Communal VCE Journey Journal (feel free to participate!)

[Massimo1]

Just had our last day of school today and I'm highkey more sad than I thought I would be, but also really happy at the same time.

[Coolgalbornin03Lo]

Just had our last day of school today and I'm highkey more sad than I thought I would be, but also really happy at the same time.

I get what you mean. I thought I’d be happy to leave that train wreck behind but I’m sad that I had to hate that place so much and I couldn’t enjoy being a kid I always wanted to finish school, but not end childhood .
But I’m happy they will NEVER see me again 😄😄😄

[Massimo1]

One week out from the English exam and I'm feeling ... stressed.

I've been doing essays but they've mostly been in one hour blocks rather than the entire three hours so I need to do a full exam when I can, but I'm glad that at least I know I can finish essays within the hour. My hand hurts a lot when doing it so I really need to see how it is in the full three hour exam.

I think I'll be fine for the text response because it's my strongest section out of the three imo and because its a film I can rewatch Rear Window as needed rather than needing to reread an entire book.

 The thing that's really stressing me out is comparative though - I cannot remember any quotes besides the generic ones that everyone uses and it really sucks, and learning two books really just exhausts me. I really want to reread each book but there's really no time anymore as well 

[The Cat In The Hat]

Six days.

Six days.

Six days.

Till we never need to do English again. We'll never have to stare at a book and wonder what the author's trying to say. Never need to analyse what the author of that opinion piece over there is trying to tell us.

But, you know, I think that we'll never be the same again. We won't be able to just look at it from our perspective: that box has been opened and maybe can't shut again. We might find ourselves analysing it in our heads, assessing the impact they're trying to make on us, and trying to balance it.

The books we've read, the things we've discovered, in year 12 English, won't go away because the exam's over. That was a year out of our life, and a year we had to grow up that bit more, ready for the next stage in our journeys.

Now, our paths may diverge. Not just we-go-to-different-schools, nor yet we-do-different-subjects, but one might take a gap year, and perhaps never return to university. Another might go to a trade. Another may just go on to university like we always got told we would. We get our own choices, more than in high school. It's the beginning of the adventure, maybe. Or maybe it's just the continuation of the carefully-mapped plan for our lives.

But what we've learnt in English won't leave us.

What book or film did we study? The themes and ideas beyond our ken, that we wouldn't have seen, or understood, before the start of the year, aren't just to be brushed aside. The analysis we learnt - or maybe just heard the teacher tell us - isn't transient.

Year 12 English, especially in such a year as this, has changed us. Year 12 in general has.

Six days until the English exam, and English is over... in name, at least.

[Coolgalbornin03Lo]

I love the way you write it’s so philosophical!

And your absolutely right; everything that’s happened this year doesn’t just end next tuesday or on the 30th of November or whenever your last exam is- it will be with us for the rest of your life.

Thanks for this ~different~ outlook on VCE it’s really warming for some reason 

[The Cat In The Hat]

I love the way you write it’s so philosophical!

And your absolutely right; everything that’s happened this year doesn’t just end next tuesday or on the 30th of November or whenever your last exam is- it will be with us for the rest of your life.

Thanks for this ~different~ outlook on VCE it’s really warming for some reason 

I'm glad it warmed you! I don't know quite why I wrote it, it just seemed to want to be written out. A break from fiction, perhaps, but still being able to express things in the same kind of way.

Now it's five days....

[thunderie]

2 more days till the English exam aaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Coolgalbornin03Lo]

2 more days till the English exam aaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!

*1 day 10 hours

[The Cat In The Hat]

Please don't tell me we're having a countdown....
This time tomorrow, we'll be in the thick of it. Hopefully finished the first essay...!

[Coolgalbornin03Lo]

Please don't tell me we're having a countdown....
This time tomorrow, we'll be in the thick of it. Hopefully finished the first essay...!

This time tommrow we’ll be 4 minutes from freedom 😳

Edit: yeah I’ll stop now, good luck everyone you’ll do great 😊

[The Cat In The Hat]

This time tommrow we’ll be 4 minutes from freedom 😳

Edit: yeah I’ll stop now, good luck everyone you’ll do great 😊

For '4 minutes from freedom' read: frantically trying to finish an essay and panicking.

[blueycan]

Popping in to wish everyone on this thread the best of luck for their yr12 exams !!

[The Cat In The Hat]

The English exam was brilliant. I could've answered either of the two questions, for both Section A and B. We'd gone through both the Section B questions in class, actually, and as for Section A, I've never seen an easier question (who thinks of putting a question about first impressions for Pride and Prejudice - when it was originally titled First Impressions because that was the main thing of the novel!).
So I'm happy.
EDIT: Doubt has crept in. I am worried. Hoping for a 35 in English. We'll see.

[The Cat In The Hat]

A small comment about marks. Sorry I've basically appropriated this 'communal' journal for my own....

Heidi, if you're reading this, don't read this - you're going to disagree with me - I know it...

At the start of the year I hoped for a 90+ ATAR, just like the rest of my family. Now I'm being realistic. But when I put the study scores I think I'll get, into the AN ATAR calculator, it didn't even give me 80.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying high 70s (which was what it showed) is a bad ATAR (if I get it), it's just - well, for one, it completely wrecks my hopes for the course I want, and for another, it's so much lower than the rest of my family.

When I consider my English exam, I'm realising all the things I forgot to put in. The authorial intent. All the stuff that separates a high score from a middling one. So now I'm just trying to convince myself that I'll be happy with an ATAR of 80+. Which is nothing like what I originally expected. 90+ is just what you do in my family. I mean I know that this year, for me, has been harder than a normal year 12, with personal health stuff. I know that the year is just a weird year all round. But still. And I can't shake the idea the teachers are wrong about what I'll get. The Texts teacher basically assures me of a 40+. I can't help thinking that he just hears our surname and 'knows' what I'll get. The scores I've been getting simply don't add up to a 40+, in my opinion. And English? The teacher said we'd probably get a few 40+'s in our class. I know that therefore she was expecting me to (since I was ranked first in the class before the exam) but I feel like I let her down, by forgetting all the advice during the exam - all the advice except write more. Which I did. Forgetting to put in all those things I did in the trial exam, that picked me up from 15-16/20's to 17-18/20's. I barely analysed the visuals in Section C. I mean I knew they were there, I just... didn't talk about them. History, too; the subject I've been avoiding all year, because it's hard. I did a lot of study for it, and got in and looked at the questions and... I knew they were easy. But that didn't mean I could answer them. I got scared about the essay, it looked horrid. I started writing and it was fine. But evidence? I think I used what, five historical quotes throughout the entire paper? That's not a good idea. I was hoping for 70%, but with some of my vague 10-marker answers, I'll be happy with 60%. I got 65% in my trial exam. History is the only subject I'm getting an inkling that I might, might be underpredicting my study score by a point or so. But Methods is the biggest let down. I've throughout the year assumed I'll get at least a 36 raw - to beat my brother (great motivation that). But now I'm looking at the marks I'm getting on practise exams - averaging 40%, if that, for e1 and 50-60% for e2 - and realising I'll be lucky to get a 30 raw. Which doesn't give much room for Methods to boost my ATAR. And the teacher assumes I'll do well. Because of my surname or something. A teacher who separates the class into two groups - the 'pass-ers' and the '99-ers', who automatically assumes I'm classified as a 99-er. She'd never taught me before.

So my current predicted (raw) study scores are: English (exam done) 37, Revs (exam done) 32, Methods (exam coming up) 29, Texts (exam last, over a week and a half away) 36. And an ATAR, I hope, of 80+. Call it 82, because that's just neat and tidy as exactly 10 ATAR points below my aim at the start of the year, 92. We'll see. I have a very kind friend (you know who you are if you see this, my friend) who says she's sure I'll get that 90+. However, although I appreciate her sentiments, I know I'm the one doing the exam. I saw what I did. I know my Methods weaknesses. So I think I know more than her what I'll get. Of course, it would be nice if she were right... but I know she won't be.

Odd how an 85 ATAR suddenly seems such an achievement, for me.

OK, rant over. I'll be sensible again and try and forget about it.

-Disclaimer-
We all have different score expectations - an ATAR of 85 is an achievement, but not the kind of one I'm looking for... if you know what I mean.

And in case you don't want to read my slightly sad rant, here is something positive:
A brother who berates me for working too hard before exams. Tells me I need to do something other than school. That I'll work myself into the ground. Etc.
A brother who, the day of my Revs exam, after the exam - two exams down - comes and hands me a game (Exploding Kittens) which he bought that day, because I'd been working so hard and he was proud of me.
We haven't played it yet. That I've said we'll do after my Methods exams. But the thought - his kindness - really touched me. Everyone be nice to Yertle; he's a great brother. So there, that's the positive-ness coming here.

[The Cat In The Hat]

Well, hello ladies and gents, this is the day we've all been waiting for: the evening of the day of our last exam.

My exams are over, I've never got to do any of these things again. No more year 12, no more worrying about cohorts and rankings and study scores. Not until 30 December. Add to this the fact that I predicted correctly the essay question for Texts (1/3 of the mark) and thus prepared for it, as well as getting decent other questions except for the one about a literary technique I'd never heard of, 'pairing' and I feel my final VCE exam treated me pretty well.

Now - finally - I get to relax. I can pick up my hobbies again. Sweep the dust off the piano keys, off my camera, off my life. I can wear out my fingers writing the stories that clamour in my head, perfecting them, polishing them until every word is a gem. It's the calm before the storm, the eye of the hurricane. I'm just about to head out into the hurricane, where I'll be tossed every which way during uni, perhaps - but never lose sight of the ground.

My VCE journey is almost over. Just the results, and now, in the post-exams euphoria, I don't care, almost. I've done what I can. I think I did okay. Not what I wanted at the start of the year, but okay. Not what will get me into the course I really want, but I've put in enough effort that I know, whatever I do, it was my best. I've written 37,000 words of a novel during the exam period. I still might win NaNoWriMo again during my sudden free time here.

Finally - I've been waiting all year for this day - I'm free. Free from a weight that's hung around my neck for ever so long. It's the end of a journey and the start of a new one.

And what will I find, then, I wonder?