Please Share Advice for 2015ers (1 Viewer)

[BLIT2014]

Sleep

 

[Mikasa]

Do as much maths as possible. The scaling pays off.

 

[emilios]

Don't think doing relatively well in external exam and lolfailing internal assessments will save your hsc.. personal experience (school rank 430ish)
atar-97.8
edit: one more thing, if you see kids in your class getting marks for ridiculous reasons cause the teacher is lenient (eccentricity of ellipse=0, in a step and kid ends up getting 4/4) dont be like "nah im too honest to scab marks" FIGHT FOR THE MARKS, prob my greatest regret not doing so lol.

the converse of this is true too. don't think your ranks will save you, esp if you're at a comprehensive public school like i was. was pulling 95+ for eco all year then goofed an essay in the hsc and ended up with a 91. still good but i should've known to expected harder q's

 

[MrBleach]

Make a study timetable and stick to it ... (something I did not do...haha)

 

[Brightergull]

Don't set up really high expectations. It can crush you when you expected a lot more than you got. Just do your best and forget about it/leave it behind.

 

[Katsumi]

Listen in class and use your teachers, hand in papers and ask questions.

 

[anguyenh]

1. Even if you think it's too late to start studying, it's ok - too late is better than never, and you can truly save your ATAR lmao.
(I got 1-3 ranks more than Adrita + school estimate)
Fked around Term 1 and 2, only started studying seriously right before Trials
Even though shitty ranks, externals carried me in every single subject - except MaX2 lmao
(82/90/86 English mark - anything is possible!!!)

2. Seriously choose/keep subjects that you truly truly truly enjoy
If you don't enjoy it and lack motivation on a consistent basis (1-2 weeks is ok) but if you're doing chem/phys/eco etc. because family/expectations w/e and you're able to drop the subject (whilst performing poorly or mediocre on it), strongly recommend so
I did MaX2 mainly cause I liked friends + expected of me - I got a terrible mark (by standards) and don't think it counted in the end
Was never really a Math person - but on the other hand all the subjects I chose due to personal interest I really found motivation to study them for hours on end for weeks/months on end, and ended up b6ing all <3 <3 <3
So choose subjects you like - and drop the ones you don't ASAP

 

[baci]

I achieved an ATAR of 99.20 and state ranked in SORII.
In year 11 I received two D grades at a 20-30 ish ranked school.

The HSC is a game of consistency. COMPLETELY.
I realised that in doing extension 1 maths, I would not be consistent in having great ranks.
Therefore dropping to Maths General II was the best decision of my life.
I went from a B in religion to state ranking, simply because I had so much more time doing less maths.
People above have said do as much maths as you can, but my ATAR was higher than most of my friends who did 4 unit and I only got 95 in general maths.

Contrary to what other people say, I did not use practice papers as a form of studying EVER.
They didn't work for me and don't work for many people.
I found it pointless doing HSC questions which were probably not going to be asked again. I would sometimes create my own questions and spend time really answering them, and I often tried to predict questions.
Basically don't get stressed about timed past papers, I legitimately did none and did lots of humanity type subjects and I was fine.

Don't be afraid to bullshit and make things up, I did so in SOR and English and Legal Studies frequently. You can get away with it.

Keep your social life as much as you can and extra curricular activities - you must have things to look forward to among the study.
Basically I think consistency is the most important thing if you are looking to achieve a high ATAR as not doing well in 1 2-unit subject can affect your ATAR dramatically.

Best of luck, the year will be over before you know it

 

[miamiheat]

can confirm this given statement is untrue huehuehuehu. breaks yo. not everything is study 24/7

Haha you're probably right. I just personally regarded breaks as being separate from academics. Congrats on your result as well.

 

[Tugga]

Sup Webahh!

 

[NotCricket]

like others have said:

- consistency>intensity
- discipline>motivation
- don't tell people your goals. it's proven to make you less likely to achieve them (there's research on this, ceebs to google it)
- maths 5 days a week, for like at least an hour.
- english is a rote fest. ignore your teachers who tell you to "explore your text". read them and analyze them but you've gotta walk into that exam hall basically already knowing what you wanna talk about
- 2-3 hours of study a night for 5-6 days a week.
- everyone thinks they're immune from burnout. they're not. i was a motivated mofo in term 4 2013. come graduation time i was having to basically drag myself into school. i was miserable. it was the combination of shitty sleep patterns, bad diet and stress. chill. the world rewards those who work hard.
- rankings are everything, but don't let them sour your relationships. i found that being on good terms with everyone really boosted my morale.
- success builds on success. confidence builds on confidence. start conquering your subjects early and you'll steamroll through the year. get off to a shaky start and you put yourself in an uncomfortable position. i had my disappointments too. they got to me. the key is to push through until you reach another success. smash your half yearlies and you'll be golden.
- when i say walk into your exam room with confidence, i don't mean the feel-good, pseudo, bullshit type "fake it till you make it" confidence. i mean confidence gathered from familiarizing yourself with the styles of questions they can ask you, the style of answering questions (essential for sciences), an impregnable knowledge of the syllabus and skeleton responses for common types of questions.
- past papers are everything. don't 'save' them until the hsc. trust me you won't get time to do them.

the hsc is a game. learn how to play it. for god sake go learn everything you can about aligning, scaling and all that stuff like right now.

when people speak of the hsc they tend to do so in abstractions and platitudes. be realistic. you can stick up that "99.95" on your wall and pray to it everyday but true success comes in the short term. time flies past. what have you done today to advance your HSC journey?

that's all for now kiddies. if you need anymore i can do this all day

Best advice I've read on here. Captured my experience perfectly.

Ultimately, real success in the HSC takes a certain amount of grit.

 

[aDimitri]

My advice for the hsc is do what you need to do and do what you want to do.
its good to have a goal, but make your goal what you want personally not what someone else wants of you or you will hate the next 10 months of your life. I knew what i wanted for university and i knew what i needed to get it, and i aimed to do as little as possible and still get where i need. The only exception to this was maths because i honestly enjoyed the course a lot.

It didnt take long to figure out how much work i needed to put in to get my goal and i was extremely happy when i realised i could probably get my course with a band 3 in English (ended up with 81 tho after winging externals). I hated the subject, and i guess the key point of this is dont do something you hate for somebody elses approval

 

[Librah]

Don't listen to some of your teacher's ATAR estimates... most predicted mine to be anywhere in 70-90... got 97.8 and wasnt even aiming that high.

Parents thought i wouldn't even make 90s, i've heard alot of people saying chinese parents have high expectations.. mine were the opposite??

 

[futuremidwife]

- check everything with your teacher!!!!! I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH!!! CHECK EVERYTHING WITH YOUR TEACHER!! ASK HOW YOU CAN IMPROVE, WHERE YOU ARE FUCKING UP IN!! YOUR TEACHER IS YOUR BEST ASSET, AND A GREAT ONE TOO!! DO PAST PAPERS FOR THE SHIT U HAVE STUDIED THIS TERM AND GIVE IT TO THEM!! DONT WASTE UR TIME!! UR TEACHER KNOWS BEST!!

 

[astroman]

can this thread be stickied for the year.

 

[Librah]

In hsc chemistry exam, i myself actually got pretty much what i expected (94) which is like 83 raw or something, based on all those really silly mistakes (graph question asked for 2 lines, i drew 1 lol (MAKE SURE YOU READ THE QUESTION PROPERLY)/ didn't give disadv in assess quest for whatever reason(brain had dead moment)..etc other really bad things im trying to wipe out of my head). But based on multiple peoples accounts, they got far lower mark than they expected, i heard something like they expected 80 raw and ended up with 65. Now i don't know exactly what the problem is, but out of a class of 9, 4 people including me got band 6, i suspect maybe some people have highly overestimated the quality of their responses, or given contradictions in their answers because of a lack of understanding of concepts. Some guy i knew thought he was gonna get 95 raw, got 81 exam mark (after aligning)... i asked him about some of his responses, and he really didn't know what he was talking about, but i'm sure he genuinely thought he did. So make sure you understand what your actually writing, before complaining about it. ALWAYS QUESTION THE TEACHER, they make mistakes and could probably end up confusing you (if it's a consistently "bad" teacher, just don't listen to them, so gotta kind of disagree with nourah there, TEACHER DOES NOT ALWAYS KNOW BEST, especially the stubborn cocky ones). (BTW, my handwriting is both small and absolutely dreadful.) In the long responses i had like arrows pointing everywhere to the sides, and filled the entire page (way off the page) with scattered words lol.

Edit: have never made notes in my life, don't know why, but they just lower my knowledge. (They aren't for everyone) and have never done tutoring or even put that much time and effort into studying. Quality>Quantity in regards with time towards study.
This is in the perspective of school in rank 430ish (don't know about other schools), also when i say there are bad teachers, there are also good teachers (eng(my essay skills are like 3rd world hsc mark-85 engadv)/chem)

IF YOU'VE NEVER REGRETTED A RESPONSE YOU'VE MADE, YOUR DOING SOMETHING WRONG.

Btw something i wanted to know before i get a mark re-check, if your x and n look exactly the same in math extension 1/2, or 2 look like alpha, will they assume it to be one or the other and deduce marks? e.g in (x-1)^n=...... binomial

 

[mreditor16]

like others have said:

- consistency>intensity
- discipline>motivation
- don't tell people your goals. it's proven to make you less likely to achieve them (there's research on this, ceebs to google it)
- maths 5 days a week, for like at least an hour.
- english is a rote fest. ignore your teachers who tell you to "explore your text". read them and analyze them but you've gotta walk into that exam hall basically already knowing what you wanna talk about
- 2-3 hours of study a night for 5-6 days a week.
- everyone thinks they're immune from burnout. they're not. i was a motivated mofo in term 4 2013. come graduation time i was having to basically drag myself into school. i was miserable. it was the combination of shitty sleep patterns, bad diet and stress. chill. the world rewards those who work hard.
- rankings are everything, but don't let them sour your relationships. i found that being on good terms with everyone really boosted my morale.
- success builds on success. confidence builds on confidence. start conquering your subjects early and you'll steamroll through the year. get off to a shaky start and you put yourself in an uncomfortable position. i had my disappointments too. they got to me. the key is to push through until you reach another success. smash your half yearlies and you'll be golden.
- when i say walk into your exam room with confidence, i don't mean the feel-good, pseudo, bullshit type "fake it till you make it" confidence. i mean confidence gathered from familiarizing yourself with the styles of questions they can ask you, the style of answering questions (essential for sciences), an impregnable knowledge of the syllabus and skeleton responses for common types of questions.
- past papers are everything. don't 'save' them until the hsc. trust me you won't get time to do them.

the hsc is a game. learn how to play it. for god sake go learn everything you can about aligning, scaling and all that stuff like right now.

when people speak of the hsc they tend to do so in abstractions and platitudes. be realistic. you can stick up that "99.95" on your wall and pray to it everyday but true success comes in the short term. time flies past. what have you done today to advance your HSC journey?

that's all for now kiddies. if you need anymore i can do this all day

THIS! ALL DAY LONG, this!

 

[iStudent]

If you're one of those who do the asian combo - FOCUS on english, the ATAR slayer.

 

[astroman]

guys : to follow a timetable or daily 'to-do- list?

 

[BLIT2014]

guys : to follow a timetable or daily 'to-do- list?

Daily to do list with specific tasks to complete. This forces you to be more efficient, instead of messing around for 3 hours on a practice english essay etc