How do I revise for the Chemistry exam?
You should already know by now that the Chemistry exam is on Tuesday 8th November at 9am. This is the day that you have all been preparing for; all the hours you put into making your notes and the revision you have been doing all year around has been preparing you for this last hurdle.
Before, this day arrives there are a number of things that you can do to prepare you to get the score that you want.
Revising for the Chemistry exam involves a lot more than rote-learning your notes, in fact many VCE exams require you to do more than write out answers that you may have pre-learned over the year.
Below are my tips on how students should be revising for the Chemistry exam:
- Make sure that all your notes have all been written and are in a nice and concise form. If you have not finished writing your notes, make sure that they are done as soon as possible. If there is simply too much notes to write up, then I would personally just leave the note write up and just revise with whatever notes you have, whether that be your teacher’s notes or lecture notes from revision lectures that you may have attended. You don’t want to be spending your time writing up notes that you don’t have now.
- Make sure that you do lots of practice exams. Your teachers would have given you practice exams to complete over these holidays and so you need to make sure that you actually do them and do them within the time frame set. Even though you will now sit an exam that covers both Unit 3 and 4 content, the past exams that examine Units 3 and 4 separately are still an invaluable tool to help to learn.
- In addition, to doing practice exams make sure that you leave the 2013-2015 VCAA exams until last as these exams will be a great indicator on what your knowledge is after having done all the revision. (By last I do not mean a day before the exam!)
- In terms of just reading notes as revision, I personally do not find this helpful. Chemistry is a subject where you need to apply what you learnt into new and unfamiliar contexts and simply reading your notes is not going to help. The only way they will help is when you do a practice exam and come across a question you don’t understand, reading your notes then will be beneficial, but simply reading your notes and not doing practice exams is not going to do you any good.
- Revision lectures – they are a great way to allow you to see what you know and don’t know. They are also another great way to get a set of notes. However, if you choose not to go to a revision lecture that is not the end of the world, they are simply another study tool that you may choose to use if you want to.
- Ask questions, whether that be to your teacher or tutor. Your teacher is there to help you succeed and so you should bombard them with your questions. Get your questions addressed now rather than later. Questions can range from something from a practice exam that you have done or general concepts. REMEMBER that there is no such thing as a stupid question!!
- VCAA Examiner’s report – these reports are filled with tips and hints that you can use in your exam. Although there may not be the same questions in your exam as in past VCAA exams, there will be likely questions in the exam that address a concept that previous cohort has found difficult. Make sure that when you are using these reports to correct the VCAA exams that you have done that you take the time to read what the examiners have written. This will allow you to get into the ‘head’ of the examiner and determine what they are looking for in an answer especially for those short answer questions.
- Stay healthy – it is all well and good to study and do practice exams all day, but it is also important to ensure that you eat healthy and stay healthy through exercise. This will ensure that from now and until the exam you are able to be in a state where you will be able to tackle anything that is thrown in front of you. Try to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and do regular exercise. Exercise does not have to be going to the gym, it can be as simple as going for a 30min walk or run in your neighbourhood. Exercise will help to reduce your stress and will allow you to tackle your next task with a clearer mind.
Have fun and good luck ☺
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This article has been written by Henry Ja, a Chemistry tutor.
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Moderator edit: Removed commercial link
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