Extreme demotivation (1 Viewer)

[Etho_x]

Usually, I guess I'd be the one on here trying to give advice whenever possible but today it honestly seems like I need a LOT of help. Since the start of Term 4, my marks have just gone for a dip. I ended up performing really really well in Year 11 (getting 90+ for some of my subjects in yearlies), and since the start of Year 12 until now having sat my first two assessments across nearly all of my subjects (besides Ext Science), I have somehow taken a toll for the worse in terms of my exam marks (most marks between 50-70, AT1 for English was 85 and for Bio 80, need to still sit AT2's for those).

Whilst I understand that Year 12 was going to be a lot harder than Year 11, I honestly don't know what I am doing wrong considering I am studying the exact same way as I did in Year 11 to achieve high marks. It's getting to the point where rankings in subjects are kinda "fixed" as in harder to gain a substantial amount of ranks through 1 assessment, which leaves me completely worried and demotivated to the point where I feel as if I want to drop out. I also suppose the most annoying thing is how much practice I allow myself to have before an exam whilst also targeting the concepts with weaker understanding, to then go into the exam and come out nearly balling my eyes out. For example, I had my Maths Extension 2 exam today on 3D Vectors and I started prepping for this a month in advance, trying to focus on my weaker areas in the first two weeks of that month and then doing past paper questions and harder questions from other websites until yesterday. I came out of my exam today completely shattered knowing that I failed that exam because although I had done so much practice to prepare and the questions on the exam should have been easy marks, I don't know what it was but I for some reason couldn't answer some of them...

Could probably use a lot of support at this point because I'm about to absolutely lose my shit... apart from the fact that right now my mindset seems to be "Well I failed this test, what's next to fail?" or "What makes me think I'm going to get 80% on a chemistry exam when I haven't even reached that in the past". Unfortunately, I don't really have the money to afford overly expensive tutoring, and the current tutors I have now are completely oblivious of my demotivation for the respective subject regardless of if I make that apparent or not. The only thing my math tutor says is "Keep practising" or "Keep trying to visualise the questions" which in the short and long term isn't going to help me in my case, since supposedly practising and visualising are techniques to quote on quote 'do well" or "better" in maths in general. My Chemistry tutor has also been quite similar in that regard, so I've decided today to just cancel the current tutoring that I am getting because I'm finding it to be a waste of money since I could easily get the crappy marks I'm getting now without the tutoring.

The other demotivating thing is in English where my teacher is constantly pressurising me to get a Band 6 based on my Year 11 marks and my effort in the subject, when <1% of students (from what I have heard) achieve a Band 6 in Standard English. Whenever I receive my marks back for an English exam or an essay, I'm constantly being told the usual - expand, expand, expand, more analysis, more of this, more of that, yada yada yada... and it's super frustrating when you try to expand so bloody much on key elements and context but it still seems as if that isn't good enough. And yet English teachers say that they consider how hard it is for us to write well in a short amount of time, because if they really knew that then they wouldn't be so picky. Yet somehow it was okay for 1 person out of the 90+ kids in my standard cohort to get a perfect 20/20 (perfect marks in English should NOT exist based on subjectivity...) in the first HSC assessment. Meanwhile, here's me getting 17 with vague as hell feedback such as "you need to expand more" (not even saying where) and being told that I was at the top of my class just to make me feel better.

I am honestly at a loss for words now and I don't really know what to do. I still have AT2's to sit for Biology, English, and Math Extension 1 but my motivation for putting effort in has just completely died out.
All help would be appreciated as the sooner I can get out of this negative period, the better my mindset will be in the long term as I sit my trials and HSC.

Thanks.

 

[idkkdi]

Usually, I guess I'd be the one on here trying to give advice whenever possible but today it honestly seems like I need a LOT of help. Since the start of Term 4, my marks have just gone for a dip. I ended up performing really really well in Year 11 (getting 90+ for some of my subjects in yearlies), and since the start of Year 12 until now having sat my first two assessments across nearly all of my subjects (besides Ext Science), I have somehow taken a toll for the worse in terms of my exam marks (most marks between 50-70, AT1 for English was 85 and for Bio 80, need to still sit AT2's for those).

Whilst I understand that Year 12 was going to be a lot harder than Year 11, I honestly don't know what I am doing wrong considering I am studying the exact same way as I did in Year 11 to achieve high marks. It's getting to the point where rankings in subjects are kinda "fixed" as in harder to gain a substantial amount of ranks through 1 assessment, which leaves me completely worried and demotivated to the point where I feel as if I want to drop out. I also suppose the most annoying thing is how much practice I allow myself to have before an exam whilst also targeting the concepts with weaker understanding, to then go into the exam and come out nearly balling my eyes out. For example, I had my Maths Extension 2 exam today on 3D Vectors and I started prepping for this a month in advance, trying to focus on my weaker areas in the first two weeks of that month and then doing past paper questions and harder questions from other websites until yesterday. I came out of my exam today completely shattered knowing that I failed that exam because although I had done so much practice to prepare and the questions on the exam should have been easy marks, I don't know what it was but I for some reason couldn't answer some of them...

Could probably use a lot of support at this point because I'm about to absolutely lose my shit... apart from the fact that right now my mindset seems to be "Well I failed this test, what's next to fail?" or "What makes me think I'm going to get 80% on a chemistry exam when I haven't even reached that in the past". Unfortunately, I don't really have the money to afford overly expensive tutoring, and the current tutors I have now are completely oblivious of my demotivation for the respective subject regardless of if I make that apparent or not. The only thing my math tutor says is "Keep practising" or "Keep trying to visualise the questions" which in the short and long term isn't going to help me in my case, since supposedly practising and visualising are techniques to quote on quote 'do well" or "better" in maths in general. My Chemistry tutor has also been quite similar in that regard, so I've decided today to just cancel the current tutoring that I am getting because I'm finding it to be a waste of money since I could easily get the crappy marks I'm getting now without the tutoring.

The other demotivating thing is in English where my teacher is constantly pressurising me to get a Band 6 based on my Year 11 marks and my effort in the subject, when <1% of students (from what I have heard) achieve a Band 6 in Standard English. Whenever I receive my marks back for an English exam or an essay, I'm constantly being told the usual - expand, expand, expand, more analysis, more of this, more of that, yada yada yada... and it's super frustrating when you try to expand so bloody much on key elements and context but it still seems as if that isn't good enough. And yet English teachers say that they consider how hard it is for us to write well in a short amount of time, because if they really knew that then they wouldn't be so picky. Yet somehow it was okay for 1 person out of the 90+ kids in my standard cohort to get a perfect 20/20 (perfect marks in English should NOT exist based on subjectivity...) in the first HSC assessment. Meanwhile, here's me getting 17 with vague as hell feedback such as "you need to expand more" (not even saying where) and being told that I was at the top of my class just to make me feel better.

I am honestly at a loss for words now and I don't really know what to do. I still have AT2's to sit for Biology, English, and Math Extension 1 but my motivation for putting effort in has just completely died out.
All help would be appreciated as the sooner I can get out of this negative period, the better my mindset will be in the long term as I sit my trials and HSC.

Thanks.

externals is always going to be worth 50% of your total mark, so there's that to work towards.

if you're insecure about your abilities, there's really nothing that you can do, until you regain confidence by popping off in an exam.

 

[blu3_]

"I don't know what it was but I for some reason couldn't answer some of them..." - this is a little vague, reflect on yourself. do you feel pressured by yourself? or is it more so your external surroundings/others expectations? if its the latter i suggest in exams sitting right at the front of the room (assuming your school doesn't allocate your spots) thereby eliminating the pressure of seeing your peers frantically shuffling their papers within your peripheral vision which would only stress you out even more. trust me it helps so much.

otherwise there are definitely more people going thru whatever you're going through. im one of them. i especially relate with the whole over-achieving in yr 11 and then the ensuing demotivation to do school work afterwards when it rlly counts (ie yr12) - in my case, i burnt out (i always say i "studied to hard"). i definitely do NOT study as much now as i did for yr 11. as a result i can't offer much advice in this comment however i can instead comfort you in the fact that this may be my first proper comment on this site only because i can very much relate to your situation. i guess just recognise that one should not rely on motivation to study, and also that this period will eventually pass.

 

[Katsumi]

I understand your feelings and agree that its frustrating. I think you need to focus on the bigger picture and put your head down for the next 9 months. Forget about everything, as long as you put 110% into it and couldn't possibly do anything more, you are successful. If not then you haven't executed.

Read my HSC journal as it shows when I was in a similar headspace, my turning point and how my attitude changed on the other side.

Happy to chat if you want through DM. I'll respond when I can outside of business hours

 

[Etho_x]

I understand your feelings and agree that its frustrating. I think you need to focus on the bigger picture and put your head down for the next 9 months. Forget about everything, as long as you put 110% into it and couldn't possibly do anything more, you are successful. If not then you haven't executed.

Read my HSC journal as it shows when I was in a similar headspace, my turning point and how my attitude changed on the other side.

Happy to chat if you want through DM. I'll respond when I can outside of business hours

No worries, I'll definitely give it a read when I can thank you

 

[Etho_x]

"I don't know what it was but I for some reason couldn't answer some of them..." - this is a little vague, reflect on yourself. do you feel pressured by yourself? or is it more so your external surroundings/others expectations? if its the latter i suggest in exams sitting right at the front of the room (assuming your school doesn't allocate your spots) thereby eliminating the pressure of seeing your peers frantically shuffling their papers within your peripheral vision which would only stress you out even more. trust me it helps so much.

otherwise there are definitely more people going thru whatever you're going through. im one of them. i especially relate with the whole over-achieving in yr 11 and then the ensuing demotivation to do school work afterwards when it rlly counts (ie yr12) - in my case, i burnt out (i always say i "studied to hard"). i definitely do NOT study as much now as i did for yr 11. as a result i can't offer much advice in this comment however i can instead comfort you in the fact that this may be my first proper comment on this site only because i can very much relate to your situation. i guess just recognise that one should not rely on motivation to study, and also that this period will eventually pass.

I will have to probably try and see if I can sit up the front for my other exams, thank you for the recommendation and your words, glad to see I'm not the only one in the same boat hahaha.

 

[Katsumi]

No worries, I'll definitely give it a read when I can thank you

Yea, I essentially went from an estimated 70 ATAR to one of the best scholarships in the country by keeping myself accountable and flogging myself. Worth reading for motivation purposes. I'm not great at academics either.

All id do was eat, study, sleep but I don't regret it.

 

[pikachu975]

Usually, I guess I'd be the one on here trying to give advice whenever possible but today it honestly seems like I need a LOT of help. Since the start of Term 4, my marks have just gone for a dip. I ended up performing really really well in Year 11 (getting 90+ for some of my subjects in yearlies), and since the start of Year 12 until now having sat my first two assessments across nearly all of my subjects (besides Ext Science), I have somehow taken a toll for the worse in terms of my exam marks (most marks between 50-70, AT1 for English was 85 and for Bio 80, need to still sit AT2's for those).

Whilst I understand that Year 12 was going to be a lot harder than Year 11, I honestly don't know what I am doing wrong considering I am studying the exact same way as I did in Year 11 to achieve high marks. It's getting to the point where rankings in subjects are kinda "fixed" as in harder to gain a substantial amount of ranks through 1 assessment, which leaves me completely worried and demotivated to the point where I feel as if I want to drop out. I also suppose the most annoying thing is how much practice I allow myself to have before an exam whilst also targeting the concepts with weaker understanding, to then go into the exam and come out nearly balling my eyes out. For example, I had my Maths Extension 2 exam today on 3D Vectors and I started prepping for this a month in advance, trying to focus on my weaker areas in the first two weeks of that month and then doing past paper questions and harder questions from other websites until yesterday. I came out of my exam today completely shattered knowing that I failed that exam because although I had done so much practice to prepare and the questions on the exam should have been easy marks, I don't know what it was but I for some reason couldn't answer some of them...

Could probably use a lot of support at this point because I'm about to absolutely lose my shit... apart from the fact that right now my mindset seems to be "Well I failed this test, what's next to fail?" or "What makes me think I'm going to get 80% on a chemistry exam when I haven't even reached that in the past". Unfortunately, I don't really have the money to afford overly expensive tutoring, and the current tutors I have now are completely oblivious of my demotivation for the respective subject regardless of if I make that apparent or not. The only thing my math tutor says is "Keep practising" or "Keep trying to visualise the questions" which in the short and long term isn't going to help me in my case, since supposedly practising and visualising are techniques to quote on quote 'do well" or "better" in maths in general. My Chemistry tutor has also been quite similar in that regard, so I've decided today to just cancel the current tutoring that I am getting because I'm finding it to be a waste of money since I could easily get the crappy marks I'm getting now without the tutoring.

The other demotivating thing is in English where my teacher is constantly pressurising me to get a Band 6 based on my Year 11 marks and my effort in the subject, when <1% of students (from what I have heard) achieve a Band 6 in Standard English. Whenever I receive my marks back for an English exam or an essay, I'm constantly being told the usual - expand, expand, expand, more analysis, more of this, more of that, yada yada yada... and it's super frustrating when you try to expand so bloody much on key elements and context but it still seems as if that isn't good enough. And yet English teachers say that they consider how hard it is for us to write well in a short amount of time, because if they really knew that then they wouldn't be so picky. Yet somehow it was okay for 1 person out of the 90+ kids in my standard cohort to get a perfect 20/20 (perfect marks in English should NOT exist based on subjectivity...) in the first HSC assessment. Meanwhile, here's me getting 17 with vague as hell feedback such as "you need to expand more" (not even saying where) and being told that I was at the top of my class just to make me feel better.

I am honestly at a loss for words now and I don't really know what to do. I still have AT2's to sit for Biology, English, and Math Extension 1 but my motivation for putting effort in has just completely died out.
All help would be appreciated as the sooner I can get out of this negative period, the better my mindset will be in the long term as I sit my trials and HSC.

Thanks.

I can't really give advice because I don't know how you study and what works for you, but something I did in english year 11 didn't work in year 12 half yearlies for english and I was in the lower ranks so I was kinda stressed about getting band 5 or even 4 for english. They kept saying to answer the question over and over so I reflected and tried to improve on my approach, and this time stop memorising essays. This ended up working since I had much more flexibility to answer questions.

I think you have to try and sit down and reflect, see if there's anything you can do to improve your essays. Also look at your maths exam solutions - think "what approaches to those questions could I try and look for next time". Maybe the question gave you what the circumference of a circle was, you could think "okay what do I know that relates to circumference". If it's silly mistakes then you could just be nervous going into the exam. I feel like going into an exam confident that you're going to smash it is key. I even went into exams confident even if I crammed the night before (which often happened) and it just makes you perform better in my opinion..

Never too late to improve your study methods. I know it's probably scary because it's year 12 - what if you try a new method and it fails, but at least the chance to improve your marks is more worth it than reusing an approach that just didn't work. I could've just kept memorising english essays and been in the bottom half of ranks but I adapted and ended up 5th out of 35ish. Also something you could do is read english essays of people that did good, see what they had that you didn't. For maths you could see what questions you couldn't solve and your friends could solve, ask them "hey what was your thought process when you solved this?".

Anyway good luck, this is just my opinion and thoughts, it's up to you to decide. Good luck hope you do well!

 

[Want90Atar]

Usually, I guess I'd be the one on here trying to give advice whenever possible but today it honestly seems like I need a LOT of help. Since the start of Term 4, my marks have just gone for a dip. I ended up performing really really well in Year 11 (getting 90+ for some of my subjects in yearlies), and since the start of Year 12 until now having sat my first two assessments across nearly all of my subjects (besides Ext Science), I have somehow taken a toll for the worse in terms of my exam marks (most marks between 50-70, AT1 for English was 85 and for Bio 80, need to still sit AT2's for those).

Whilst I understand that Year 12 was going to be a lot harder than Year 11, I honestly don't know what I am doing wrong considering I am studying the exact same way as I did in Year 11 to achieve high marks. It's getting to the point where rankings in subjects are kinda "fixed" as in harder to gain a substantial amount of ranks through 1 assessment, which leaves me completely worried and demotivated to the point where I feel as if I want to drop out. I also suppose the most annoying thing is how much practice I allow myself to have before an exam whilst also targeting the concepts with weaker understanding, to then go into the exam and come out nearly balling my eyes out. For example, I had my Maths Extension 2 exam today on 3D Vectors and I started prepping for this a month in advance, trying to focus on my weaker areas in the first two weeks of that month and then doing past paper questions and harder questions from other websites until yesterday. I came out of my exam today completely shattered knowing that I failed that exam because although I had done so much practice to prepare and the questions on the exam should have been easy marks, I don't know what it was but I for some reason couldn't answer some of them...

Could probably use a lot of support at this point because I'm about to absolutely lose my shit... apart from the fact that right now my mindset seems to be "Well I failed this test, what's next to fail?" or "What makes me think I'm going to get 80% on a chemistry exam when I haven't even reached that in the past". Unfortunately, I don't really have the money to afford overly expensive tutoring, and the current tutors I have now are completely oblivious of my demotivation for the respective subject regardless of if I make that apparent or not. The only thing my math tutor says is "Keep practising" or "Keep trying to visualise the questions" which in the short and long term isn't going to help me in my case, since supposedly practising and visualising are techniques to quote on quote 'do well" or "better" in maths in general. My Chemistry tutor has also been quite similar in that regard, so I've decided today to just cancel the current tutoring that I am getting because I'm finding it to be a waste of money since I could easily get the crappy marks I'm getting now without the tutoring.

The other demotivating thing is in English where my teacher is constantly pressurising me to get a Band 6 based on my Year 11 marks and my effort in the subject, when <1% of students (from what I have heard) achieve a Band 6 in Standard English. Whenever I receive my marks back for an English exam or an essay, I'm constantly being told the usual - expand, expand, expand, more analysis, more of this, more of that, yada yada yada... and it's super frustrating when you try to expand so bloody much on key elements and context but it still seems as if that isn't good enough. And yet English teachers say that they consider how hard it is for us to write well in a short amount of time, because if they really knew that then they wouldn't be so picky. Yet somehow it was okay for 1 person out of the 90+ kids in my standard cohort to get a perfect 20/20 (perfect marks in English should NOT exist based on subjectivity...) in the first HSC assessment. Meanwhile, here's me getting 17 with vague as hell feedback such as "you need to expand more" (not even saying where) and being told that I was at the top of my class just to make me feel better.

I am honestly at a loss for words now and I don't really know what to do. I still have AT2's to sit for Biology, English, and Math Extension 1 but my motivation for putting effort in has just completely died out.
All help would be appreciated as the sooner I can get out of this negative period, the better my mindset will be in the long term as I sit my trials and HSC.

Thanks.

 

[totally_screwed]

the way you described your study methods, like targeting weaknesses, answering difficult questions and starting your prep early, sounds like you're doing everything right. I don't understand how you would feel as though you've failed despite doing everything so perfectly in the lead-up to your exam. it seems you don't understand either, and you'll have to make an effort to understand yourself and your situation if you want to change or fix things. I knew students who studied really hard but their exam results didn't add up to how hard they worked. this might mean that it's not the study you're doing wrong, it could be something else. nerves? mental blanks during the exam? or tired? paranoid?

one my friends in mx1 would get everything right under informal conditions but wouldn't do well at all under formal, assessable conditions like exams. turns out it was nerves, they were so hyper focused on smashing the test that they would forget to just relax, take a breather and treat the exam like any past paper or piece of homework they've done in the past. this would lead to the easiest questions being left incomplete, which would then lead to a drop in confidence for the rest of the exam and basically cause a disaster. my friend eventually got better at sitting exams and although it took them much of year 12 to get the hang of it, their internal rank ended up pretty stable and they were set for HSC, which is worth a whole lot more than any internal exam.

so maybe you should focus on your exam techniques too, not just the study techniques since it seems like you're studying right, at least for maths

I think for English you should maybe get your drafts and returned exam responses marked by someone other than your teacher. people on this site offer marking services, I suggest you try it out and see if it helps, idk. vague feedback from your teacher won't help you improve, so it might be good to get someone else's perspective on your work who might be able to provide more comprehensive feedback. or just ask your teacher in your own time to sit down with you and basically mark the response again in front of you, but verbally. my teacher used to do this for me. after seeing my mark for the first HSC English task, I sat down with my teacher for a scheduled hour so that she could expand on the vague written feedback she'd given. it was incredibly helpful because my teacher would point out precise issues in my writing that weren't covered in the two-line feedback of "good analysis but be more sophisticated." I suggest you ask your teacher if they'd be willing to sit down with you like this, it really helps

all the best!

 

[Want90Atar]

the way you described your study methods, like targeting weaknesses, answering difficult questions and starting your prep early, sounds like you're doing everything right. I don't understand how you would feel as though you've failed despite doing everything so perfectly in the lead-up to your exam. it seems you don't understand either, and you'll have to make an effort to understand yourself and your situation if you want to change or fix things. I knew students who studied really hard but their exam results didn't add up to how hard they worked. this might mean that it's not the study you're doing wrong, it could be something else. nerves? mental blanks during the exam? or tired? paranoid?

one my friends in mx1 would get everything right under informal conditions but wouldn't do well at all under formal, assessable conditions like exams. turns out it was nerves, they were so hyper focused on smashing the test that they would forget to just relax, take a breather and treat the exam like any past paper or piece of homework they've done in the past. this would lead to the easiest questions being left incomplete, which would then lead to a drop in confidence for the rest of the exam and basically cause a disaster. my friend eventually got better at sitting exams and although it took them much of year 12 to get the hang of it, their internal rank ended up pretty stable and they were set for HSC, which is worth a whole lot more than any internal exam.

so maybe you should focus on your exam techniques too, not just the study techniques since it seems like you're studying right, at least for maths

I think for English you should maybe get your drafts and returned exam responses marked by someone other than your teacher. people on this site offer marking services, I suggest you try it out and see if it helps, idk. vague feedback from your teacher won't help you improve, so it might be good to get someone else's perspective on your work who might be able to provide more comprehensive feedback. or just ask your teacher in your own time to sit down with you and basically mark the response again in front of you, but verbally. my teacher used to do this for me. after seeing my mark for the first HSC English task, I sat down with my teacher for a scheduled hour so that she could expand on the vague written feedback she'd given. it was incredibly helpful because my teacher would point out precise issues in my writing that weren't covered in the two-line feedback of "good analysis but be more sophisticated." I suggest you ask your teacher if they'd be willing to sit down with you like this, it really helps

all the best!

Give me some tips to improve in history

 

[Want90Atar]

You laugh at the OP, then have the audacity to ask someone else for advice?

Lol

 

[Want90Atar]

You laugh at the OP, then have the audacity to ask someone else for advice?

only put a laughing emoji there cause i seen the same posts from smart people thinking their atar is going to be shit, when they see their atar it beats their expectations. Op has nothing to worry about

 

[Want90Atar]

Now if you excuse me i'm going to revise, listen to uk drill music

 

[Directrix]

only put a laughing emoji there cause i seen the same posts from smart people thinking their atar is going to be shit, when they see their atar it beats their expectations. Op has nothing to worry about

True, he can easily get 90+ if he pops off should be fine

 

[Want90Atar]

Wanna vs in chess, you got a no-show this round

rah i forget about that still.

 

[totally_screwed]

Give me some tips to improve in history

I have none, didn't do history, sorry!

 

[DarkOperator618]

Give me some tips to improve in history

know your stuff, learn to write arguments and essays like a pro
google a HTA essay guide, they tell u in depth lol