ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => Victorian Education Discussion => Topic started by: lilyrosee on November 17, 2016, 09:47:32 am
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Hi guys,
I would like to know some effective ways people did notes for their VCE subjects. I understand that different subjects would require different ways to do notes so I was just wondering what your tips are and how to consistently complete notes throughout year 12. So if you could tell me the subject and then how you did your notes - that would be very helpful! :)
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Hi guys,
I would like to know some effective ways people did notes for their VCE subjects. I understand that different subjects would require different ways to do notes so I was just wondering what your tips are and how to consistently complete notes throughout year 12. So if you could tell me the subject and then how you did your notes - that would be very helpful! :)
To be honest, I haven't ever used my notes for revision (not extensively) - in VCE, you want your notes to take as little time as possible so you can answer more questions. So with my notes, they were basically just what I'd write down in class (and I'd write down a fair bit) - and that's it. If I didn't understand a concept enough, I'd attempt a question and look at the solution - that's where I'd learn everything.
tldr; notes are overrated in VCE (unless you do a content subject like HHD. Even for psychology, I used other people's notes rather than my own, coz its a waste of time for me personally)
EDIT: Holy shit I completely ignored your subjects pls just ignore what i wrote - this advice applies to all maths/science subjects
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Hi guys,
I would like to know some effective ways people did notes for their VCE subjects. I understand that different subjects would require different ways to do notes so I was just wondering what your tips are and how to consistently complete notes throughout year 12. So if you could tell me the subject and then how you did your notes - that would be very helpful! :)
You're definitely right, it does depend on the subject! :) The only subjects I took that are the same as yours are English and Literature, so I'll try and touch on these ones mostly.
For English, it's all about knowing your texts well and being able to write/talk about them. How you do this will be different for everyone. However, I'd highly recommend compiling quotes under subheadings of:
- Themes
- Characters
- Quotes
- Ideas/Issues raised
- Literary style, structures, features, or conventions
You'll find that as you go throughout your text, there will be very flexible and adaptable quotes- some more than others. Focus on these ones first! These will be brilliant for remembering in the exam. I like to think of these quotes as your base or safety net. No matter what you're thrown in a SAC or exam, these quotes will ensure you can write something and support it with relevant evidence. After you have these quotes, you can start looking for more idea or theme-specific quotes and really start expanding on the amount of quotes you have that will allow for more complex discussion.
I'm hoping someone with more knowledge of the new study design will come along but IIRC, you'll need to also compare texts? If this is the case, it would be worth taking notes (similar to the table above) comparing the texts (how they are similar/different) also.
As for Literature, I didn't actually have that many notes. Since you will be analysing passages, memorising quotes isn't necessary. (Again, hopefully someone else with more knowledge of the new study design will come along because I believe you now also need to write an essay in the exam analysing the text under a certain lens, e.g. feminist literary criticism. I'm not sure if you need to memorise quotes for this though or if you're just given select passages). I would recommend having notes on certain themes, symbols, or motifs that occur throughout the text as this will be useful to your analysis, however, I found that my class notes usually sufficed for this. What I found more useful was actually writing and analysing passages on a regular basis, and being able to put the theory into practise.
Some general advice that you can use across your subjects though:
- Don't leave things to the last minute. I think in history, especially, it can be tempting to leave writing up your notes towards the end of an AOS so that you have the 'big picture', but it's definitely more helpful to write as you go and fix things up if they need it.
- This is specific to English and Literature, but write, write, write! You need to be able to write about what you read and the only way to improve at this is to write often. Don't write essays- at least, not so early in the year, but write paragraphs. My Literature teacher assigned SO much homework weekly- either writing a brief passage analysis, analysing a certain theme or idea, etc, and my writing improved SO much because of it. Write on the same things if you have to, but always think/write about it differently the next time. :)
- Finally, and probably more importantly, don't feel like you have to write notes a certain way- or at all. I definitely wasted some time creating mind maps for English and Literature when, really, I didn't need them. That time could have been spent much better by just writing and analysing the texts instead. So if something doesn't work for you, don't do it.
Also just to touch briefly on what Swagadaktal said:
To be honest, I haven't ever used my notes for revision (not extensively) - in VCE, you want your notes to take as little time as possible so you can answer more questions. So with my notes, they were basically just what I'd write down in class (and I'd write down a fair bit) - and that's it. If I didn't understand a concept enough, I'd attempt a question and look at the solution - that's where I'd learn everything.
tldr; notes are overrated in VCE (unless you do a content subject like HHD. Even for psychology, I used other people's notes rather than my own, coz its a waste of time for me personally)
This definitely shows how much studying differs for certain people and reiterates my point that you need to do what works for YOU. I actually found writing detailed and extensive notes extremely helpful because I learnt by writing things. I also found that looking at other people's notes didn't really help me to understand or engage in certain concepts or topics properly.
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Thank-you so much! It's very interesting to read different perspectives. This will help me a lot :D
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I probably only wrote notes for english, text response and context. For Biology and Chemistry I used bought notes which were more than enough to cover all the course content however I wrote some at the start of the year but realised it was pointless. I took notes down in class but the company notes were better so I just used them but revised the class notes for Sacs. For Maths I had Derrick Ha Notes which great to learn the concepts and then at the end of the year to revise the theory days before the exam, since not all the theory is covered by doing practice exams although the vast majority is.