Exam Preparation

[Lasercookie]

GUYS I thought it to be VERy important to mention this, but do not blindly trust solutions from exam companies.
I did the Swinburne prac Exam. Two days before the real IT exam and one of te questions on it appeared on the exam. I had carried the solutions with me into the exam, and just remembered the answer cause I read it like 8 times, went with Swinburne's answer... Cause they were Swinburne lol. Got 0/4 marks for that question.
use what you KNOW even if it contradicts why another company/person says, unless that company is vcaa.
Gl guys

+1
This is a pretty important point.
I've noticed quite a few errors in the practice exams I've done (both for ITA and Physics).

On the topic of VCAA, even they make mistakes. They had a mistake with a GANTT chart last year (it was either question 4 or 5). You can normally trust them most of the time. So yeah, definitely look over every question and if something doesn't seem right to you, verify with as many sources as possible (mark kelly's website, textbook, other exam solutions, your own notes, your teacher, post here on ATARNotes etc.).

[paulsterio]

Also remember to answer the question. I can't stress this enough, when we see a question that is remarkably similar to one that we have answered before or know the answer to, we instinctively answer it with what we have remembered. Sometimes, the question is just that little bit different, that the answer we're giving is wrong

[nacho]

GUYS I thought it to be VERy important to mention this, but do not blindly trust solutions from exam companies.
I did the Swinburne prac Exam. Two days before the real IT exam and one of te questions on it appeared on the exam. I had carried the solutions with me into the exam, and just remembered the answer cause I read it like 8 times, went with Swinburne's answer... Cause they were Swinburne lol. Got 0/4 marks for that question.
use what you KNOW even if it contradicts why another company/person says, unless that company is vcaa.
Gl guys

+1
This is a pretty important point.
I've noticed quite a few errors in the practice exams I've done (both for ITA and Physics).

On the topic of VCAA, even they make mistakes. They had a mistake with a GANTT chart last year (it was either question 4 or 5). You can normally trust them most of the time. So yeah, definitely look over every question and if something doesn't seem right to you, verify with as many sources as possible (mark kelly's website, textbook, other exam solutions, your own notes, your teacher, post here on ATARNotes etc.).

ah yes - another exception to my rule is mark Kelly. The pecking order for reliability is
mark Kelly, mark kelly's stool, the dirt, vcaa

[Lasercookie]

ah yes - another exception to my rule is mark Kelly. The pecking order for reliability is
mark Kelly, mark kelly's stool, the dirt, vcaa

Mark Kelly wrote the QAT's exams I'm pretty sure. They had a couple of mistakes in them

I think that just proves that the man is human though. He probably did it on purpose in order to stop us from proclaiming him as the messiah.

Or perhaps QATs has been lying to us about Mark Kelly writing their stuff. It's a conspiracy!

[abzzzz]

Mark Kelly was behind 9/11

^ too soon?

[Lasercookie]

Mark Kelly was behind 9/11

^ too soon?

I knew there was something fishy with November 9th

[Lasercookie]

The ITA exam starts in 3 Days, 12 Hours, 17 Minutes, 30 Seconds.

I'm going to look thoroughly at VCAA 2007, VCAA 2008, VCAA 2009, VCAA 2010 and the VCAA sample questions.
I'll only do the relevant study design questions, probably going off that Swinburne guy's excel spreadsheet (note he made a few typos, pretty obvious what they are though when you sit down and do the questions). In addition to that, I'll be reviewing my notes and VCEIT.com. If I do any study on the day of the exam, it'd be reading VCEIT.com for sure.

I might consider doing non-VCAA exams, but my current approach is to ignore all trial exam answers. The reason why should be evident - they suck and are filled with incorrect answers. That's probably just about the last thing you'd want to expose yourself to just before an exam. I feel confident I don't need the answers anyway, if I'm unsure I can refer back to the textbook, notes etc.

If any, I'd give priority (after VCAA) to QATS. I thought the 2011 exam 1 was quite well written. VITTA would be next and the rest would be ignored. Unlikely I'd have time to even get around to doing the VITTA exams again though.

Maybe I put too much emphasis on what is on VCEIT, but (re)read this to give yourself a refresher on general ITA exam technique: http://www.vceit.com/examtips/examtips.htm