CorkedBoard’s VCE journey

[CorkedBoard]

Hey everyone!

I’m CorkedBoard, and for some reason I’ve decided to start a journal following my end of VCE and possibly to continue on for university.
(I know its already end of Unit 3, but I guess later than never haha )

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Introduction/facts about me:
* Have been going to select entry school since yr 9 (may reveal which one another time lol)
* I play the piano and am currently doing Grade 8 in AMEB.
* A really big Apple nerd
* I love downloading weird, obscure shovelware and playing because why not (Cid the Dummy, anyone?)
* I collect Lego, especially the really old ones (20-40 year sets)
* Do swimming as a sport
* Really big Aunty Donna fan
* Also for some reason I really like software updates. Don’t ask why.

2021 subjects and goals (as of writing)

English Language - 34
(Not strongest subject, but I think I’m doing alright???)

Methods - 36
(I don’t find it too hard, its just really, really stupid and simple mistakes which I always trip up on)

Physics - 37
(Again, don’t find it too difficult, just theory messes me up a lot and the sacs at my school are extremely difficult)

Legal Studies - 43
(Easily my best subject, I am no doubt counting on this to carry my ATAR)

Economics - 41
(Probably doing almost as well as legal studies. My cohort is super competitive at the top end of the rankings, however, so its a lot of work to maintain the high scores)

I also got a 39 in Further Mathematics in 2020 which I hate thinking about (I was one mark off an A+ on exam 2, and made ridiculous errors on exam 1)

Plans after completing school

I’m realistically aiming for somewhere around the 91-95 ATAR range, as my dream course is Bachelor of Commerce at UniMelb, majoring in Actuarial Sciences.

Right now I don’t know whether I want to do Juris Doctor after 3 years at UniMelb, but that’s ages away so I guess that’s not too important at this point in time.

[CorkedBoard]

31/5/2021

Well, today was the first day of lockdown, and honestly I’m kinda happy we’re having one right now. I was meant to have a physics and legal studies sac this week. Which, then again, has also been postponed to next week, the EXACT SAME WEEK of the economics sac and the Gat. So, hopefully this lockdown gets extended just a tad bit longer so they become online sacs 🤞. Ah well. At least I have more time to prepare and study at least.

On another note, tomorrow I will (most likely) get my scores back for my formal short answer questions sac in English Language. I’m pretty sure I got everything, except I forgot what a modal verb was 😱 no doubt costing me 2 marks ( at least I think I got everything else (hopefully???). Guess I’ll just have to   hope for the best 😩

[CorkedBoard]

2/6/2021

Well great. I had all my study planned out based on having sacs this week and the next, but now it seems thats all been clumped into a SINGLE week, including the GAT. Now I have to balance all my subjects again, which is getting even more confusing since we’re already moving into unit 4 without finishing unit 3, such as in physics and legal studies.
In physics, we’ve got a whole poster due in two weeks, and we have the sac on Monday. Why can’t we just have it on Friday? This is the second week its been postponed (it was meant to be last friday), and I’ve honestly run out of practice sacs to do. 😩

Well, this weekend is going to be a total grind for economics (legal and physics I feel like I’m okay for, just require a bit more revision). I’ve got a whole chapter to go through, and hopefully I can get through it the next few days 🤞

On the other hand, I still didn’t get my english language sac results as of writing. Does it really take 5 weeks to mark a sac? Maybe we’ll just get it handed back on Friday, but I guess just have to wait (in fear 😧 )and see.

[CorkedBoard]

Last week was return after lockdown, and honestly is was hectic AF.
All my sacs got pushed back to this week, so it was a lot of hurriedly revising content and trying to juggle all my subjects at once. Well, thank goodness its over

Monday

My first sac was physics on Monday, and I’m a bit disappointed with how I went, considering the amount of studying I did for it (Cambridge checkpoints for an entire weekend). It was harder than usually, with less marks and only 40 minutes for the sac. The topic was electromagnetism, and whilst the sac wasn’t too hard, there’s one question I knew that I got definitely wrong, but the rest are definitely controversial and has been the subject of (heated) debate over the past week. Transformer questions I think I nailed though, so at least thats a win 🤞

Expectation (High B+ to low-mid A, dropping around 5 marks for 32)

Wednesday

Second sac was Legal Studies on Wednesday, a 50 mark sac on the entirety of U3 AOS2, the Civil Justice System. I don’t think I screwed up especially bad on this one, but I USED A WRONG FACT ON MY 8 MARKER. I was discussing the National Justice Interpreter Scheme as a recommended reform which upholds accessibility, and wrote that VCAT charges clients for an interpreter, which as it turns out THEY DO NOT. Ugh. Apart from that, which will haunt me for the rest of my life, I didn’t write my 5 markers (which talked about whether a dispute resolution service was relevant or not) to a high standard as I intended due to time constraints. I’m happy with everything else though at least 👍

Expectation (A-A+, hopefully around 85%, lose 7 marks from 50)

Friday

Finally, on Friday, there was the Economics sac. It was U3 AO3, Australia and the World Economy. To be honest, it was by far the easiest sac for economics by far. Not only was it 40 marks in 80 minutes (the last one was 60 marks in the same time period), the multiple choice questions were straight forward and the written response was not too difficult. I forgot the current unemployment rate (it’s 5.5% not 5.8% dangit), and forgot to mention the current exchange somewhere (don’t know whether it was relevant to the question but could have been useful), however overall I’m quite happy with how it went, as I finished quite early, and multiple choice was so much easier than the last sacs. Multiple choice has always ruined my scores (I dropped 7 marks because of it last time!), but I’m hoping for 13/14 out of 15 to redeem myself haha.

In other news, I received my  English Language formal short answer sac back. And I got a

Spoiler

62%

I know the average was much lower, but I worked so hard yet I made so many silly mistakes! To be fair, my teacher is such a harsh marker though, and many students (from what I have heard) have done much worse. And at least I got full marks for some questions; that didn’t happen in my informal short answer sac.

Overall, I’m glad that sacs are all over and done with until next term, and I have time to relax and prepare for my Grade 8 piano AMEB exam (which is next Sunday btw 😬).

[caffinatedloz]

Last week was return after lockdown, and honestly is was hectic AF.
All my sacs got pushed back to this week, so it was a lot of hurriedly revising content and trying to juggle all my subjects at once. Well, thank goodness its over

Ah I understand the struggle! Do you have many sacs left for the term?

[CorkedBoard]

Nope, all done till week one of Term 3

On that note, one more week until the end of term! Yay!
Nothing much really happened, since all my assessments have been done and we’ve started Unit 4. Overall, it’s a good break from the rush of the last few weeks.

I also happened to get two of my sac results back, in physics and economics.

Physics

In physics, I got a score of 81% for the electrical transmission sac. Once again, it was the silly mistakes which dragged me down, making me get 26/32 overall. One of the last questions, based on the direction of a magnetic field line WAS ON MY CHEAT SHEET yet I GOT IT WRONG. While I know that the average was a bit lower than this, it still disappoints me that I work so hard and don’t get the grades I want. Ah well, let’s hope Unit 4 is better 🤞
(Also, just a reminder, our sacs are hard. Like, really, really hard.)

Economics

I also got my grade for economics back, for Unit 3 AOS3 (Global Trade), and I am shocked. I have no idea how I got this score but it was a

Spoiler

95% (38/40)

This is amazing. Last time I lost 7 marks worth of multiple choice, and I never thought I could recover from that. Well, as they always say, hard work pays off, and now I’m confident again in getting the study score I want! Even more amazingly, my teacher stated that this sac would be ‘easy’, so a number of my (highly competitive) friends slacked off, and didn’t do as well as previously. Just need to not let get this go over my head and continue this consistency 😅

In other words, I was just having deep thoughts yesterday about how much the exam really does dictate our lives. Yes, I know the saying “your atar doesnt define you…”, but like, really, whatever we put down on that paper could change our whole careers, who we meet, and the course of our lives. All through something as simple as colouring in one circle rather than another, a circle depending on a whole year of study. (It’s not like me usually to get as contemplational as that usually, so this week I’ll leave it here )

Apart from that, nothing much has happened, so until I receive my legal studies sac back there won’t be much to write,

so
until next time
Bye 👋

[CorkedBoard]

Hello everyone!

It’s been a while since I’ve written here. To be fair, I’ve had so much homework during the holidays and so many assignments/ sacs coming up, I haven’t had much time to do anything else apart from studying

But since it’s lockdown now, I now have some time to update this journal, so there’s a lot to get through!

First of all, Legal Studies. I got my sac back, and to be fair, I have no idea how I got the score I did. It was one of the hardest sacs I had ever done, 50 marks for the Civil Justice System, and the timing was so intense there wasn’t even any time to think, it was just WRITE TILL YOU DROP.
I ended up getting 47/50 (94%) which was even higher than one of the top students in my class, so my confidence in legal studies has returned. Maybe that 40+ is possible after all!! 🤞

On the other hand, English Language. Why does the subject which is my worst have to be compulsory? I received my Formal Analytical Commentary back, with the abysmal result of 76% (especially since majority of my friends got 90%+). And do you know why? METALANGUAGE. Why haven’t I properly learnt all the metalanguage? Well…. I got around 12 weeks to do so…..that’s enough time, right…..

More recently, we had our first Unit 4 Methods sac last week, on the topic of anti-differentiation. Being at selective school with a large methods cohort, we had to do the sac during ‘common assessment time’ which is pretty much putting 200+ students to do the sac at once in the upstairs classrooms. I feel as if the sac went pretty well (at least better than last time), as I had time to check over my answers and iron out any minor mistakes I made.

Despite this, I still multiplied a number by 2 when it LITERALLY SAID 3/2. Ah well. 😬
There was also a question where it said full working in BOLD and I skimped a few steps thanks to my trusty CAS. One or two steps missing is fine…..surely???

Fast forward to now, and it turns out I have a physics poster due Friday, which I completely forgot about. Time to get started! My legal studies sac is next week as well, so things are still kinda hectic!

School aside, I went to my first 18th birthday party on the holidays, where we ate at a really nice ramen restaurant and then watched Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard (absolutely awful film btw). After that we just kinda walked around the mall for a few hours. I also got to see Black Widow with my friends on the second week, which was interesting after not seeing any Marvel movies for so long! At home I’ve been binge watching Adventure Time and Seinfeld, which are also amazing shows.

Anyways, I hope everyone is doing well during lockdown.
Until next time

[CorkedBoard]

Hello everyone!!
I know it’s been like a few months but I haven’t forgotten about this journal

I’ve been so busy the last few weeks of Term 3 with sac after sac after sac after sac after sac after sac after sac after sac


Physics went alright, wasn’t too difficult apart from a few concepts WE DIDN’T GET TAUGHT. Ah well, at least that’s what google is for.

Economics had 2 sacs. I had an essay on aggregate supply essay which I guess went alright??? I tried to add pictures so the teacher would at least think it was good haha. The other sac was one on Aggregate demand. This was meant to be in week 3, but luckily we had the lockdown announced the evening before, leaving us 7 weeks to study. Multiple choice was also alright, hopefully I did well 🤞

Legal studies was such a breeze. The questions were literally EXACTLY the same as the practice, meaning I finished in no time. I also recieved my previous sac back, and it was a 93%. Possible 45+ on the horizon?

For uni preferences I put Bachelor of Commerce at Melbourne Uni as my first preference. The 93 guaranteed atar is stressing me out so much, it’s so high and I keep on doubting myself….


Anyways I’m really tired right now, thanks for reading everyone!