"Hard subjects"? They are hardly hard at all.
That view you hold is very subjective. High scaling =/= hard subjects. And if you go into your Preliminary with the perception that you will find them difficult, you will struggle. And don't let yourself down. School Certificate is barely relevant to HSC. I myself got mediocre results in few subjects and I am not happy to reveal here. However, I somehow ended up with good HSC results in my accelerated courses.
You will soon see that HSC is all about effort, little bit of natural talent and a bit of luck. If you are willin got put effort in (I am sure you are), you will jump and fly across the obstacles like a feather.
Here are my advices:
- be consistent in your learning. I am not asking you to study 10+ hours a day. I am telling you to be consistent. Study a certain amount everyday and lift it up little by little if you can. I started with an hour a day from last year and now I am donig far much more. Shamefully, I didn't carry that consistent studying everyday but on most days, I did. So I am very proud of myself in that regards.
- take learning as your own responsibility. HSC is YOUR learning. You shouldn't rely on others to make it easier for you. Therefore, I am asking you to get rid of that idea that tutors = good results (I am alluding to your previous posts about tutoring). You don't need tutors, or some others to guide through this hard time. You are your own motivation. I mean, you SHOULD be your own motivation. Forget all that, you MUST be. I don't deny that tutoring can help. But relying on tutors is just stupid. If you do have tutoring, make most of it. Do your homework, listen and take notes. Do more than what tutors ask you to and embrace that moment.
- study SMART! HSC is all about strategies too. Studying effectively for an hour is better than studying just for 2 hours. My tip in regards to this, um well...it really depends on the subject. But for your subjects, making good notes and doing lots of past papers will surely help. As I said, take some consistent studying. Within that, make some notes, some good notes. Use a variety of sources of information. I myself have 4 textbooks for a certain subject. I use them all to make notes. That sure helps. But 2-3 should be really sufficient. And remember: past papers is the key to success. The more you do, the better. Past papers are just better than anything (even textbooks) when it comes to revision.
- prioritise!, yes, prioritise. Know what you are going to do. Plan your day. Or at least, know what you are going to do on certain day. Don't waste your time.
- Have some phun time! Yes, it's necessary. During your HSC, certain level of moderation is necessary. Some members around here have suggested that already (e.g. Jules). I personally take around few hours to exercise and BOS around here. I even take some time to talk on MSN but I try not to overdo it (that way, it becomes procrastination). As long as you don't make it a habit (by that, I mean, keep doing it until it spends your own studying time), it's good.
- Take advantage of the scaling system. By looking at the scaling reports, you can see where you need to work harder. In some subjects, dropping 1 mark can hurt more than dropping one mark in other subjects. For example, for English (Advanced) dropping few marks can damange your UAI more than dropping few marks in subject, say Mathematics Extension 2. Some people have taken this system to their advantage by putting some effort into English. I will take dp624 (member around here who got 100 UAI) as an example. He utilised this scaling system to his own advatange by studying a litttle bit more for his English. That way, he managed a very good mark in English that hardly affected his total UAI aggregate. Hm...I think I am getting too technical and using too much unnecessary jargons but basically, what I am saying here is: study subjects that will potentially drag your UAI down most. Usually those subjects are those with lower scaling.
Here are the advices that I can really give. I can squeeze extras in but meh, you are only in yr 10 (yr 11 next year) and I dont' want to bombard you with unnecessary yr 12 information and scare you off. So basically, for yr 11, study consistenyl and have phun. Nothing in yr 11 counts towards HSC. But it is during that time that you really need to get the focus back and try to form your own study plan that you can utilise for your HSC time.
And get all the necessary feedbacks from your teachers. IMPROVE on them. If you become mindless about valuable advices that teachers give you, there isn't much point in yr 11.
Cheers.
