Howdy guys! I loved HHD in 2014, finding it a logical step-by-step subject I felt I could get good marks in... but more importantly, it was highly applicable to life in general and highlights so much how unbelievably lucky we are to live in Australia! Hope this jumble of hints is helpful in tackling this fun and informative subject
Take the subject seriously!DON’T take HHD as your bludge subject! In this subject, a little good, solid work goes a long way... I think it’s not that hard to get way better than your other marks if you just work. People don't tend to work as hard so there's far less competition; on AVERAGE, the IQ of people doing HHD will be lower as ATAR-of-99-maths-science guys tend to steer clear of it; and I believe there's less skill needed (you don’t need mathematical genius, artistic flair, or even really clear explanation skills like say for Bio). Check out the AN users' signatures - often the HHD SS sticks out a mile (e.g.
rebeccab26 as the first random one I thought of).
Please don't throw away your opportunity to get that study score you'll be proud of by thinking that because it's easy you can get away with bludging it! Aim high! (i.e. WORK HARD

).
Be in control of your learning.Your aim is to feel like a total pro of the subject, like you know exactly what it takes to get a good score... till you feel, 'Hell yeah, I could even write and mark the exams!'
Before the year starts, get someone's free AN summary notes (maybe ellaa81's?). Go through the notes - write/type them out differently, draw them, read them out loud - whatever works for you, till you understand what's going on. Work with the study design beside you, just try to get a feel for what it's about and its flow, on a basic level. Read over a couple of VCAA exams to get a feel for what you're heading for, what sort of things you're going to have to learn and how questions are asked.
Then, throughout the year, research. You can easily find stuff on the internet if you look for it! Also, go through model answers to prac SACs and exams, to learn the most effective ways to answer for full marks.
Don’t do more work than you need to. Unless you’re a crazy weirdo like me who LIKES to learn to develop themselves (or just for the sake of it), rather than just to pass exams

... minimise what you have to learn. Don't complicate it. You'll find there's less than you imagined at first. Sure, it's totally the wrong attitude; but will help get better marks.

Print about 10 double-sided study design key knowledge sheets (as attached with this post), stick them everywhere (textbook, wall, locker etc.), and make them your first reference the whole time. Group all your notes under study design dot-points, so you don't get way off track like the textbook does; this way you can eliminate anything unimportant. Don't stress about irrelevancies, e.g. age-standardised rates, the UN's structure and councils, 50 food sources per nutrient, or learning data.
That being said, to get a 50 you do have to be more widely read to be prepared for anything they can throw at you. If you’re happy with anything up to a 47, as most people are, do the MINIMUM.
Answering exam questions in HHD is a two-step process.A. Know your stuff. Learn the definitions and facts.
B. Waffle and invent! Building on your basic knowledge, make up all the rest.
A. ContentNothing in HHD is creative or difficult; a lot of it is just plain honest learning, either memorising definitions or lists or learning facts. To make this easier, write a set of notes (as well as more comprehensive notes with explanations) that just have facts and definitions. Don't put in explanations (e.g. how something promotes SHD or health status). Make sure, though, you cover everything - like ALL the definitions in the glossary in the teacher's advice document. Stripping it down to the bare skeleton, the core essential content, makes it far less daunting. HHD is very clearly defined and laid-out, making this quite simple.
Then sit down through the year and LEARN.
B. Padding!The rest is the skill of making things up. It does take skill; but once you figure out how to do it, as long as you've got the core content down pat, you should be able to invent good answers NO MATTER what question they throw at you. It's just about drawing links in your mind and then having a bit of ingenuity in making stuff up. (OK, sometimes questions have obscure content, and if you haven't learnt it, nothing you do can get you the marks.)
Here are some examples of what I mean
Explain the impact of [literally anything from the course] on health/health status/human development/sustainable human development.
You could waste your time learning how everything - Medicare, healthcare values, Dietary Guidelines, AGHE, Nutrition Australia, NHPAs, each MDG... ok I could go on for years... impacts on all these elements. Or, you can invent it on the spot. Say, it's the impact of Medicare on HS. If you know what Medicare is, you know that it's about providing access to healthcare. And if people have access to healthcare, how will that reduce their risk of dying from or getting diseases? That's all there is to it - you've just got to explain it.
Or, if it's the impact of the WHO agenda area 'fostering health security' on SHD. Be inventive. Health security ==> fewer outbreaks of nasty diseases like ebola or flu ==> people are healthy ==> can go to work and get an income ==> can live productive/creative lives, access to knowledge, health and a decent standard of living (HD) ==> pass on their knowledge to their kids.
Health: link to physical, social and/or mental health
Health status: link to a couple of specific diseases and whether their mortality/BOD would be raised or lowered.
HD: link to phrases from the HD definition
SHD: link to phrases from the HD definition AND sustainability definition
Global health: link to health status, then insert 'for all populations worldwide' or 'equity in health status'
List one advantage and one disadvantage of [something]
Like in last year's exam, we had to list one advantage and one disadvantage of the biomedical and social models of health. I hadn't ever thought of disadvantages of the social model! So I sat and thought, until I invented - 'the results aren't easily measurable'. Not great; but worth a mark! I didn't know - I just relied on my invention skills.
Describe a program that could be implemented...
Again - just making stuff up. Throw in as many specific details as you can, e.g. training midwives, or installing dams and wells, or giving fertiliser and seed and training on irrigation techniques, or whatever; but it's just a test of your invention.
Using [a factor or case study], discuss the interrelationships between health, HD and sustainability.
This just ends up a question of linking a factor/program to health, then health status, then HD, then sustainability! It looks scary, but if you think about it, it ain't much harder than 2-mark health status or human development questions, it's just longer.
Other hintsBefore the year startsEither take a good, solid holiday, or (if you're just sitting round in front of the TV) set 2 hours in the morning for schoolwork. It's not hard, won't burn you out, and will make the year easier. But DON'T do 8-hour days – by exams you'll be sicker of VCE than you can believe.
I would advise (in order):
1. Learn health status indicators, OFF BY HEART
2. Get to know the study design and the basic flow of the course – know where you're heading.
3. Learn Unit 3 lists: social model/Ottawa Charter action areas, VicHealth priorities etc.
4. If you still have time, head to Unit 4 and start learning definitions of human development, sustainability, HDI, the MDG names, etc. This'll take off the pressure later in the year, which is really helpful.
SACsTo get a high mark, you really do need high SAC marks (for both units, I had a 97% average) for your cohort. Most schools do SACs in exam-style format; if you prepare thoroughly for a SAC and treat it really seriously, you are getting maybe the best exam preparation you can have.
To prepare I'd take the dot points from the study design that the SAC is based around, and write/speak and record everything that you can think of under that dot point; then check over it to figure out what you need to study. Another way is coming up with all the possible questions you can think of for the area the SAC covers, and making sure that you could answer these.
But seriously, don't worry if you muck one or two up. I remember looking at my results in the mid 80s for one SAC (a perfectly good mark, but at the time I felt it would be a killer to the 50). When a SAC is worth only 7-8%, it's simply impossible to totally destroy your SS from one failed SAC! It's far better to make the mistakes, and learn from them, in the SACs than in the exam. From my disappointing SAC mark, for instance, I learnt to READ questions carefully rather than jump to conclusions... because if you head on the wrong track you get a 0 for a question.
ResourcesJust to encourage those who, like me, went to an academically poor school and couldn't afford revision lectures or expensive resources: the only thing I bought in the year was my required Cambridge textbook (the teacher also provided some company practice exams) - I never went to a revision lecture, but found that free notes on AN and searching the Internet get you a long way. A huge pile of resources and lectures don't make the 50, especially not in HHD!
The cheapest available resources I know are sold on AN,
yearningforsimplicity's and
mine, which both have heapppppps of resources for the price.
Practice examsActually the only trial exam I ever fully did was the compulsory school trial! Instead, I mentally thought through how I'd answer questions; if I got stuck on a question, I'd try it out on paper. I then checked the answers and noted down in red pen anything I'd missed or should improve on.
Ideally, though, I suggest doing a mixture: some exam-conditions-properly-completed exams, and others with just brief dot-pointed summaries for answers (saves time). Always check against the answers provided and highlight at the end what you need to fix up next time. Now you should to more exams than I did

, but I don't think you need to do more than 10 (plus VCAA) for HHD. It's important, but you've got to remember that no matter how many you do, if you don't know the content (definitions etc.) really inside out, you still won't get the best marks.
Which companies are good? From my experience of 2014 papers, QATS, Insight and then Health Teachers Network were the best, followed (a fair way behind) by Kilbaha. I think the ones I wrote for my pack are great, not that I'm biased or anything

*shameless self promotion*... I wouldn’t waste my time with TSSM or
Engage <-- rewrite: except the one you get when you go to their end-of-year lecture
I wrote that (jks jks, I hope I'm not that arrogant

).
Past VCAA examsLots of people like keeping VCAA exams to the end; I preferred to use them right from the start, for both SAC and exam revision and to really get a feel early in the year of what you're headed for, to help keep you on track. Essentially, it's making your own improved Checkpoints.
Before the year starts, print out 2010-2013 exams, full size like a real exam. Before each SAC, go through each exam with a coloured highlighter (different for each SAC, e.g. yellow for first, green for second, so that you can easily study the questions relevant to the SAC), and highlight all the questions related to that SAC. On a separate piece of paper, try to answer them. Then get the exam report answers, and with their help formulate the BEST answers you can and copy them into the original exam. It's excellent SAC prep, and you can use it to make notes from and study off the whole year through. By the end, you'll have a perfect question-answer booklet and know exactly what sorts of questions VCAA exams ask!
Save one exam (2014) to do in the week leading up under exam conditions.
How do study in the leadup to the examObviously, anything that works for you: cue cards, flow charts etc. I tended to find that rewriting notes (adding, simplifying or rearranging information as I went, NOT just copying) was actually best for me. But my favourite was
getting a study-design dot point per night, and writing or speaking aloud and recording all I could think of beneath it. Then I'd check my notes/textbook, write notes on what I needed to learn, and the next day dedicate 5-20 minutes to learning it.
Finally... ask a heap of questions on this board 