Exam Notes

[Allygator]

Hey guys,
I was just wondering what people had planned in terms of the bound notes for the end of year exam. Everyone seems to think that it's a waste of time to be writing up heaps of notes nearing the end of year as you should be doing practice exams at that stage. So how are you going about writing up notes?
Thanks!
Allygator

[huaxiadragon]

seriously, writing up notes IS a MASSIVE waste of time.

My friend spendt all those hours writing them up and he didn't even look at it in the exam.

Chances are that you'll probably know your textbook better, a good idea is to get some stick-it notes and stick them INTO your textbook. So you get the comprehensive textbook WITH your own comments and examples on it. But that's ONLY if you are really struggling.

IF you want to get 40+, there's no point as you'll be busy working through every question in the exam, looking up notes will waste VALUABLE time and screw you over.

It's up to you to decided whether you need the notes.

[luken93]

I usually do my notes SAC by SAC or Test by Test, but I dunno what I'm gonna do this year...

I want to be able to arrange them at the end of the year and maybe just put a sheet of some essential knowledge stuff incase I blank (pics of each type of graph etc), but I usually just do them in an exercise book..

[Comma]

Yeah, I'm curious about this as well, as I have heard contradicting advice from different people. Some have told me to write up my notes at the end of the year as a part of my revision, while others have said to write my notes throughout the year so as to leave more time at the end for practice exams.

I'm not sure which is best..

[luken93]

Yeah, I'm curious about this as well, as I have heard contradicting advice from different people. Some have told me to write up my notes at the end of the year as a part of my revision, while others have said to write my notes throughout the year so as to leave more time at the end for practice exams.

I'm not sure which is best..

I'd do the latter (well that's what I'm doing). A question on a practice exam will surely come up that you may have forgotten about, but you are more likely to remember how to do it (even if it is in conjunction with your yearly made notes) as opposed to writing up a generic solution to it?

[azngirl456]

If you decide to write heaps of notes (as in 100 pages plus) you'll have a lot of difficulty with finding particular sections you want to refer to in the exam. Bound notes are like a security blanket, you feel much more better if you feel like you can have something to refer if you get stuck or experience a mental blank. It's the process of writing bound notes that helps you consolidate and summarize the theory and concepts.

On a side note, my methods teacher last year says that all the students she has taught who have won premiers awards for spesh and methods only bought in one sheet of notes in the exam. So it really depends on how confident you are

Btw, allygator, what did you do for bound notes for our year 11 exam last year?

[cltf]

You write notes is not so much because you'll use it in the exam, but it helps you remember and go through and relearn everything that you might have forgotten throughout the year. That's why I generally only right notes like 2 maybe 3 weeks before the exam or the commencement of working through all the practice exams. Also the having the notes gives you a sort of psychological effect, that knowing you have a fall back, you become more confident in the exam.

[Readinya]

Usually in textbooks there are some summaries. I usually just photocopy these (especially the ones to do with graphs) and add a few examples here and there about things i'm not too sure on. Ta da! There's your notebook (with some prac exams at the back).

I like to make a notebook up as a security blanket, as someone said earlier. I remember in Year 10, i spent ages at the end of the year making up a notes book from scratch. The good thing that came out of it was that while you are making it, you realise whether you know the course or not: if you wave it off and don't put it in, it means you're confident on that topic; if you hesitate and put it in your notes as a back-up plan, then you know that you don't know that topic as best as you possibly can. So, making notes was a different form of revision: revising knowledge that may have been hidden in the back of your mind.

The obvious downfall to making notes (at the end of the year, from SCRATCH) is that you waste valuable, valuable time. It may all seem like a waste at the end of the exam, when you realise you didn't even open it, but the value in that is that YOU KNOW YOUR WORK. So, some see it as an investment; others, a waste of time.

[Allygator]

If you decide to write heaps of notes (as in 100 pages plus) you'll have a lot of difficulty with finding particular sections you want to refer to in the exam. Bound notes are like a security blanket, you feel much more better if you feel like you can have something to refer if you get stuck or experience a mental blank. It's the process of writing bound notes that helps you consolidate and summarize the theory and concepts.

On a side note, my methods teacher last year says that all the students she has taught who have won premiers awards for spesh and methods only bought in one sheet of notes in the exam. So it really depends on how confident you are

Btw, allygator, what did you do for bound notes for our year 11 exam last year?

Well as you can imagine I was focusing on bio
So I only wrote a single page of notes on the holidays. And even then I barely looked at it - despite a lack of revision.

I think this year after having asked a lot of people, I will write up notes at the completion of each chapter to consolidate what I've learnt before doing review questions. And then add in examples etc. of things that I've struggled with.

What are you planning on doing?

[azngirl456]

If you decide to write heaps of notes (as in 100 pages plus) you'll have a lot of difficulty with finding particular sections you want to refer to in the exam. Bound notes are like a security blanket, you feel much more better if you feel like you can have something to refer if you get stuck or experience a mental blank. It's the process of writing bound notes that helps you consolidate and summarize the theory and concepts.

On a side note, my methods teacher last year says that all the students she has taught who have won premiers awards for spesh and methods only bought in one sheet of notes in the exam. So it really depends on how confident you are

Btw, allygator, what did you do for bound notes for our year 11 exam last year?

Well as you can imagine I was focusing on bio
So I only wrote a single page of notes on the holidays. And even then I barely looked at it - despite a lack of revision.

I think this year after having asked a lot of people, I will write up notes at the completion of each chapter to consolidate what I've learnt before doing review questions. And then add in examples etc. of things that I've struggled with.

What are you planning on doing?

Ohhh, I remember that...bio exam plus year 11 exams all in the same week and I couldn't believe the teachers wouldnt let us reschedule year 11 exams. After all, most of us were pretty much free for the whole of November. Did you see the exam calendar for year 11s this year? Their exams are at the end of november.

Hmmm...for last year I photocopied the chapter summaries from the book and brought them in stapled

For this year, I'm planning to write summaries after each chapter to see how much I can remember.