Practice Exams

[Christiano]

I'm starting year 11 this year, and people are saying they have done like 20-30 practice exams for some of their subjects in year 12.  I don't think I've ever done a practice exam before (are tests included?), but does it really help you, and where do you get the material for the practice exams? I'm currently doing English, Math Methods, Chemistry, Biology, Italian 1&2 and Legal Studies 3&4. Do you suggest I start these practice exams in year 11?

And how do you go about having these practice exams? Mimic exact exam conditions with a time limit?

Feeling quite disadvantaged, as I am in a public school, and I have heard our accelerated class has had plenty of these practice exams, whereas most of us that are not in accelerated have probably never even known we could do practice exams..

[jay1993]

Ive been told by my teachers to do the first couple or so without a time limit and the rest under exam conditions. Yeah i didnt do prac exams for any subject until i did Accounting (~11+ maybe) last year so dont worry about that.
Dont worry about what school you go to. If you work hard you will acheive whatever you want to.
Theres a good site that someone shared with us here on VN. In this thread >>>> http://vcenotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,18703.0.html

[minilunchbox]

I'm at a public school as well and my teacher pretty much brought in a mountain of practice exams for us to pick and choose (ok some of them were 'CATs' from before I was born but still). I think it's pointless doing exams when you haven't covered the material. Unless you meant doing practice 1/2 exams which I also had but pretty much skimmed through since priorities go 3/4 > 1/2.

I'm really lazy and I rarely did any under timed conditions apart from one or two that I did at school with the rest of my class. That was useless since I hadn't finished refining my knowledge of the content yet. Actually for Unit 3 Bio I attempted to do most of them in timed conditions but I found that it wasn't very effective (for me). So for Unit 4 I did as many multiple choice as I could find and skimmed the short answer and then looked at the answers and what information I would need for what mark. This way I ended up doing a lot more exams for unit 4 than unit 3 and I ended up doing better for unit 4.

Practice exams also build confidence because you might find that the questions you come across in the exam are very similar, but just worded slightly different.

But this is just me and you probably work differently.

Our school library had NEAP and Checkpoints (hopefully they have it again this year but maybe not since not too many people utilized them) and then I pretty much scoured the internet for more exams.

[kyzoo]

Don't worry, before Y11 I never did a practice exam either. For the Y10 English exam, my friend did 10 essays over a weekend just before the exam, whilst I did absolutely nothing but prepare a quotes sheet.

For your 3/4 you should definitely do at least 20 practice exams, all in one sitting and under exam conditions. Practice exams help you A LOT, I would go as far to say that they are essential. But make sure you do them only after you have fully developed your understanding of the course, when there is nothing more you can learn from the textbook. As for where you get them, your teacher will give them to you, or you can find some on the Internet (check out the VCAA website for the official ones). Also, be sure to check out the VCAA assessor's reports - they tell you common mistakes made on exams.

I wouldn't bother trying to do 20-30 practice exams for your 1/2s, I only did what my teacher gave me, which was about 5 every subject.

One warning I have to give you is that for English, DO NOT write the essays under exam conditions too early. Otherwise your essays will be bland since you didn't spend much time thinking about the content.

Good luck.

[Visionz]

You should be able to kill your 3/4 subject as you'll have so much time to spend on it. Make the most of your year 11 3/4!

Theres no point doing practice exams if you dont know the course yet. I suppose you could do an open book practice exam.

[vexx]

^ good advice kyzoo.

but with 1/2's you don't even need to do more than 1 or 2. remember they don't mean anything ultimately just understand the course, make sure you know it very well and try a practice exam or two. they are much easier and this is all thats really needed. focus' on legal not your 1/2s, work hard for it, do as many practice exams as you can find over the end of the year. do checkpoints before SACs and such, it's all you really need and you'll be able to get high scores:)

and with english it depends on the school, just do whatever your teacher tells you to do, i had a poor teacher and only wrote about 4 essays in total all year (for class tests). possibly get a tutor if your going to continue english and want to do well next year- it's important to build your skills over two years rather then one.

[kyzoo]

^ I deemed my 1/2 subjects just as important for Methods. I devoted effort and time to each subject in equal proportions, excepting exam preparation. I wouldn't advise you to focus on solely your 3/4, because from my experience you don't need to. And I didn't even do Checkpoints or practice exams until the September holidays.

But I agree with what you say about building your skills over 2 years, my English skills have improved immensely over the course of this year, but I'm still nowhere near being ready for the 3/4 exams.

[vexx]

^ really?! and you still did so well at methods - that's so good. so well done..
i didn't really do any work for my 1/2's all year aside from some homework.
i think i am disadvantaged by this because i haven't actually had the opportunity to work hard on my subjects equally, so i may initially struggle with this next year. (i must overcome my laziness)

well this year for english is usually where people improve the most.
this guy who finished a few years back, he was a B student, and english was his worst. so he got a tutor in year 12, and did an essay each week. and ended up getting 50- so yeah it's definitely possible for anyone to improve much more then they already are whilst in year 12.

[Christiano]

For your 3/4 you should definitely do at least 20 practice exams, all in one sitting and under exam conditions.

What do you mean all in one sitting?

[kyzoo]

Do it all in one session, i.e. don't do half of it in a 40m session, then leave the other half for later.

[m@tty]

For your 3/4 you should definitely do at least 20 practice exams, all in one sitting and under exam conditions.

What do you mean all in one sitting?

Each exam completed in a single sitting. Not all 20 :buck2:

I did mine in a quiet area, and just kept going till I finished, no matter how long it took. I recorded these times, and, many of them were well within the prescribed time.
Oh, and the MOST important thing with practice exams is identifying and pondering your mistakes, and producing 'flawless' methods to avoid them.

With Methods I did Checkpoints through the year up till probability where I got lazy. I also did the majority of the homework, I got lazy with this as we were using MathsQuest. Then, nearing November I did ~20 practice exams.

[kyzoo]

Each exam completed in a single sitting. Not all 20 :buck2:

Haha, that's another way of putting it.

About what matty said about pondering your mistakes, I'm going to alter it into a more general form. If you wish to excel at anything in life, you need to be constantly thinking about it, rather than perpetually just blindly "doing work" without conscious examination.

[Visionz]

About what matty said about pondering your mistakes, I'm going to alter it into a more general form. If you wish to excel at anything in life, you need to be constantly thinking about it, rather than perpetually just blindly "doing work" without conscious examination.

Im trying to 'live' all my subjects. Im constantly thinking about my subjects even if the thoughts/behaviours are only loosely related. Its hard to explain. Instead of year 12 being 9 til 3, 5 days a week, plus study/homework; its 24/7, always thinking, always learning.

[Christiano]

With Methods I did Checkpoints through the year up till probability where I got lazy. I also did the majority of the homework, I got lazy with this as we were using MathsQuest. Then, nearing November I did ~20 practice exams.

What do you do at 'checkpoints'?

Thanks peeps, I'm learning a great deal today.

[m@tty]

Checkpoints is a book of past VCAA examination questions, sorted by topic. It is what I used during the year for revision before SAC's. You can obtain past VCAA exams free off their website, though it is very difficult to isolate just one topic, which is why Checkpoints is so good.