Hey Guys!!!!
Here are some tips and some of the things I did last year which will hopefully help you guys this year!!
1. SAC PRACTICE
- Sac practice is very important as it gives you a wide range of questions that will possibly be tested in sacs. It also helps consolidate your understanding of the topic. (Many of the questions I came across in sacs and on the exam were similar/related to the questions I practiced beforehand. This really helped me to stay calm under sac/exam conditions, which in turn helped me to think clearly and remember what points I needed to write about)
Before each sac I practiced:
- ( Around 2 to 3) 10 mark questions (super tiring)
- (Around 10 to 15) 4-8 mark questions
- (A few/hardly any) 1-3 markers (you don't need that much feedback for these questions because they don't require that much detail anyway)
- Don't make yourself feel better by doing all the easy questions... cross them out and do the hard ones
- Give it to your teacher to mark and go through feedback with her/him. The point of feedback is to find out how much detail is needed, what points are most important and what points can be omitted to save writing time on your sacs/exam.
- Tbh, I didn't use checkpoints as my school had an overwhelming amount of sac practice papers but I really wish I did!!!
2. STUDY
- Legal studies is a content-heavy subject, memorizing is KEY
Throughout the year, I:
- Read A+ notes, TSFX lecture notes, my notes, my sister's notes multiple times.
- Read the textbook three times in the year (Read the chapters while the class is covering that topic, read all the relevant chapters again before a sac, went through the whole textbook one more time in the two months leading up to the exam)
- Roughly covered the study design around 10 times. For me, repeatedly covering the course material was the only way I could memorize any of the content.
3. NOTES:
- My notes were nothing special tbh. I just summarized the textbook in my own words.
- However, it is important to structure examples and evaluations in a neater and more logical way than found in the textbook.
- Textbook: My school used Justice and Outcomes.
4. ASK QUESTIONS AND UNDERSTAND
- Always ask questions related to what you are learning to get a deeper understanding of the subject. I always used to ask my teacher really strange questions related to what we were learning, but not necessarily in the study design. This must have been very frustrating for my teacher, but it definitely helped build my confidence and understanding of the subject and prepared me for the end-of-year exam which had a few weird questions. Understanding is crucial because there are a limited amount of questions that teachers/examiners can actually ask according to the study design (explain, define, evaluate, etc.) so sometimes, they may ask questions that relate to your understanding of the topic (as was in my case last year).
- Another really helpful tip is connecting different sections of the course. (Quite a few exam questions ask students to explain, define, evaluate, etc. one topic or dot point of the study design and then explain using a totally different (and seemingly unrelated!!) dot point. Therefore, it is very important to connect ideas and topics to get a better understanding of the whole legal course.)
- Don't just memorize, UNDERSTAND!!!!! (This will also help you to remember information too:))
5. DON'T MAKE CARELESS MISTAKES
- Read the question CAREFULLY and answer it!! (Misreading a question is a common and unfortunate mistake, especially if you know the answer!!
)
- Try not to leave out any relevant details as they may be keywords or points examiners/teachers are looking for and if not mentioned, you may lose precious marks. However, don't write too much information until it becomes irrelevant, which will only waste your time in the sac/exam.
6. WRITE LIKE THE WIND
- This will come with practice, but I always tried to finish my sac/exam 10 minutes early so I have time to proofread and add any more detail if necessary.
- try doing practice exams in exam conditions (go easy on yourself for the first few) but there is not much use in doing questions when you won't be under the same conditions in the exam.
7. PRACTICE A BROAD RANGE OF QUESTIONS BEFORE SACS/EXAMS
- Other than practising 'normal' questions that will most likely appear on the exam, practice a few exams with a few 'unpredictable' questions.
- This really helped me in my end-of-year exam as some of the questions were totally unexpected but ones I have seen before. I can't predict the questions that will come out this year, but it's better to revise or at least skim through content that normally doesn't seem ALL that important as it may still be examinable.
8. DON'T FREAK OUT
- Legal studies is a content-heavy subject, with so many things to evaluate, examples to memorize, definitions to remember, etc. I was especially terrified with evaluating Australia with another country, VCAT and remembering and evaluating elements of an effective legal system (don't worry if you've never heard of these things before, you'll learn them later). Don't worry if you can't remember much of it, just practise more questions on it and cram (sorry, I can't really give you any tips on how to cram because I wasn't very good at that myself but what helped me memorize stuff was repetition and highlighting and remembering keywords). Throughout the September holidays, I wrote up a list with the few main examples and points I was going to use, read them constantly and memorized them to my parents.
- don't panic if you aren't too happy with your sac score.... you can still get over 40!! Just practice HARD for the exam and try to do better in your other sacs.... For those who are curious, my lowest ever sac score was around 82% and I was absolutely devastated (I usually got a sac score of 90% and over) as I lost many marks due to stupid mistakes and pretty harsh marking... However, that sac gave me an indication of what I needed to work on and helped me to never repeat those same mistakes again, although it might have lowered my ranking in the cohort....
On a side note, teachers who are harsh markers are your friends although it may not seem like it.... That way, you will know how you can make your answers perfect for the exam and impress your examiner, as well as save writing time by going straight to the relevant details rather than beating around the bush (remember, examiners only have a limited time to mark your exam).
- don't freak out if you found the exam hard and everyone said it was easy. I got really upset after the exam because I found it pretty difficult but in the end, you can't do anything more after you hand in your exam (People always say this to me and I never listened.... Never did I think that I would say this to someone else as well). Just relax and enjoy the bliss of ignorance.
9. LECTURES/TUITION???
- I didn't attend any tuition, workshops or lectures except one right before the exam. I'm not going to name who held them but I personally didn't find it that helpful when I could have spent the whole day studying... Personally, I think the content covered is basically the same thing you would get if you study by yourself at home. Also, lectures cannot cover the entire course with all the little details although they can help by giving you some exam tips and strategies. Overall, I'm not too sure about whether lectures/workshops are thaatttt helpful but it really depends on what suits you and your learning/studying method.
REGRETS:
- not doing checkpoints because the questions are directly from the vcaa exams and could have helped me do better in my sacs and on the exam. (although our teacher also had a ppt with vcaa questions)
- Spending too much time on one question in an exam. I remember it was a 4 or 5 marker and I wrote double the amount of lines required. This made me lose around 7 mins where I could have been focusing on other questions in the exam.
- Not doing more practice exam papers. I did around 12 full exams (not including sac practice) in exam conditions before the end-of-year exam but I wish I could have done more. However, it is more important to STUDY than to do EXAMS. A lot of people I know started doing exams early and I was really shocked and worried about my own productivity when I heard that someone already did 10 exams during the September holidays when I only did 2 and spent most of the holidays studying. Even if you see people around you doing HEAPS of exams….. Don't panic!!!! It is more important to KNOW THE FULL CONTENT than to just practice questions which may not cover all the content. That being said, it also depends on your study method and how you remember things.
I really have my teacher, Ms Wilson, to thank for her tireless effort, feedback on the whole heap of questions I sent her and for putting up with my annoying and sometimes stupid questions. She was an AMAZINGGG teacher and always calmed me down when I felt flustered before a sac. I honestly couldn't have done anything without her. Also, a shout out to Mr Niles for being an awesome 1/2 teacher and for making this subject so interesting!! Last but not least, a shout out to my sister Esther for helping me even when she was busy doing yr 12.
Anyway, I hope these tips are helpful for those of you doing legal this year…. I wish you guys all the best of luck!!!!
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