ATAR Notes Books

[Anonymous_]

I was planning to buy the ATAR Notes 2019 Chemistry and English Advanced books. Since I've never bought an ATAR Notes branded book, I was wondering what sort of things might be in it. Is it like those large textbooks (such as Pearson, Cambridge, etc) which has a lot of info crammed in each topic? Or do these books have more summarised notes which might be easier to note?

TL;DR What can I expect inside the Chemistry and English Advanced books?

[jamonwindeyer]

Hey there! Disclaimer: I wrote some of those books, though not the ones you mention

All of the books actually let you look at the contents in our online shop, so that's the best way to see what to expect! It definitely isn't a large textbook - It is purposefully opposite to that. Purely the essential knowledge you need to know for each dot point, mixed with advice and tips from the author (a past high achiever). I think they are fantastic - But of course I am biased

[clovvy]

Hey there! Disclaimer: I wrote some of those books, though not the ones you mention

All of the books actually let you look at the contents in our online shop, so that's the best way to see what to expect! It definitely isn't a large textbook - It is purposefully opposite to that. Purely the essential knowledge you need to know for each dot point, mixed with advice and tips from the author (a past high achiever). I think they are fantastic - But of course I am biased

Althought the notes itself is relatively ok and summarised info alright, you still need to read further yourself as some dotpoints summarised won't be enough to actually respond to exam questions itself (they are helpful once you know the content or vaguely unnderstand it)...
The topic tests however were fantastic, Jamon's physics topic test I would highly recommend to anyone, it saved some marks for me during half yearlies back then...

[literally lauren]

I was planning to buy the ATAR Notes 2019 Chemistry and English Advanced books. Since I've never bought an ATAR Notes branded book, I was wondering what sort of things might be in it. Is it like those large textbooks (such as Pearson, Cambridge, etc) which has a lot of info crammed in each topic? Or do these books have more summarised notes which might be easier to note?

TL;DR What can I expect inside the Chemistry and English Advanced books?

Disclaimer: I also work on the ATAR Notes books, and I've edited our new Chem and English Notes, so here's my informed but biased perspective, haha 

The AN books essentially condense the textbook down into what you actually need to know for your assessment tasks and exams, so you won't find any unnecessary stuff that's not on the syllabus. Also, for subjects like Chem, they're structured according to syllabus dot points so that you get a clear sense of what you need to know and how it all fits together. Unlike textbooks, they're written by past students like our very own Jake and Emily who not only did well in the HSC, but have also been tutoring and lecturing for years, so they're great at guiding you through the subject rather than just summarising a bunch of information for you. Most of our authors have also gone on to study these subjects at university too, so you get the benefit of their tertiary wisdom (which is especially good for the new syllabus subjects!)

The Chem Notes, specifically, do an awesome job of explaining concepts and giving you practical examples to help you understand theories, formulae, and principles - which is super valuable if you're like me and you need to understand things thoroughly in order to communicate them in an exam. If you're more of a rote-learner, the notes also highlight key definitions and equations so that you can just focus on what you need to memorise, and the overall summaries would probably be very helpful if you ever need to cram! And although like clovvy said, they don't contain the answer to every possible exam question, they try to take you through the key ideas so that you can answer these questions on your own.

As for the English Notes, they obviously don't go through "content" like all of the themes, quotes, and techniques in all of the set texts... most of what you do in class will give you enough text-specific material to write about in your essays anyway. Instead, they explain how to write essays! There are some 'scaffold' sentences and sample paragraphs, as well as a detailed breakdown of the marking rubrics and syllabus extracts to help you better understand what the markers want to see.

Happy to answer any questions you have, though as Jamon mentioned, the table of contents and previews in the store page should give you a good indication of what to expect

[Anonymous_]

Thank you all for your replies.

I was wondering whether the Chemistry books contained practical related (skills/pracs/extra info new syllabus emphasises on) content.