How to avoid disasters on exams and sacs?

[Devoted]

I am currently a year 11 student, going onto year 12 next year. I want to ask previous VCE students about mistakes they have made/or mistakes others have made, and how to avoid them.

In your opinion, how do you avoid disasters while studying and preparing for your final exams?
What i mean by disasters is mistakes that you could have avoided, or things you could have done better to achieve a higher enter score.

I really look forward to reading your replies

[Ilovemathsmeth]

Apart from English, the maximum number of marks I have lost on SACs is 5.

I think it is just practice. Do Checkpoints, A+ notes, A+ exams etc before SACs for the particular topic being tested as it really helps you eliminate mistakes on the actual SAC. Try and do as many questions as possible.

Chemistry is my only subject, other than English, that I am utterly displeased with. This is because I could probably have done slightly better, perhaps 45-46 if I hadn't got so stressed during the midyear exam. Controlling anxiety is very important, as if you are overly anxious on the day, you'll have trouble thinking and mistakes are easier to make. Maybe this explains why I came so close to 50 in three of my subjects

When studying - for subjects like Psychology in your case, read the theory very carefully. Preferably twice or more, as the small details really need to stick.

Good luck!

[/0]

Don't sleep late and stay healthy before your sacs/exams. Remembering back now, I think I might have slept at around 3:00am before my English Language exam due to anxiety. Not a good idea.

[Ilovemathsmeth]

Definitely not. I think I slept around 12.30 ish before my English exam. See what happened to me?

VCE is screwed up. I really think so, and would have thought so regardless of my English score. Take me - 99.75 is a great score, but I will always have that feeling that had my English score been higher, I could have done better. I think English shouldn't be in the top 4/or it should be eliminated if the candidate scores greater than 35. This is like an incentive to do well in the subject, as clearly you are concentrating on it as well as maximising your ENTER. In my situation, my ENTER would have been about 99.85 to 99.90 without English I think.

[Devoted]

Thanks for the advice, regardless i think you received a remarkable enter and you should be proud.

Off topic, but was just curious, how many hours of study did you do every night?

[ninwa]

• Sleep as much as you need. Some people (like /0 and I<3MM) function better on more sleep. I tend to be more tired if I over-sleep than if I under-sleep. I did my English exam on ~3 hours sleep and got 46. (This doesn't mean you should get 3 hours sleep, this is just to show you everyone is different.
• Practice, practice, practice. This is especially for science/maths subjects, where putting things in practice is just as important as, if not more important than, learning the theory.
• Eating: be smart about it. Don't go trying curry the night before if you've never had curry before... for obvious reasons... ahem
• I wouldn't bring a water bottle; you risk drinking too much and wasting precious time on toilet breaks.
• If you're likely to panic/have nervous breakdowns - before the exam, go somewhere quiet, and picture yourself walking into the exam room, sitting down, opening the paper and knowing how to do every question. This sometimes helps calm you down.
• Don't put the exam/SAC on a pedestal in your mind. That is, don't imagine it as the be-all-end-all of your education/life etc. IT'S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD IF YOU DO BADLY.

That's all I can think of for now

[kyzoo]

My mistakes were

1.) Underdeveloped exam technique during SACs. It's much better now but I used to make heaps of avoidable mistakes.

2) Going too slowly and cautiously during Methods Exam 2, I checked all my answers thoroughly immediately after I did them >.<. It got to 15 minutes before exam ending time and I was panicking that I couldn't finish so I rushed the rest (like the whole of Q4). I think I only found 1 single mistake through checking anyway, not worth all the extra time I spent. In hindsight I should have gone at my natural pace and finished 20-30 minutes beforehand.

[Ilovemathsmeth]

Thanks Devoted

I studied on weekends for at least 4 - 5 hours and on week nights at least 2 - 3 on most nights. A shame it wasn't rewarded in English.

[humph]

Sleep sleep sleep. I went to a concert the night before a Spec SAC (Mogwai, pretty much the loudest band in the world. Awesome.), got back at 3am, had about 3 hours sleep. I had a massive headache/was tired all day and bombed the SAC, only got 26/40 (I was getting pretty much full marks on the rest). Thankfully it didn't matter too much in the end (and it was a great concert, so I don't have any regrets there). But sleep deprivation thoughout yr12 fucked my head up something fierce, I had headaches every day for pretty much the whole year.

[turley]

this might sound stupid - but play video games
i did on every day of exams
and that seemed to help

[chansthename]

what games did you play

I personally redid a few practise exams and that was about it. (on the morning of exams)
But it seems that didn't quite work for my end of years

[SoarBeyond]

It varies from person to person. Some people (I know quite a few) find it easier to study like a week before the exams and just chill out and get their mind off the exams (sometimes with computer games) to destress and not panic (which can be majorly detrimental). I haven't done the VCE exams yet but I am guessing that it would be nothing short of normal end-of-years. Last year, I had around 4 hours sleep the night before the end-of-year exams and it actually helped me destress just going over things and feeling 100% prepared (and I'm a major worry-wart). Try and develop your own routine before the each year's exams so you know what's right for you come VCE.

[vexx]

It varies from person to person. Some people (I know quite a few) find it easier to study like a week before the exams and just chill out and get their mind off the exams (sometimes with computer games) to destress and not panic (which can be majorly detrimental). I haven't done the VCE exams yet but I am guessing that it would be nothing short of normal end-of-years. Last year, I had around 4 hours sleep the night before the end-of-year exams and it actually helped me destress just going over things and feeling 100% prepared (and I'm a major worry-wart). Try and develop your own routine before the each year's exams so you know what's right for you come VCE.

sorry, but there is actually a massive difference between vce exams/sacs and pre-vce exams.
even grade 10 is no comparison to 3/4 exams. for example, i got 87% in a humanities exam without any effort, and if i did any humanities subject in vce i'd probably fail.... heh
the amount of work done in year 8~10 is very little, you will find this out in a few years..

[SoarBeyond]

Lol, crap...

[vexx]

Lol, crap...

haha yeah
& no offense or anything but i think it's best if you don't be all, 'i want to get 45+ in all these subjects', you may feel yourself struggling a bit, but who knows, you may be really smart and do fantastic. but yeah predictions at your age is very odd. and i think it's also awesome that you already know what subjects you want to do/ ambitions in life, but i'd actually be shocked if i asked you in a few years and you had the same score/score goals/ambitions.


edit, im mean struggling as in it's very difficult to achieve those scores you have set as your goal.