How to deal with content heavy subjects? (1 Viewer)

[Munti]

Hello all. I've been studying very little all through this year (i'm in year 11), and I need advice + tips urgently!! I'm getting into a study routine slowly now however, but due to the intense content of my subjects ( Ext English, Adv Math, Economics, Biology, Modern, legal) I'm struggling to retain so much content!! How can I do this?? I have pages upon pages of notes to somehow remember. Although I know I must to past papers, extended responses etc to retain all this info, but it's still just so difficult ! Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[Frostguard]

Honestly same I'm drowning in content but you must organise yourself first and especially for your upcoming Preliminary exams. It's not humanly possible to remember anything, for English just remember basic techniques, quotes all that sorta jazz and when it comes exam time, write prepared essays or literally just do anything that allows you to get that exam feel and assess yourself under timed conditions. Bio would just be reading over your notes and making sure you answer the multiple choice correctly and ensuring you use the correct biological terminology to effectively get those full marks. As for modern, legal and eco, it's gonna be hard remembering everything obviously but as mentioned before, you do not need to study every single subject every single day, that's a surefire way to burn out. Space your study notes/sessions in different days eg one day is english another day is math another is modern+legal it honestly depends but generally study the same subjects that are similar in 'content', as in the same structure eg eng/math are completely different so do different study days. But you must remember your mental health is the most important thing, you're not gonna be expected to remember every small detail and you must use your study days wisely especially for your Prelims, which idk if youve gotten your timetable yet but study accordingly, you don't need to commit yourself, its only Y11, its your 'trial' year so you're allowed to mess up so that you don't mess up in the HSC course. Good luck, don't burn out and lemme give you a warning of advice since we do similar subjects - be prepared for tons more content XD you thought LCMS were bad for legal?? lol you gotta remember historian quotes for Y12 modern history feelsbad but yeah use Y11 to your advantage, but above all, do not burn out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Xzyle]

I mean you don't particularly need notes for English, Math or Modern long term. As longas you understand the text you're studying and have drafted for english, you'll be fine. As long as you do practice questions for Math and know how to answer questions, you'll be fine.
You don't need notes for Math or English.

For Modern History, you will need notes in the short term. But don't worry about it if you haven't taken notes or memorised stuff in year 11, it'll be different and unrelated content in year 12 anyways. The only thing you need to retain from prelims is the ability to be analytical and answer source questions.

Sorry to say but for ecos, bio and legal you'll need to memorise a lot of stuff. Just do this periodically, pay attention in class, revise your notes every so often.

Last tip, if you have pages of notes, get rid of the useless info. Just accept the fact that you can't learn everything in any subject save math. For math it's a strict logical reasoning so anyone is capable of learning all the content relating to their specific units of math. For every other subject tho, such as ecos, modern etc just accept you can't learn everything and focus on the important and key points. Make briefer notes.

It's better to learn a little less in a lot more depth then trying to memorise everything, because quite frankly unless you're 75 years old and have specialised in World War 1 for the past 50 years, and even if you have, you still won't know everything on that subject matter.

So yeah, have fun, keep your goals realistic, don't bother trying to learn everything. And I'd recommend dropping one of ecos, bio, modern or legal if you're struggling with workload since they're all quite content heavy, although I don't particularly know how well you're doing in them so I can't give any specific advice on that matter.

 

[Absolutezero]

Make sure you keep going back to the syllabus. That will keep you on track with what you actually need to know, versus what could just be useful to know.