure it was all that helpful. I will say that I found the A+ Physics Notes excellent and life-saving, and well worth purchasing for the easy-to-understand explanations, even though the practice questions are easy. I think I used the A+ Physics Notes more than my txtbook, coz the Physics Jacaranda txtbook is horrible imho.
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I find TSFX really expensive. is it really worth it? $140+ for a end-of-year maths lecture.
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Worth it? Not now that's for sure :P.
I honestly think you could do better with a tutor like Coblin. It sounds as though it might be better for sciences, but I found quite a bit of their methods material irrelevant to the course in year 11... I didn't bother with it this year. I mean, the workshops are good in that you're forced to complete at least 2 hours intensive extra work in a subject you might otherwise neglect, if nothing else, but it is a very expensive way of doing things. There are other ways of getting up near that 50 (not that I can say I tried them for methods this year :?).
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completely agree with fyrefly
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and also one for Business Management (dunno if i even need one for BM but eh I didn't do unit 1+2)... recommendations anyone??
best bus man guide is A+ notes :)
it's worth getting it, used it more than my textbook at times
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Bio - Biology Student Resource and Activity Manual
brilliant