Studying tactics
Make friends with a library (preferably the State Library as they have famous dictators patrolling the hallways, urging you not to talk). Perhaps the reason for why I didn’t do as well for my internal examinations, is because I had not familiarised myself with Libraries yet. Once, considered by me, to be scary places populated by the homeless and the craziest of nerds, they turned out to be great institutions for studying…and the homeless. The fact is, at home you have distractions: your computer, books, TV, movies, gay porn etc etc. In the library, you’re almost forced to study and there’s nothing else to do. The first 6-hour study day will be difficult, the second will go slightly faster and by the third it will just fly by.
The only way that I think I saved my HSC is by going to the library every day for 2 weeks and doing 6 hours of study each day. (I only wish that I started earlier than 2 weeks prior to the HSC).
Don’t type up your notes. Instead, manually write them down, summarising from your text book and cross-referencing them to the syllabus (this is for text book subjects). The syllabus is your greatest friend. Study it and remember it. Make sure you can answer each syllabus dot point.
For subjects such as English, memorise your practice essays. If need be, tape them on a tape recorder or record them in mp3 format and listen to them a lot – and I mean A LOT. Once you can quote easily from the texts you are doing, then you can safely say that you have prepared yourself enough.
