Give me the lowdown on what to spend my money on (lectures, notes, guides, etc)

[eeps]

Instead of hoarding as many commercial study guides and notes as you can.. why not write them yourself, apply your knowledge by doing plenty of questions, ask your teacher for help and so on.

I'd agree with that. Though, if anything try both - write up your own notes for subjects and buy maybe 1 or 2 study guides for a particular subject. By making your own notes, you are learning the concepts/ideas in the process. Such resources as study guides are used for quick revision and has its benefits, I'd still get one or two. That's just me though.

Everyone is different in terms of how they learn and what works for them.

[taiga]

Cambridge is spot on, the assessors have read all the study guides, some even wrote them. If you regurgitate what they wrote, they would be more inclined to thinking you are a poor writer.

If you write something which isn't stock standard study guide material, but is still a valid interpretation of the text, supported by evidence, you won't be marked down

[kyzoo]

....,......you do not need to buy anything other than the textbook dude. I never went to a lecture other than the free ones for KLD/Uni Extension program students. I never bought external company notes or study guides 0.o

The material you have does not matter at all. The only thing that matters is the understanding in your head. You can't really buy understanding either =/ You can only gain it through work, and the textbook + teachers + VN is more than enough to obtain an awesome understanding.

[Greggler]

Dont buy english study guides, they are useless, and if you are aiming for a 99 then im sure your smart enough to formulate your own opinions about your texts through discussions with teachers and other students.

For checkpoints try to buy older copies from past students. I used 2006 checkpoints for chem, physics and methods. They have literally the exact same questions as the most relevant editions, except for newer vcaa questions. And as an added bonus, when you do the newer vcaa exams they will give you a good gauge of where you are at because you havent seen any of the questions.

I used A+ notes for physics and chem, never bought them but teachers gave them to me. They were alright, but not something i relied heavily on.

Dont bother with notes for physics or methods. You dont really need to learn much theory for either of these subjects, especially physics with the aid of a cheat sheet; and well, the best way to get better methods is just churning out questions.

[adelaide.emily10]

i'm in a similar position as you, i have friends who are buying all these guides etc. and i really don't want to waste money on useless material

i'm not going to bother buying anything for methods except the textbook, like the fellow VNers(?) have said, methods is about practise, so i think that just doing all the textbook questions properly will be enough as well as all the practise exams the school gives you.

i find physics a bit harder in terms of understanding the concepts, so i'm purchasing a set of Jacks notes to understand the concepts, however, other people can pick up concepts much faster than i can and they don't really need an 'aid' in understanding concepts. but purchasing material for physics should probably just be on understanding concepts, once you understand it, it's just like methods and you have to keep practising and applying your knowledge. i don't want to rely too heavily on my cheat sheet, which was a mistake i made in units 1&2 this year.

for english i borrowed some study guides from the library (i'm not gonna bother buying them, i think they are a waste of money, personal opinion). after skimming thorugh a few, i got some basic ideas and then from there i started building my own ideas etc. and have put them into a reading log (part of our holiday hw)

we have to buy checkpoints for every subject at our school, so i've just bought older versions of everything to save money, i don't know how useful they are going to be but hopefully i'll get some use out of them. if you really want to get your hands on  study guides, notes etc. i suggest borrowing them from the libarary and making a note of anything really important (even if your friends bag you for going to the library, just go anyway )

this is just my view, and it is quite similar to the people that have written above me, but everybody's different and some people require more resources than other people. and i asked a friend about lecturers who did vce this year (she's your average student 87.02) and she said lectures are the biggest waste of time and money -> but i'm not exactly sure how right she is because i've never been to a lecture...