When are you going to stop studying/ Start prac exams? [Poll too]

[slothpomba]

Hey guys, i was planning to do like a week of revision and then start practice exams second week of the holidays.

My chem teacher suggested we dont start practice exams until the first week back and just concentrate on the theory and book/checkpoint questions for the holidays.

My original plan was to spend the two week holidays making all my notes and finalising theory then just hit practice exams after that.

However, im staring at the calendar on the wall and i realised after the holidays, i still pretty much have 4 weeks untill my first exam (bio is on a friday). (Loong time) So i was thinking about even taking the first week back to still do a little theory also..(so id have about 3 weeks to do prac exams for most my subjects)

We had some elevate motivational speakers come to our school and they reckon, if you run out of time making notes and revising theory, just stop. Start doing exams, do them open book even if you have to. His idea was that you'd pick up more and learn as you went along in the exam and not waste time. *shrug*

I think its still a good idea to have a very solid understanding of the theory in-case the examiners throw you a curve ball and a question pops up you've never seen before.

This lead me to wonder when everyone is going to start practice exams, so what are your thoughts on this?

(of course this doesnt apply to subjects where you've already got a solid understanding of the theory... should probably just do exams then)

[schmalex]

I am going to focus on revision until I feel really confident with how much I know, and then start on practice exams, but I will use both methods concurrently anyway.

[_henwee]

Now.
I'm fairly confident regarding the content for my subjects. =]

[taiga]

awkward poll.

[Nomvalt]

awkward poll.

+1

[slothpomba]

Haha nice picture nomvalt

[TyErd]

started practice exams 2 weeks ago, mainly methods. 

for methods I've done 7 exam 1's and 3 exam 2's.
physics done - 4
accounting - done 1
further - done 2
English done 8 practice essays.

[slothpomba]

Wow nice...

You've already finished all your notes?

[vexx]

i don't really have to do any revision/notes/theory for chem, methods or further, so im only do prac exams.
englang did some notes in the last week+practice, so will start essays in the week /practice and go over unit 3 for a few weeks.
pe finishing notes in a few days / memorising everything and so begin prac exams sometime after that.

[TyErd]

nah i dont do notes lol cbf i learn by doing a shitload of question.

[happyhappyland]

Ive started prac exams since each topic ive covered quite thoroughly throughout the year, thus I dont need notes for them

[shinny]

The two should ideally be happening together rather than be two distinct phases. Exams are good for identifying where your weaknesses are, but there's no point identifying these weaknesses if you're not going to go back to your textbooks and actually study the theory behind it as well.

[slothpomba]

Really.. i never really thought of doing the two together and i've never really heard anyone mention that strategy before now... i thought it would be kind of a bad idea to do exams if you haven't got all the theory down yet and you wouldn't be able to do that exam either (well maybe you would if you forgot all the questions and answers)

So i should start doing both together?

[shinny]

Really.. i never really thought of doing the two together and i've never really heard anyone mention that strategy before now... i thought it would be kind of a bad idea to do exams if you haven't got all the theory down yet and you wouldn't be able to do that exam either (well maybe you would if you forgot all the questions and answers)

So i should start doing both together?

Well you need a good basis to begin with, don't just jump right into them. But once you have and then you start realising you've got certain areas that need work after you get questions wrong in them, isn't revising those areas an obvious choice rather than foraging through numerous more practice exams and hoping that they'll test that area again? Even if you think reading the solutions to questions you get wrong is good enough, getting a question wrong in a certain area is usually indicative of more than just a minor misunderstanding of a single idea, but rather, the fundamental concepts surrounding that entire topic.

[taiga]

notes are procrastination