Study Advice

[Gasometer]

With exams coming up, I thought I'd make a thread where we can share advice. I've already been studying for the past few weeks and I'm going okay. I always seem to struggle studying for English exams though? I normally make a practice essay or two but I get into the exam and the question seems to be completely different? Any advice?

And when it comes to studying for maths, what do you guys do? I tend to write down formulas, go back and do questions and I'll do a practice exam. Any other tips or advice?

Avoid wtf you avatar is doing.

 

[woopedazz]

By the way, if your teachers and your school keep telling you how important it is to get really good scores in order to get into the certain class, that will get you into the top year 12 class, in order to get a high TER, in order to get into the best university blah blah blah REMEMBER: -- They are mostly telling you this so it reflects well on the school, especially being a private school; It's the only way they can justify ripping your parents (and other parents) off so much with their exorbidant school fees.

I'm not usually one for "conspiracies," but this is spot on. Teachers attempt to scare you into achieving. I've got 5 teachers in my family and all of them religiously work the "slippery slope" technique on their students from Primary School through to Year 12. They reckon it gets results so they do what works.

 

[Silent Alarm]

Also, there's a study section where year 12's who are still caught up in the hype all talk to each other.

In the next few years, you'll have arseh*le teachers instilling nothing but fear into you. The tactic they used at our school was to approximate our ATAR. What they actually did was give us an extremely low number. I only wound up with a number in the 70s, but my 'prediction' was like a 55. The desired effect was to get me paranoid and worried and to study a lot... all I did was lose hope, become disenchanted, and basically give up what little study I did. Remember that teaching requires a laughably low ATAR. Don't listen to their pathetic attempts to guilt trip you into studying.

Go on Bigfooty, drink some beers, watch the footy, talk to girls... do what you're supposed to do. If you're English oriented, you'll be fuarked regardless. If you're good at maths, you'll have an easy run. The education department is seriously maths and science-centric.

 

[bunsen burner]

With exams coming up, I thought I'd make a thread where we can share advice. I've already been studying for the past few weeks and I'm going okay. I always seem to struggle studying for English exams though? I normally make a practice essay or two but I get into the exam and the question seems to be completely different? Any advice?

And when it comes to studying for maths, what do you guys do? I tend to write down formulas, go back and do questions and I'll do a practice exam. Any other tips or advice?

Some really dodgy advice going on in this thread. Sure, Year 10 means f-all in the scheme of things but to go onto year 12 without knowing how to nail an exam is a leaving stuff to chance. Year 10 and 11 should be used as time to fine tune your exam process for HSC.

Don't speculate, calculate.

When you walk into an exam, you need to be in control. If you're not, you haven't studied hard enough.

This is what you need to do

For each of your subjects, you need to know the whole syllabus. It sounds so obvious but many students don't do it. They do parts of the syllabus, and speculate what will be in there and what won't. Don't guess. Learn the whole lot.


Get the syllabus out, go through the list, and write everything you need to know in 1 exercise book in chronological order.

If there's definitions, then have a definitions section at the front of your notebook.

If it's maths then make sure you cover every single problem in the syllabus. If they're hard ones, then write out the step by step process for solving it. If you don't know how to solve it, then find out. Either hire a tutor or get your parents to hire a tutor. Get the tutor to write down in detail each step. The more you write it down, the more you remember the process, and more importantly the more you are able to differentiate the problems/questions so you know which process you use to solve it.

If it's history or some other mickey mouse subject that only requires memory then write that shit out. Then keeping writing it out until you start remembering it. Break the exercise book/syllabus into chunks and remember bits at a time. Then read just the heading and recite what you have written under and then check you are remembering properly.

If it's something a bit more subjective like English then check your class work. There may be instruction on how to structure an essay. Write the structure down. Practice it a few times. Even have a template. See if you can find examples the teacher has provided and learn how the structure fits the example.

For subjects that are more conceptual like Maths, Physics, Chem etc, and where you're struggling, then you still need to go through this process. Even if there's shit you don't think you can ever get your head around, you still need to know the scope of your syllabus so you can a) get a feel for how much is easy stuff where you can get marks, b) and at least know some shit to put down to get some half marks and sympathy marks. In this "f*** I'm not really grasping this hard shit" scenario, not defining the scope is suicide. Looking at your paper and not having a clue what a question is asking is also suicide. "I know what this is about but can't do it" will get you way more marks than "I don't even have a clue what that is"

To summarise

1. Define the scope of your syllabus and write down everything you need to learn to cover that subject's syllabus in an exercise book. Everything in one spot.
2. Once you have done this, you need to be satisfied that if you learn everything in that exercise book then you a) have learnt your syllabus, and b) won't be hit with a foreign question in the exam
3. Go over it and over it again and again until you know everything that you have been taught
4. Go to the exam confident. I know when I go into exams I imagine that I'm the Winklevii twins.

Then repeat process until you're really good at it.

 

[woopedazz]

snip

Not sure if srs or complete nerd.

 

[JD11]

why are there people trying to talk nbaman out of studying? seriously, just because you don't care about it and are happy with low grades doesn't mean you need to give nbaman reasons to stop studying.

 

[Messenger]

I can have a cheat sheet. I always tend to **** something up though badly. I did on my last exam.

Well I've just mercifully finished studying.

For maths problems and calculations the only way to get them right is to rehearse them. Memorising formulae will only get you so far.

For questions with a number of variables, how many ways can the question be asked? can the question be combined with another type of problem?

For written answers: beyond my study notes, what I tended to do is write a list of all the main points I need to know for each topic. I'd then set myself a five minute test on that topic and produce everything I know about it. When I had it covered, it wasn't revisited so I was concentrating on things I needed to work on.

 

[JDC!]

Just cheat. Write up a few things on a couple of pieces of paper and put them in your pockets/down your pants.

 

[Poseidon]

I'd love to tell you what I did in year 10 but I spent most of it in a park or at the river drunk on goon.

 

[Bluelegs]

I know what you mean. I'm one to get into good habits and I want to work hard and do my best. It's just the way I am.

I just want some advice on studying.

The best advice will come from your teachers.

 

[GreyWind]

Don't stress about year 10 exams as they don't mean a lot really. Just use them as a tool to develop good study habits. When I did high school I had terrible study habits and I've paid the price for it now in a big way, so develop good study habits and really you're already half way there.

For English the best way I found to study was write your introduction, then write the opening sentence of each paragraph and in each paragraph dot point what your argument is and what quotes you are going to use to back up this argument, the conclusion basically writes itself. Also go back through any essay topics you were given as generally they will be used again in the exam or a variation of it.

When I did high school generally physics and chemistry exams had the formulas on the back so don't stress too much about them, just practice using changing the formulas to find out certain things eg. speed = distance/time so they won't give you the distance and time so you have to figure out how to correctly change the formula to find out the missing piece.

Everything else basically comes down to memory and schools basically spoon feed you all the information you need in order to do well and therefore make the school look good.

 

[Wargreymon90]

Teachers are lazy. Do a good set if notes and then practice questions like there's no tomorrow

Him being yr 10 is irrelevant. If you try and get into a good routine for studying for exams before yr 12, then yr 12 will be a piece of cake

 

[Gough]

Maths at school was a mystery to me, I never had much of a desire to find x, but one thing that always stuck in my mind was that you should always show your working. One question might be worth 6 marks and yet the correct answer will only represent 1 mark of the 6, they are looking for your understanding of the concepts as much as they are looking for the correct answer.

 

[alfy!]

Adderall's a hell of a drug.

 

[Cruyff14]

For English, if you need to remember quotes, write or type them out repeatedly until you don't even need to think about what you're writing.

 

[Gough]

As far as English goes, and I don't know what your set texts are, but you usually find that there will only be a handful of possible essays that they will set, past exam papers are your friend.

 

[Password is Taco]

Whilst I am not the best person to ever give advice on studying I would suggest finding out your learning style. I know I am a kinesthetic learner (learning by doing) and then use your learning style to help you study.

Eg. If you are visual - flash cards and posters might help you, if you are auditory - videos/tapes/saying it over and over etc

 

[Gibbsy]

For English, if you need to remember quotes, write or type them out repeatedly until you don't even need to think about what you're writing.

I stuck my quotes up on the outside of the shower so I was always seeing them at least once a day for like 10 minutes straight. I would say them out loud, come up with mnemonics, turn them into songs, whatever. It worked too.

 

[Pie 4 Life]

I never stressed during exam periods because I thought to myself, a bit of ink on paper does not define your intelligence or your worth.

A person can get a 99.95, then walk out and get hit by a bus. Scores mean so little in the scheme of things, and even poor scores just means perhaps an extra year at Uni or even at TAFE, in order to get into Uni. It's nowhere near as bad as everyone makes it out to be.

 

[woopedazz]

Teachers are lazy. Do a good set if notes and then practice questions like there's no tomorrow

Him being yr 10 is irrelevant. If you try and get into a good routine for studying for exams before yr 12, then yr 12 will be a piece of cake

Year 12 is a piece of cake compared to Uni, which is what the majority of Private School kids doing Year 12 are aspiring to attend.

 

[Black Diamond]

nbaman1, don't listen to these people saying year 10 doesn't matter.

It's a very good opportunity to lay the platform for year 11 and 12. You have no idea what you will want to do in a year or so. It could be little things you pick up now which make the difference down the track.

You can improve your enter score at uni, but that will still take 6 months to a year with associated costs involved. However, you don't know how well that will go for you.

 

[Puntroad]

I wouldn't say that just because it's year 10 he should adopt a IDGAF attitude.

Nothing wrong with having pride in your results and keeping parents happy. Some families sacrifice quite a lot to send their children to private schools where study habits are pushed on students.

It's the 'it's just year 10' attitude that can build bad habits, leading to all these people joining uni and scraping through with Ps and then being useless lazy ****s in the work place.

To the people asking about exams in year 10...

Don't all states have a school certificate in year 10?

 

[GOAUS!]

Year 12 is a piece of cake compared to Uni, which is what the majority of Private School kids doing Year 12 are aspiring to attend.

Assuming that you study during Year 12, which is exactly the opposite of what I did then. I should have realised then what I was setting myself up for, anyway doing quite well at Uni now, actually understanding the coursework (helps when you pay attention).

 

[swiftdog]

Bunsen Burner's on the ball.

The best piece of advice I ever got was "Don't memorise.... understand". Relates more to the science world but can relate to maths also. Take a little bit of time to learn the theory behind your maths equations. As an easy example: Why is speed equal to distance/time? How are speed, distance and time related? The theorys behind year 10 equations will be fairly simple (except for probability, that was a bitch from memory) but they get more complicated in methods and specialist. Learning why and how equations work will be important when you need to use more than one equation, or take parts of two different equations to make a new equation, in units 3 and 4.

Another bit of advice, and this applies to you because you actually seem like you want to do well, don't force yourself to study and only study when you feel like it. I adopted this approach in my final year of my undergrad and without a doubt it seemed like the easiest exam period I've ever done. In the moments when I didn't feel like studying I backed myself to study later on, because I know I wanted straight HD's. If you've got the determination to do well then you won't have to force yourself to study, you'll just do it naturally. Moreover, forcing yourself to study will likely just make you tired and inefficient anyway, everyone needs time to recharge their batteries, don't forget that.

 

[Cruyff14]

I stuck my quotes up on the outside of the shower so I was always seeing them at least once a day for like 10 minutes straight. I would say them out loud, come up with mnemonics, turn them into songs, whatever. It worked too.

You freak.