No offence here, but no one just casually 'knows' or can 'aim' for it lmao. It just happens. People come into these courses (especially one with really demanding content) with dreams of doing something extraordinary because you 'like' the content and therefore believe a state rank is within reach. Statistically, people don't realise they were in the range to state rank but get it anyway. If you continually make these goals, it is likely you'll become stressed and therefore perform worse to as one who did not enrol with such standards or expectations. Take it from someone who had a decent chance (high mark for both at1s in my old and new school) as an accelerant at the start of the year and fucked their assessment in term 2 to the point where I need to go beyond the effort of the average student in the top 10 to study for the remaining tasks to somewhat salvage what can be saved from my b6 prospects. Do not make expectations. I'm not saying just to u btw, I'm referring to all students in this thread that are moving to senior studies next year or are accelerating. These are years where you'll have much less control. You can let fate decide if your efforts are state ranking level, or make expectations, possibly (or most likely) become stressed and perform badly.