how should i study for the melbourne high test???

[xinkaihuang97]

what criteria should i meet both academically and in other areas?? what were the questions like in the past few years' exams?
Plz offer some help, and some advice, thx. i will be very grateful     

"GOIN FOR YEAR 9"

[thushan]

I've never sat the Melb High test, but from what I heard, so long as your vocabulary is good and you can critically read texts very well, then you should be fine. Also a little more advanced maths wouldn't go amiss.

From memory the sections were like:

Verbal Reasoning
Numerical Reasoning
Maths
Reading Comp
Creative Writing
Analytical Writing

[iNerd]

Make sure you can write a 1.5-2 page essay in 15minutes.

[m@tty]

Make sure you can write a 1.5-2 page essay in 15minutes.

You should specify a word count rather than page length.. Some people write 150-200 words per page whilst others can write up to 600(there was a guy in my class last year who did xD)

Anyway, wrt the topic, I think tutoring is an absolute waste.

Brush up your vocabulary, look at common words in a thesaurus to bring words from your passive vocabulary to your active vocabulary (words you know but don't use -> words you will use) -- you don't have to learn new words, you already know many you just don't use them.

[pi]

Selective School Exam Tips and Strategies
For Year 9 Intake
From a MHS Old Boy (now studying Medicine at Monash Uni), with a younger sibling also at MHS

Firstly, there are many ways to study or prepare for the Melbourne High/Mac.Rob/Cory/Nossal exam. The success of each depends on motivation, effective use of time, and prior academic level (least important of the three) . The general options are:

Option 1
Attend a preparation course. Many large tutoring agencies such as James An Coaching College (JAC) or Hendersons run specially designed courses for entrance into selective schools. Although these companies may charge large amounts of money, if your parents can see them as an investment for VCE and future careers, then it may be worth it. Most of these agencies have success rates of over 75% (the two mentioned definitely do).

Option 2
Self study. This can be particularly effective if you are highly motivated (and/or have highly motivated parents ). Using books such as Maths Tests for Selective Schools and Scholarship Exams, Further Maths Tests for Selective Schools and Scholarship Exams, Giant Book of Reading/Comprehension Tests for Selective Schools/Scholarship Exams and Giant Book of General Ability Tests for Selective School Tests and Scholarship Examinations under appropriate time restrictions can be very beneficial. Another thing to do is to try and learn as much vocab as possible, for example a word that popped in my exam was 'jihad'. Furthermore, parents/siblings can make up essay topics or google up some images that could be used as essay prompts, all of which can help with written expression (for example, my topics were: "Should violent video games be banned in Australia" and "Imagine a day in the life of either a bee or a bird"). Some official practice material is also available here.

Option 3
A combination of the above two techniques.

Option 4
It may be beneficial to sit a few real exams as practice. For example, you may want to sit the Melbourne Grammar entrance exam beforehand, just to see where you are at (although obviously you wouldn't want to go to MGS, as MHS is far better and cooler ). This could give you the experience of the real exam and help you cope on the actual day.

Option 5
No preparation (essentially "winging it"). This is probably the worst strategy, but many of my friends did no preparation whatsoever and made the cut. I would not recommend trying this, as it is a bit too risky.

What I did
Basically, my strategy was Option 3. Having been accepted into UHS AP (in late year 6), I didn't need to work on my maths/numerical reasoning much at all (my maths skills were at yr10, you should have yr9 maths under your belt if you want to easily complete the maths sections, worth knowing basic trigonometry, pythagoras, ratios and surds), so I purchased the Reading Comprehension and General Ability books and worked on those to improve my English skills. Furthermore, in the last two months before exams, I attended classes at James An. Their program of having practice exams every week just showed me where I was at, and their exams were harder than the exam, so it was quite beneficial (although avoid long periods of these classes, because you can only improve so much). This strategy also worked with my younger brother (now yr10 MHS), albeit that he is smarter than I am. My brother also sat the Camberwell Grammar exam too (for practice), as he didn't go to UHS beforehand (although he did get in to their AP too). The dilemma was that they offered him a 90-something% scholarship (second time, once at year 7 too), which he had to reject (again). It was pretty funny though.

The Sections
Multiple-choice: (each 30mins in length)
• Verbal reasoning
• Numerical reasoning
• Reading comprehension
• Mathematics
Written expression: (each 15mins in length)
• Creative writing
• Analytical Writing

Timing
You want to be able to finish each part with around 3-5 mins to spare, and finish each written expression with 1-2 mins to spare and having ~600 words written down (usually two hand-written pages). In my case, I finished Maths and Numerical Reasoning with around 10-15 mins to spare in each, Verbal Reasoning with 2 mins to spare, Reading Comprehension with 5 mins to spare, and each essay with around 2 mins to spare. Time yourself in all preparation tasks. N.B. my timings for exams were 40 mins for multiple choice tests, it has now been shortened to 30 mins.

The other two...
A lot of people don't give Suzanne Cory High and Nossal High a serious thought. Obviously, going to Mac.Rob is going to be a difficult discomfort if you are male (enough said), but the other two schools, from what I am hearing, are excellent. You should consider either one of those (depending on where you live, of course), as a back-up option for MHS.


Another thread you may want to have a look into: http://vce.atarnotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,20607.0.html (although only the first 2 pages have regular advice)


Good luck! 

[iNerd]

^

Impressive time-ing stats.

How many sups you get?

Also m@tty I put 1.5-2 for your exact reason of handwriting...or I would have put 1.5

[pi]

^

Impressive time-ing stats.

How many sups you get?

In all except Verbal Reasoning (second highest there -too much guesswork I think). My brother got all sups though.

[iNerd]

^

Impressive time-ing stats.

How many sups you get?

In all except Verbal Reasoning (second highest there). My brother got all sups though.

Yay, I got 5 sups too.

I lost in analytical writing though.

[taiga]

Writing essays fast with good structure and vocab is probably one of the most difficult things, but they are very lenient markers

[Truck]

I did option 5 lol. Worked for me, but I don't recommend it - I was one of those people that sat the MHS exam to see if I could get in (was already on a scholarship), so I didn't take it particularly seriously - to increase your chances, do what Rohitpi said =P.

[thefeminist]

what I did (even though I go to Mac.Rob, same exam) to prepare was not much at all. I heard that you needed trig and pythagoras' theorem on the exam, so I simply worked a bit harder in accel maths to make sure I knew them. I ended up being top in my school (6 sups). I guess it was good that I read a lot when I was a child, otherwise I would have never known the world "fugue" which popped up in my exam.

Exam-wise, I clearly remember having a lot of time on one of the sections so I started doodling ==;; On the others, make sure you leave no answer in the multiple choice blank. I know this seems like common sense, but it's better having 1/4 chance of the questions you didn't do to no chance at all. I didn't finish about 3 of them, so I did that and managed to get higher than everyone else.

[taiga]

You also shouldn't be overly prepared for getting into Melbourne High.

They don't distribute the results such that rank number 1-300 go to melbourne high, 300-400 go to Nossal etc. They will sometimes chuck highly ranked students into one of the other schools regardless of what preference you put. Because lets face it, I'm pretty sure 80+% of first prefs go to MHS/MacRob.

[taiga]

Yeah I was helping a student last year with the admission test stuff and he got into Nossal when MHS was his #1 pref, despite getting very high marks (I think it was highest category for all except one, which was second highest).

They can't do it by ranking, as otherwise there will be an obvious divide when it comes to the VCE rankings. The idea behind it is so that they can get an equally beneficial education out of going to any of the schools (and to do that, there needs to be students of similar strengths at all schools). That said, you should expect a slight decline in ATAR medians for all schools in the future. One of the primary reasons that MacRob beats MHS is because they have 130 or so less students, so we have approximately an extra 130 that did not do as well as ANY of their students on the entrance test. All the more impressive when we do beat them though

[pineapple21]

You should revise some of the Year 9 maths course, because at my old school I was doing accelerated maths in Year 8 and I found a fair bit of the new stuff we learned was on it.

Also yeah be able to write an essay in 15 mins. It doesn't have to be 1.5-2 pages, but rather 1-1.5
One of my essays wasn't even a page and it still worked a treat, so it's really about quality rather than quantity when you have such a stingy time limit.

It's worth looking at some practice exams though, simply because you shouldn't be surprised at the questions that come up. I went to Ringwood Coaching College and had tutoring for the exam but, while I'd recommend it, I don't think it's entirely necessary if you're confident. Either way, you should pay them a visit and have a chat about what sort of stuff comes up on the exam.

When marking, they're more weighted towards the writing and comprehension than the maths. So make sure you blitz your essays and the only way to do that is to get writing now!

[xinkaihuang97]

How hard is it to get a 'superior'