Maximise your chance of success in the holiday period

[phagist_]

agreed with Riete. Definitely use the holidays to relax and prepare mentally for the workload to come, as when you enter year 12 Term holidays will be used for revision!

[humph]

agreed with Riete. Definitely use the holidays to relax and prepare mentally for the workload to come, as when you enter year 12 Term holidays will be used for revision!

heh, holidays in yr12 = relaxing! for me, anyway. except for the first holidays, where i worked full time at the commonwealth games selling programs. but even in the september holidays in yr12 i didn't do much in the way of study - to be honest, if you don't know your stuff by that point, then studying won't really help you.

[phagist_]

It helped me! 

September holidays was the first time I started writing practice essays... 

[Nick]

It helped me! 

September holidays was the first time I started writing practice essays... 

What study score did you get?

[phagist_]

42.

Was hoping for 35+

[Nick]

42.

Was hoping for 35+

How could you write your first essays in September? Do you mean practice exam essays? Because obviously you would have had to write text responses for SACs.

[humph]

It helped me! 

September holidays was the first time I started writing practice essays... 

i never really wrote any that weren't set by my teacher until after school had finished, in the week leading up to the exam.


to be honest, writing essays was never particularly beneficial to me; i had another technique. instead of just churning out text response after text response, i'd just write the essay plan, plus a bit more.

basically, what i'd do is take an essay question on the text that i was studying (usually from a past or practice paper).

i'd write an introduction out in full.
i'd write the topic sentence to each of my main paragraphs (3-5 of them, usually aimed for 4).
i'd write dot points for the arguments i'd make in each paragraph.
i'd supply the quotes i'd use to back up these arguments.

didn't bother with a conclusion as mine were usually just reworkings of the introduction.

so basically what i'd do is analyse the question given and work out the best way to write a text response on it. using the technique above, i didn't spend nearly as much time studying: each text response plan would only take about 20 mins, tops. however, i'd feel i'd achieved just as much as writing out an essay in full. with the plan above, writing a complete response would be just filling in the blanks.

[phagist_]

How could you write your first essays in September? Do you mean practice exam essays? Because obviously you would have had to write text responses for SACs.

It helped me! 

September holidays was the first time I started writing practice essays... 

Yep, practice essays. Well I didn't really take SAC's all that seriously, so one or two nights before I'd just write out dot points and ideas just to get the juices flowing.

[Nick]

How could you write your first essays in September? Do you mean practice exam essays? Because obviously you would have had to write text responses for SACs.

It helped me! 

September holidays was the first time I started writing practice essays... 

Yep, practice essays. Well I didn't really take SAC's all that seriously, so one or two nights before I'd just write out dot points and ideas just to get the juices flowing.

You did extremely well given your somewhat laid back study habits. In fact a 42 given your efforts is fairly awesome really.

[humph]

How could you write your first essays in September? Do you mean practice exam essays? Because obviously you would have had to write text responses for SACs.

It helped me! 

September holidays was the first time I started writing practice essays... 

Yep, practice essays. Well I didn't really take SAC's all that seriously, so one or two nights before I'd just write out dot points and ideas just to get the juices flowing.

You did extremely well given your somewhat laid back study habits. In fact a 42 given your efforts is fairly awesome really.

lolz, you seem to think everyone has very strict study habits. out of the four 50s in english at my school, i don't think any of us would've done a whole lot more than phagist_. if what you're taught in class is good enough, then who needs to study?

[Nick]

How could you write your first essays in September? Do you mean practice exam essays? Because obviously you would have had to write text responses for SACs.

It helped me! 

September holidays was the first time I started writing practice essays... 

Yep, practice essays. Well I didn't really take SAC's all that seriously, so one or two nights before I'd just write out dot points and ideas just to get the juices flowing.

You did extremely well given your somewhat laid back study habits. In fact a 42 given your efforts is fairly awesome really.

lolz, you seem to think everyone has very strict study habits. out of the four 50s in english at my school, i don't think any of us would've done a whole lot more than phagist_. if what you're taught in class is good enough, then who needs to study?

You're in the minority of the population. I don't think your methods can be applied to anyone except those who are exceptionally talented and confident in all facets of English.

To say, "then who needs to study?" is completely ludicrous. That isn't going to help anyone here.

[humph]

lolz, you seem to think everyone has very strict study habits. out of the four 50s in english at my school, i don't think any of us would've done a whole lot more than phagist_. if what you're taught in class is good enough, then who needs to study?

You're in the minority of the population. I don't think your methods can be applied to anyone except those who are exceptionally talented and confident in all facets of English.

To say, "then who needs to study?" is completely ludicrous. That isn't going to help anyone here.

well, that was an exaggeration, obviously. but believe me, i'm by no means an exceptional english student, despite my score. english was, in year 11 and 12, always my least favourite subject. if you look at my other subjects, and my degree, you'll see that at heart i'm a maths student. the reason i achieved so highly was very definitely mainly based on the teachers at my school; they taught brilliantly to the exam. students were always aware of how to do an assessment correctly, and, as a result, generally overachieved. i think something like 35% of my year level got a study score over 40, despite my school not being selective (catholic private boys' school).

i think most students study very inefficiently for english. things like essay writing skills have been nurtured in students since the beginning of high school; there's no need to spend time working on this in year 12. everyone knows how to write an essay; it's mastering the content that's the challenge. that's why i think gaining a good understanding of the text is crucial, and that you should have this firm base a long time before your exam, and even before most SACs. i'd say the main thing that should be done before each SAC is brush up on quotes, as they're the easiest thing to forget. and phagist_'s study habit seems to me to be probably the best way to go about it.

[phagist_]

You did extremely well given your somewhat laid back study habits. In fact a 42 given your efforts is fairly awesome really.

Yep, it was certainly unexpected and I was thrilled.

That being said I wouldn't really follow my lead, as the questions I received on the exam were ones I was greatly familiar and very confident with.

My plan was laid back and even perhaps a little negligent and I cannot tell you how to study, that is the beauty of year 12; it forces you to learn and find out how you can study effectively and maximize results.

Every one is different and by this stage should be familiar with and know the extent of their skills in a particular subject; this is what you should base your study around, imo.

[kido_1]

You can get the Age delivered to you school for 10 bucks I think.