You’ve finished your assessments for the course. Trials are around the corner, and before too long, the HSC will be too. And, in what could be a massive conspiracy, uni applications are closing in the next month or two as well. Or maybe interviews for colleges. All of it is screaming, “I need a Band 6 in Physics.” Or at least, it was for me. And I managed it! I scored a Band 6 in all my subjects, including Physics, got a 99.8 ATAR and am now studying at the uni that I wanted.
A Band 6 in one of the “deadly three” sciences is sometimes viewed as a bit of an impossibility. A lot of people aim for Band 5. You shouldn’t! A Band 6 for Physics is achievable and well within reach with a bit of hard work and study. Sure, it’s hard, but the benefits are well worth the work you put in! A Band 6 in Physics is an awesome accomplishment, and here are my tips to get you there.
Do Study Notes Week by Week This is obviously much more useful for any Year 11/early Year 12 students reading, but this is probably one of my biggest tips. Don’t leave all your notes until the two week break before Trials. While writing notes is a good way to revise, there are much better uses of your time. You are much better off doing your notes week by week (this goes for all subjects).
Take an hour every weekend to read over your work for the week in Physics. Summarise it all in a page, less if you can. Obviously the shorter your notes are, the easier it is to revise, but don’t leave out important detail. This way, come Trials, you will already have a 40 page set of notes to use for revision.
This is the biggest mistake people make. Study Notes are NOT Study. They are a tool to help you study, the means to an end. But don’t think writing notes is all you need, and don't think they are something you
must do either.
Know Your TerminologyIn any science subject, half of the battle is knowing your jargon and terms. Physics is an exemplar of this.
You CANNOT get full marks in a relativity question without correctly defining a frame of reference.
You CANNOT get full marks in a cathode ray tube question without mentioning a cathode and an anode.
You CANNOT get full marks for a question on the ultraviolet catastrophe without mentioning (and possibly defining) a black body.
Knowing your terms is vital, and shows the marker that you know your stuff. Further, they are actually an awesome way to learn course content.
Instead of learning concepts, learn terminology. Knowing what a photon is ultimately means revising quantum theory. Knowing what back emf is means revising Lenz’s Law. Etc, etc. Terms are the starting point for everything. In fact, just making a list of all the terms, and memorising what they mean, with NO other study (and a bit of luck), would likely guarantee a Band 4, even Band 5 mark in Physics. No kidding.
So, in summary… Terms are super important. Learn them! Make lists, use study cards, make a crossword… All that sort of stuff.
Use the SyllabusPhysics is one of those subjects where not knowing a dot point will punish you. I fell for it in Trials. “Don’t worry about studying the contributions of a scientist to space travel!” I said. Guess what was worth 4 marks. This could be a conspiracy too, perhaps they are watching us, picking the dot points that we all miss…
Whatever the case, I strongly recommend making a checklist out of your syllabus. Both columns; they love to ask about practicals in the exam. Go through the checklist a week or two before the exam and check it off if you know you have studied that dot point. Use what’s left to form a study plan for the next day or two. Be sure that, by the morning of the exam, you have at least a basic understanding of everything in the syllabus.
BOSTES seems to always put questions on the ‘stranger’ parts of the syllabus in the exam. Einstein vs Planck on politics and science. Contributions of a rocket scientist. The connection between theory and evidence. The small, weird dot points that don’t get much attention. Give them that attention again, and it might just save you a couple of marks.
Don’t Stress About Your Trial MarkBig big tip. Sure, Trials are important. But you need to remember, it isn’t your HSC! Your mark will, 99.9% of the time, improve. Often substantially. My mark in my HSC Trial would probably have given me a low Band 5 result for my HSC. But I didn’t panic, and nor should you.
What you should do is see what you need to improve on. For me, it was time management. I rushed through multiple choice to get to the bigger questions, which caused a lot of little mistakes. I also recognised that I needed more study in a few certain areas. And of course, it is great practice of exam technique. The Trials should be your learning curve, your measuring stick. Of course, be happy if you do well, but don’t stress if you don’t.
Practice, Practice, PracticeWhen it comes to studying for the HSC, there is only one method I recommend above all others. Practice. Get your hands on every past paper you can, and do as many as possible under exam conditions.
Perhaps even more important than doing the past papers, is
marking them . This is when you get most of the benefit from them! Say you do a past HSC paper, and don’t mark it. Sure you might have a rough idea, but how do you know what you are getting wrong? Where to improve? Be sure to mark, even just quickly, all the past papers you do.
Of course, you have 5 or more subjects to study for. You might not have time to do too many past papers. There are two things that you can do to speed the process up.
1- Grab a massive stack of HSC papers, and spend 10 minutes reading through each one. Circle the questions which you think you’d have trouble answering. These questions form your practice bank, do half an hours worth every day through September and October, and by the exam you’ll have done the equivalent of half a dozen HSC papers. Obviously this is just one target, by all means do more or less!
2- Go back to your past papers that you’ve already sat (class tests, your Trial, etc), and circle questions you got wrong. Add these to your bank as well.
Doing these things will mean that you focus on the areas which are difficult for you, not the areas you already know. This is much more effective use of your time.
How Much Study Should I Do?This is a difficult question. It depends on your other subjects, your academic ability, and a whole host of other factors. I am hesitant to give a specific amount of time; you should study until you can look at a past HSC paper and be confident that you could answer the questions confidently, and correctly, the majority of the time. This takes a lot of time. I personally studied about the equivalent of one hour a day for Physics, probably equating to about 25 hours over the HSC period. This is definitely too much for some people, who may remember things faster or understand things more easily. But this is what I needed. I would say aim for at least 15 hours, or half an hour a day, to be fully prepared for a HSC Physics Exam. Add more time if you have difficulty with any concepts.
Exam TipsOkay, the time has come. You’ve studied, you’ve worked hard. What can you do to help your chances of smashing the exam? There is a massive amount I could write here, but here are a collection of my favourite exam tips for Physics:
- Create a little formula sheet/summary sheet to glance over before the exam, one last chance to get those concepts into your head.
- Walk into the exam confident and head held high. Pretend you’re about to sit a Year 6 Spelling Test. Strut into the room if you have to. The weird looks are worth it; that physical and mental confidence will translate into improved exam results! You’ll think more clearly, calm yourself down, and remove nerves which could impact your performance.
- Use the reading time effectively! That doesn’t mean speed reading the whole paper. Nor does it mean doing multiple choice questions in your head. Read each question slowly; I completely skip the multiple choice. Make note of difficult questions; your brain will remember them and work to solve them subconsciously. Get a feel for how you should allocate your time (EG- are there long questions at the end you need to make time for?) Don’t forget to check your elective questions.
- Do the multiple choice first. It can be argued that it is best to leave it until last, since you can guess answers if you have time. However, Physics papers are designed so that, if you work at a decent pace, you will have 15 minutes left to check your answers/fill in blanks at the end. So this is irrelevant. Do the MC first; it gives you a warm up and jogs your memory for the harder questions in the next Section.
- Do Section 2 next; leave the elective until last. No sense jumping back and forth. For Section 2, be clear and explicit in what you are saying. Show the marker that you know your stuff by defining any Physics terms you use, drawing diagrams, anything to prove to them that you understand what is in front of you.
- Reread your answers. Does it answer the question? Can you tell roughly what the question was just by reading the answer?
- Don’t be afraid to add dot points to your answers if you think of extra stuff. Further, I recommend answering extended responses
in dot points . Either way, don’t waste time with topic sentences. Content, facts, equations, anything that relates to the question, as many as you can in the space they give, plus more!
- Keep a spare eye on the clock, and have an idea of whether you are on track, too fast, or too slow (aim for 15 minutes to check over answers at the end)
- For the elective section, you should aim to write as much as you have time to write (without waffling). You have the free space, use it! Draw big awesome diagrams. Draw tables. Basically, you have the room, show what you know however you feel comfortable doing it.
- Leave questions which prove difficult until last, so you can let them sit in your mind for a while, and come back at the end when there is less pressure
- Make sure every diagram is labelled!
- At the end, check over your answers. Check simple things like;
SI Unit Conversion , have you given a
direction in your answer if required, does the answer
make sense , have you given
units , some easy checks that could save you some easy marks.
These are just a few of my favourite tips, but there are many many more. If anyone out there has other exam tips, post them below for everyone to see! If everyone in Physics does well, it does really good things to how it is scaled, so helping each other is in your best interests!
One of the best ways to help each other is through forums like this, be sure to register for an account and share any tips, experiences or questions you have. Until next time, happy studying!