Advice-in this upcoming summer holidays, you should strive to:
1) evaluate your previous term's performance and establish short term and long term goals and strategies on how you could improve, establish more efficient/effective study habits-experiment with new study methods and routine, organize your room/study file/study schedule if you haven't done so-and enforcing regular self-discipline and independent learning in your study.
2) revise over all content learnt(because they will be examined in trials and HSC-so more regular revision is better than revising the whole year's worth of content at the end of the year) and learn new content-preferably at least one term ahead of the school, but make sure you do questions/practice essays/creative to be able to utilise both past and new content effectively-highlight any parts you don't understand to ask the teacher during next term
3)To finish exam preparations for assessments that are established early next term, i.e. perhaps your half-yearlies for English, and to finish assignments due early next term as well as any homework allocated by your subject teachers
4) Do not sleep too late-you should establish a regular sleeping pattern to maintain good health as well as do a regular amount of exercise.
Make sure you are studying at hours optimal to your alertness and concentration, and establish an objective for each study session and strive to achieve it, and upon achievement of that objective, you should reward yourself-either with free time, a snack, or something else. Time is a luxury in the HSC, so make sure you are planning your holidays well before hand and using it very wisely-in a way that you will not be regretting.
5)For English, you should strive to read all your prescribed text and perhaps start finding related text for your relevant modules.
Overall, you should be aiming for consistency, persistence and balance in your holiday study schedule
Encouragement:
1)go to this link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pEBz6PzF50-watch the video, re-watch it if you need to-it will give you some good boost of short term motivation
2)"I started year 12 this term, term 4 2013, and now that the holidays are in clear sight I am realising that with the relaxed study plan I have been following, I am behind in terms of work, marks and motivation! "
The facts are you have more than 75% of your HSC journey left to go(I have included the holidays into account), that means you still have the majority of your marks up for grabs-where there are at least 3-4 more assessments for each subject you do, and multiple by a minimum of 5 subjects, that is at least 15-20 more opportunities to lift up your game and maximise your internal marks and get help from your teachers, and you probably have more than 5 subjects, so that means many opportunities-that is up to you to now focus and maximise your performance in these upcoming tasks-hence it is not too late. Plus you are conscious of the fact that you cannot maintain a relaxed study plan and you need to catch up-these upcoming 6 weeks of summer holidays will be the perfect opportunity to do that. You can do it if you choose to believe you can
3)"What I want to know most of all is whether I can catch up and achieve the end result that I soo badly want (ATAR 90+). "
If you so badly want that ATAR, stick it up on a wall, repeat to yourself everyday you are going to get that ATAR, you should not be asking the question of 'whether I can?' but you should be asking much more pragmatic questions such as "How can I?" and "What goals I need to achieve to get to my ATAR goal?", whenever you feel demotivated, visualise the joy you will feel in getting an atar of 90+, but at the end of the day, what's equally important as achieving your ideal atar is for you to be able to say, at the end of the year, that you have given the HSC your best shot and have no regrets-change your study habits now to make sure you maximise your potential-doing the hard work this year will maximise your chance of getting your desired uni course in minimum amount of time.
4)"I know that with hard work, perseverance and a good attitude we can all work wonders, but at the moment one feels as though I may be starting too late to achieve my goals."
Ok, so you know the ingredients to success, then you must use these ingredients on a daily basis to concoct success, you must take it one step further than knowing, you must start truly believing in these qualities as the keys to 'success' and you must start practising them. It is like knowing a maths concept is inadequate, you must practice that maths concept and understand how it works. Stop feeling and stop your low modality, self-doubt language, 'I may be starting too late to achieve my goals'-start working and remember this, it is never too late to start, if you believe you can, you can, if you believe you can't, you can't-it is that simple, your self-belief will literally determine a large extent to which you shall achieve the success you desire.
I live by a mantra, 'When you fall, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again'-essentially it means that when you do well, you remain humble, and when you don't do so well, you persevere and keep trying and NEVER, EVER give up
If you have any questions about English or the HSC-you are always welcome to pm me over the holidays
Hope my advice helps and I wish you all the best for your HSC year
I have belief you can pick yourself up and redeem yourself with hard work and brilliant results at the end of the year. Now you just have got to start believing in yourself
(and study very hard of course)
