[TUTORIAL] How to study for a Year 12 SAC

[evandowsett]

Hey guys, I run a tutoring agency and have had a lot of students ask me recently how to study for a Year 12 SAC, and I think it's a pretty straightforward process if you know what you're doing. I thought I'd map it out for you guys.

There’s an easy step-by-step process that I’d suggest following every time you have a SAC or test (this applies to not only Year 12 but every other year level).

Step 1: Find out what’s on the SAC

This sounds obvious, but many students don’t do it!

Use your teachers. Use your family and friends who are past students to give you tips on these specific SACs. Use past SACs to give an indication of what will be on this one.

It’s important to use the relationship with your teacher to its fullest potential. Teachers are there to help you. If you want to succeed in Year 12, one of the biggest keys to doing well is utilizing your teachers’ knowledge and willingness to spend time helping you.

Step 2: Do practice questions

There are so many resources out there that you practically have infinite practice questions to do if you’re willing to put in the time and effort to do well. Checkpoints and our Sharpen study guide series are the best options in my opinion

See if you can past SACs off your teachers so you know what last year’s students had to work towards. Many schools will unfortunately reuse past SACs each year so you may not have access to these, but just get your hands on as many practice exams and SACs as you can.

Also, don’t forget about simply doing every single question in your textbook that relates to the SAC content!

Step 3: Create a study group

Get a group of friends together who can hold each other accountable. When I was in Year 12, me and a small group of mates had a very strong competitive nature, driving us to be our best possible selves. If you can have a group of people like this, that will be one of your keys to success.

Get together once a week and work on whatever it is that needs working on at that time. People working towards a common goal is a very powerful force to be reckoned with.

Step 4: Prioritise your time

I know it’s difficult, but you have to make sure you prioritise properly. If you have a few SACs over the next week, it’s important to map out your time so you know how much time you should allocate to each one.

The hardest part is trying not to let the stress of it all get to you.

What you need to do is break everything down. If you have a SAC tomorrow and 3 days from now, you need to focus on the one tomorrow until that’s over. Then, move on to the one 3 days from now. If you have two on the same day, you’ll just need to gauge which subject requires the most attention and skew your time accordingly.

Set yourself a standard, not an expectation

When you set an expectation that you’re going to get a 90% in your next SAC, there’s three possible ways you can lose.

1.   You don’t reach your expectation and are disappointed in yourself.
2.   You reach your expectation, but inevitably think that you could have done better, and are disappointed in yourself.
3.   You stress out before the SAC, worrying that you won’t reach your own expectation and anticipating the disappointment in yourself.

Sounds highly counterproductive when I say it like that, right?

Instead what you want to do is set yourself a standard.

A standard is what you set when you say to yourself “I’m going to put 100% into my study for this SAC (and even this year as a whole) and I’m going to put 100% into the SAC itself when I sit down to complete it.” This allows you to let go of the uncontrollable outcome, and take control of the amount of input you have as a human being.

When humans are out of control of their destiny, they feel scared. You can combat this hugely by simply judging your success on your input rather than your outcome.

STANDARD > EXPECTATION
INPUT > OUTCOME

This is easier said than done, but it’s entirely possible and well worth trying to emulate.

Do the SAC!

Now that you know how to study, go and apply this to all your SACs. Regardless of which subjects you need to use this for, it will work. Let me know how you go and comment below if you have any questions. Good luck guys!

[NAT0003]

Hey guys, I run a tutoring agency and have had a lot of students ask me recently how to study for a Year 12 SAC, and I think it's a pretty straightforward process if you know what you're doing. I thought I'd map it out for you guys.

There’s an easy step-by-step process that I’d suggest following every time you have a SAC or test (this applies to not only Year 12 but every other year level).

Step 1: Find out what’s on the SAC

This sounds obvious, but many students don’t do it!

Use your teachers. Use your family and friends who are past students to give you tips on these specific SACs. Use past SACs to give an indication of what will be on this one.

It’s important to use the relationship with your teacher to its fullest potential. Teachers are there to help you. If you want to succeed in Year 12, one of the biggest keys to doing well is utilizing your teachers’ knowledge and willingness to spend time helping you.

Step 2: Do practice questions

There are so many resources out there that you practically have infinite practice questions to do if you’re willing to put in the time and effort to do well. Checkpoints and our Sharpen study guide series are the best options in my opinion

See if you can past SACs off your teachers so you know what last year’s students had to work towards. Many schools will unfortunately reuse past SACs each year so you may not have access to these, but just get your hands on as many practice exams and SACs as you can.

Also, don’t forget about simply doing every single question in your textbook that relates to the SAC content!

Step 3: Create a study group

Get a group of friends together who can hold each other accountable. When I was in Year 12, me and a small group of mates had a very strong competitive nature, driving us to be our best possible selves. If you can have a group of people like this, that will be one of your keys to success.

Get together once a week and work on whatever it is that needs working on at that time. People working towards a common goal is a very powerful force to be reckoned with.

Step 4: Prioritise your time

I know it’s difficult, but you have to make sure you prioritise properly. If you have a few SACs over the next week, it’s important to map out your time so you know how much time you should allocate to each one.

The hardest part is trying not to let the stress of it all get to you.

What you need to do is break everything down. If you have a SAC tomorrow and 3 days from now, you need to focus on the one tomorrow until that’s over. Then, move on to the one 3 days from now. If you have two on the same day, you’ll just need to gauge which subject requires the most attention and skew your time accordingly.

Set yourself a standard, not an expectation

When you set an expectation that you’re going to get a 90% in your next SAC, there’s three possible ways you can lose.

1.   You don’t reach your expectation and are disappointed in yourself.
2.   You reach your expectation, but inevitably think that you could have done better, and are disappointed in yourself.
3.   You stress out before the SAC, worrying that you won’t reach your own expectation and anticipating the disappointment in yourself.

Sounds highly counterproductive when I say it like that, right?

Instead what you want to do is set yourself a standard.

A standard is what you set when you say to yourself “I’m going to put 100% into my study for this SAC (and even this year as a whole) and I’m going to put 100% into the SAC itself when I sit down to complete it.” This allows you to let go of the uncontrollable outcome, and take control of the amount of input you have as a human being.

When humans are out of control of their destiny, they feel scared. You can combat this hugely by simply judging your success on your input rather than your outcome.

STANDARD > EXPECTATION
INPUT > OUTCOME

This is easier said than done, but it’s entirely possible and well worth trying to emulate.

Do the SAC!

Now that you know how to study, go and apply this to all your SACs. Regardless of which subjects you need to use this for, it will work. Let me know how you go and comment below if you have any questions. Good luck guys!

Would this apply for unit 1/2 sacs?

[evandowsett]

Would this apply for unit 1/2 sacs?

Absolutely NAT0003, exactly the same process. Finding out exactly what's going to be on the SAC is the most important part, then you can work on your strategy from there.

[TheCommando]

you're the best

[evandowsett]

you're the best

Thanks TheCommando! I'm glad it's been of use to a few people

[TheCommando]

The best advice i have ever head was frm my tutor who has decades in teaching vce
He said that the best way to suceed is a not do around 50% of the questions in your book and spend more time prioritising stuff like checkpoints etc. because he sees it all year around. Because the questions in your text bok are completely different than what is o nthe sac as what is on the sac is much harder and different than the book question. Theres actually alot of students who have studied so much in methods but get scores like 30 (which is still impressive) but could have gotten much higher if they studied the right thing

He also talked about how you need to know the shortcuts for exams as it doesnt just test your knowledge, it tests your speed and acuracy. Theres no point just learning one method which is usally the long way which u learn from your text book as when theres multiple choice questions you will run out of time as you are using the long method rather than shortcuts which are not on the text book and which teachers may not teach u. (As they teach the long methods as that is more i,portant in getting the marks for the short answer section) so knowing sll these shortcuts is vital as in multiple choice they dont care about your working  out

[evandowsett]

TheCommando,

I think that's great advice. A lot of teachers will tell you not to learn towards the SACs and exams, but why not?? Your SACs and exams are what defines your mark at the end of the year, and if you can get awesome at answering SAC and exam style questions, you'll ace it! Practice exam style books are the best saving grace once you've got the basic concepts from your textbook understood.