Cramming before Trials Advice (1 Viewer)

[BobneedsHelp]

Hey I havent been doing consistent study throughout the year and Im currently planning on learning content from Biology and Business Studies atm from the first topic to the last topic. I havent made notes on most topics for those two subjects so far and my trials are 4 weeks from now.

1. Would i have enough time to fully understand and memorise all the content before trials?

2. how many hours does it take to make notes on one topic ? (for Business or Bio)

3. Also, could i just print someone else's notes and understand and memorise content from that?

4. Is 30 pages for one topic too much?

 

[anthony___]

Make your own notes. Keep them brief — there is zero, and I mean ZERO point, in making long notes where you've pretty much made a mini textbook. Short, concise notes for easy reference.

Above all, do past questions. Get all your notes done in the next two weeks and then just pump out questions.

Hope that helps.

 

[BobneedsHelp]

thanks, but how do I make short concise notes , are they just key concepts/ideas or definitions under each syllabus dot point ? Do they explain , how do I avoid writing too much in my notes ?

 

[DanielTheMan]

When making notes from a textbook, all you need to write are the bolded words and the first and last sentence of each paragraph.

 

[Greninja340]

thanks, but how do I make short concise notes , are they just key concepts/ideas or definitions under each syllabus dot point ? Do they explain , how do I avoid writing too much in my notes ?

When making your notes, you should be summarising the information and putting it into your own words, when making short and concise notes, focus on the main ideas and information that directly answers the syllabus

 

[idkkdi]

Hey I havent been doing consistent study throughout the year and Im currently planning on learning content from Biology and Business Studies atm from the first topic to the last topic. I havent made notes on most topics for those two subjects so far and my trials are 4 weeks from now.

1. Would i have enough time to fully understand and memorise all the content before trials?

2. how many hours does it take to make notes on one topic ? (for Business or Bio)

3. Also, could i just print someone else's notes and understand and memorise content from that?

4. Is 30 pages for one topic too much?

For Business Studies, read through the textbook from start to finish. Memorise syllabus, memorise directives - completely memorised, like straight up cover the sheet and know the exact layout. Points you think you are weak on in the syllabus, reread textbook. If you are confident that you can get marks for questions and know how to answer them in a way that gets you all marks, no need to do more than 2 past papers honestly. But you do need some essay and report practice to make sure you don't go off-topic.

Edit: I don't think 4 weeks is cramming. You got plenty of time. The subject's braindead anyways.

 

[#RoadTo31Atar]

You can try do 1 topic per week and see how that goes, this can include notes and past questions. You should try to get ahead so you have a few days of questions from everything together. If you can't do a topic a week then you might need to only learn the important stuff from each topic and come back if you have time left when all the other big stuff is done. 20% effort for 80% of the results

 

[Jolteon]

In my opinion, 4 weeks is still plenty of time as long as you set clear and achievable goals. Instead of spending 2 weeks making your notes from scratch, imo you should just borrow a friend's notes and learn it and do past papers using those notes. For business and bio, you should try doing 6-7 markers (long response questions) and ask your teacher to mark it for you.

Once you have time and are familiar with the questions, you can always go back and finalise/add information to the notes you have.

This might not work out for you but personally, I'd feel a lot worse if I realise that I've spent the majority of these 4 weeks drafting notes but not able to apply them to the actual exam.

 

[BobneedsHelp]

Any advice for Studying
Bio?

 

[BobneedsHelp]

So, the overall message is that : short succinct notes, covers key concepts and key jargons. Doesnt go through a great amount of detail. Any uncertainty of any topic in the syllabus refer to the textbook. Notes are only for reference (brief) and the main key to succeed is to do as many past papers. Correct me if Im wrong

 

[idkkdi]

So, the overall message is that : short succinct notes, covers key concepts and key jargons. Doesnt go through a great amount of detail. Any uncertainty of any topic in the syllabus refer to the textbook. Notes are only for reference (brief) and the main key to succeed is to do as many past papers. Correct me if Im wrong

If you want high 90s, you need to go into depth.

 

[pikachu975]

Hey I havent been doing consistent study throughout the year and Im currently planning on learning content from Biology and Business Studies atm from the first topic to the last topic. I havent made notes on most topics for those two subjects so far and my trials are 4 weeks from now.

1. Would i have enough time to fully understand and memorise all the content before trials?

2. how many hours does it take to make notes on one topic ? (for Business or Bio)

3. Also, could i just print someone else's notes and understand and memorise content from that?

4. Is 30 pages for one topic too much?

1) For sure

2) Took me ages I did it in the holidays for bio (whole course in the summer holidays) but I bludged heaps while doing it

3) Yeah I did this for physics because in my perspective I was like, I'm just gonna be rewriting notes I find online anyway, how was I gonna reword stuff about relativity or superconductors. For biology yeah I used some people's notes I found online/from friends and SOMETIMES checked the textbook if I was still confused, and made my own notes - because I felt like the subject wasn't a lot of memorising but more understanding how stuff worked since it was applicable to real life easily. It's your choice but I feel like memorising people's notes that did well, does work, IF you understand the content from reading it (not just memorising it).

4) No but to write 30 pages each topic AND memorise it all AND practice in 4 weeks it might not be much time.

My school had 3 sets of trials and I kept bludging between each one, so I had to semi-cram. Here's what worked (FOR ME):
- Learning the content in depth >>>>> doing past papers (for bio and phys I didn't really do past papers for trials just learnt content)
- Printing syllabus and highlighting dot points I 100% knew then went and learnt the ones I didn't, using notes
- Maths I still think content is important but you only listed business studies and biology, but in my opinion maths you still need a good understanding of the content or else once a trick question comes you're stuck

Even for the physics HSC my plan was learn content -> papers -> learn content again 1-2 days before, so I did 10 papers approximately and 1-2 days before I kept procrastinating learning the content again... so I didn't get much sleep and had to skip out on marking the 10 papers (aka they were useless), but since I learnt the content really well and the exam was still fine personally think it's better to have a shot at every question by knowing the content rather than memorising past papers.

If you want high 90s, you need to go into depth.

Agreed