Study Tips

[Bowski]

With year 12 exams coming up i thought those doing them (myself included) would appreciate some tips from people who have done them.What got you through?How did you manage your time? etc etc.
Cheers.

 

[RooBuoy]

For one, I would get the **** off this site, it wastes so much time.

Get out now while you have the chance!

 

[deluxeman]

I'd do as many practice exams as you can, especially for maths/science subjects. Don't necessarily have to do them under exam conditions but just do them as revision.

I didn't do many humanities subjects, but I'd imagine just from my experiences in English, that you're best off just writing several practice essays and making sure you know all the main points.

 

[BomberGal]

Yeah, get off Bigfooty. Although I didn't stop in Year 12, probably still spent an hour or two a day here.

Do all the practise exams you possibly can. Write as many essays as you can for English (I did so many that my teacher told me to stop ), and read examples of good essays. Make sure you have definitions (e.g. science subjects) and quotes (e.g. English, history) off by heart. Draw up a schedule for yourself so you have X hours of a subject in per day, with calculated breaks. I know it's cliche, but it works. If you don't have study cards (the Jacaranda ones are really good), make some of your own with the most important stuff on them. Read them everywhere you go. Go to VCE revision lectures that are held at unis and see someone else's perspective on the material. Write your own exam questions and then answers. Flowcharts, concept maps, etc are really good for remembering how things link together. Make summary notes now and refine them weekly, maybe more often coming up closer to exams.

 

[johnnyhoward]

I tell you what, BigFooty is the biggest way to make an excuse for yourself not to study. if you're all set at your desk to get some work done, you think "10 minutes of BF won't hurt" and then it becomes 30 minutes, an hour, then you take a break, then you forget about study

I find the best way to go about studying is just steadily do a couple of hours a week throughout the year. At uni, whenever I do this I get DI's and HD's without even studying much for the exam. But when I do little study for subjects throughout the year and leave it to the last 2-3 weeks, I'm stuffed for the exam and usually just scrape over and get PA's. Slow and steady wins the race.

 

[justthedukes]

Yeah, like the others are saying, get of bigfooty, and delete MSN if you have it!

 

[Tony_Clifton]

Write up a study plan.

Like a calender with important dates and what you will be studying when. This stops you getting overwhelmed. Just see what the next step is.
Like in sports, focus on the process, the reults will take care of themselves.

I like to call mine a battleplan because it sounds so manly and inspiring.

 

[notting18]

I think the best advice with regard to study is practice the exams that you will take. I know quite a few people who know a lot but don't know what they will ask on the exams. While i don't try to know everything completely, but just what will be tested and do quite well!

 

[Saint Corin]

Im thinking of Deleting MSN come this start of this holidays, would go a long way to me studying more efficently.

 

[Mattlowry]

Alright this is long but hopefully you will appreciate it. I am probably someone who deserved an Enter score of around 80, but my study plan was fantastic and ended up getting much much closer to 100 haha. Anways

My number first tip is to go to revision seminars. These will be run over your holidays coming up soon. Neap and Insight ran most of the ones that i went to. They were at Melbourne Uni. I did a 3 day intensive revision seminar for methods that was fantastic. These are a great wayto start your revision as it will just jog your memory a little bit.

For English i would also recommend getting the text guides. They are usually about 100 pages long (one of mine was longer than the actual book!). They will detail the texts, the characters, the issues, give sample essays, sample topics etc. They are fantastic. I would have been lost without them.

These holidays are very important. You should use them as a base for your revision. Try to revise the whole course of each subject. Like for example in methods go through each chapter and do the revision exercises, noting along the way what you are having trouble with and what you will need on your cheat sheet. For Business Management i sat down at my computer for about 8 hours and just typed up my own basic revision of the whole book. Its great because everything becomes fresh in your mind.

You should aim to have a good understanding of all your subjects at the end of these holidays.

Now, just a few tips.

1- Get a calender on your wall. Put in the dates of all your exams, and how many days they are away. I found it helped motivate me when i realised, 'crap my exams are in two weeks!'.
2- Practice exams. Practice exams. Practice exams. Your school SHOULD be giving you alot of these. I had about 25 for accounting from memory and even more for methods. I had doubles of each as well. I did every single one under exam conditions and this i believe is the only way to do it.

If you have revised the course during the holidays already you shouldn't need too much help. Doing them under exam conditions is the best as you will finish it MUCH MUCH faster than the alternative. It will also show yourself where you need help and where you need to start doing more work. Look at the answers after you are done and make sure you correct yourself. You will get a good idea of where you are at.

3- Maths Tutor/Teachers. You will probably need a lot of help with maths compared to any other subject. Well most kids do. Its alot harder to teach yourself something like that which you don't understand. If only for one or two hours a week (say on a Monday and a Thursday night) for a month, it will still be a huge help. I had one and i cannot say how much he helped me. You will have too many questions to ask your teacher....


Probably most important
4- Discipline/Commitment.

As everyone said its very easy to get distracted. 10 minutes on big footy turns into 30, turns into an hour and then you go and have a break on top of that and waste a whole day. This is why doing things under exam conditions or setting time limits on what you do is a great idea as you can structure your time most efficiently.

Exams are terrible. It got to a point where i was just so so sick of studying it almost hurt. I worked extremelly hard during my year 12 exams and for that reason got a much higher enter than i expected and i am now doing a much higher course than i ever imagined i could get into. The benefits of working REALLY hard over the next 2 months are just indescribable.


I made myself a little motivational poster which said: 'One Month to change the rest of your life' or something along those lines. It worked well. I really had one month to work hard and it would benefit the rest of my life massively.

Luckily we didn't have myspace when i did year 12 or i would have been even more distracted.

Work hard mate. Hopefully this helps.

 

[kolchak]

I learnt this off my niece and wish I had thought of it at uni, stick up on the wall or where ever around the house, material that you think will be likely on your exam and read it while your doing what ever you do.

 

[raikkonen]

DOnt worry too much. School means jack shit anyway. Too much emphasis placed on how much it means to your future. Trust me, a lot of my friends who busted their arse during Year 12, have said that they didnt need to.

I just did lots of old exams from previous years, and studied at school during 'swotvac' to keep away from all the distractions one is likely to get at home. Not many chose to do this, so there was only 8 of us tops at school each day during this period i.e <10%. Good to have those other people there to help you out as well. And teachers usually made themselves readily available anytime, even during their classes for lower grades!

That certainly helped me get my 12/20 for Maths STudies...(hey that was pretty good considering I was on about 8/20 leading up to the exam..must have got 16/20 for the exam, or around that!!)

 

[raikkonen]

DOnt worry too much. School means jack shit anyway. Too much emphasis placed on how much it means to your future. Trust me, a lot of my friends who busted their arse during Year 12, have said that they didnt need to.

I just did lots of old exams from previous years, and studied at school during 'swotvac' to keep away from all the distractions one is likely to get at home. Not many chose to do this, so there was only 8 of us tops at school each day during this period i.e <10%. Good to have those other people there to help you out as well. And teachers usually made themselves readily available anytime, even during their classes for lower grades!

That certainly helped me get my 12/20 for Maths STudies...(hey that was pretty good considering I was on about 8/20 leading up to the exam..must have got 16/20 for the exam, or around that!!)

 

[raikkonen]

DOnt worry too much. School means jack shit anyway. Too much emphasis placed on how much it means to your future. Trust me, a lot of my friends who busted their arse during Year 12, have said that they didnt need to.

I just did lots of old exams from previous years, and studied at school during 'swotvac' to keep away from all the distractions one is likely to get at home. Not many chose to do this, so there was only 8 of us tops at school each day during this period i.e <10%. Good to have those other people there to help you out as well. And teachers usually made themselves readily available anytime, even during their classes for lower grades!

That certainly helped me get my 12/20 for Maths STudies...(hey that was pretty good considering I was on about 8/20 leading up to the exam..must have got 16/20 for the exam, or around that!!)

 

[BomberGal]

For English i would also recommend getting the text guides. They are usually about 100 pages long (one of mine was longer than the actual book!). They will detail the texts, the characters, the issues, give sample essays, sample topics etc. They are fantastic. I would have been lost without them.

Yep. However, be really careful when using these - it's very easy to take all their ideas and not formulate any of your own. Examiners know when ideas have been regurgitated from the study guides and will mark you down for it on an exam. Look up reviews on texts online as well (even Amazon is OK!), don't just trust what your teacher gives you. The Herald Sun and The Age (obviously I'm talking about VCE here, not HSC/SACE/whatever else) will review a few of the books each year, so chances are your book has been reviewed once or twice in the past - make sure to get these too. And with the English essays, the people who get the higher marks tend to disagree with the question rather than agree. Not always, you can of course support the statement. But keep it in mind. I think the questions tend to lead you in to a particular answer making it easy to agree, hinting at scenes in the story; it shows more skill if you can disagree with it. Just be sensible about it, and most of all make your position clear. If you know the book well enough (you should have read it all the way through at least 5 times, some sections 10-20 times minimum), you will be able to be critical because you know it better than the person who asked the question.

However I would disagree about doing all the exams (for whatever subject) under exam conditions. Some you should definitely do timed, for example the most recent years. However if you have exams that are 15 years old, there's little point timing it. It's good to stop and think about the questions sometimes, and that way you can get used to developing your ideas more quickly. I think I did 10 years worth of past exams and 10 years worth of past practice exams, plus that year's practice exams for most subjects. A lot of work but it paid off. The more exams you do, even if they're untimed, you'll find that you'll end up being able to answer any question quickly anyway.

I agree with kolchack, too, about the posters on the wall. I not only did this in VCE, but for all my exams at uni. It's a pretty effective technique if you make sure to read them regularly (at least a couple of times a day). The toilet is an excellent place to put them!

 

[TheBigUnit]

raiko, it really depends on what you want to do. If you're aiming to get into a course like Medicine, Dentistry, Law or Engineering (to a lesser extent), then you better be prepared to work hard and get good marks. That said you don't need to be academically smart to be successful, if you've got good business smarts you'll be successful in whatever career you choose.

Some very good advice in this thread. I'll second mind mapping/flow charts - if used properly they're a fantastic way to organise your thoughts and can be used for any subject.

 

[Bombers_Forever]

I did pretty well in Year 12 (well I go the marks I deserved based on my knowledge) so here is my advice:

* Do the practice exams and past tests – do them in exam conditions to get used to the time restrictions. It is amazing how helpful they can be and you can always present your answers to your teacher to mark and give feedback. Do as many of them as you can – they are really the best practice possible!

* You can’t expect to cram everything in 6 weeks. The last 18 months is your preparation, this should be just revision.

* As Matt Lowry said, go to revision seminars. I went to a few at Sydney uni and learned a great deal – it was only revising stuff but the study tips gave you a different way to study. The money and time is worth it – I thought it would be a waste but it really prepared me.

* English text guides – essential reading.

Tips:

* Plan your study. It is amazing how you can loose track of time and spend too much time on one subject while neglecting others. Allocate time for each one, but spend a little more time for those you have trouble with. Also factor in breaks

* Use different study methods – some people can get by through just summary notes, or flash cards. Find whatever works for you but don’t make them all the same. Some people love pictures, graphs, flowcharts, symbols..........whatever works for you, go with it

* Use your teachers as much as possible. They want you to do well so don’t be afraid to email them an answer or go into the school to get some feedback. If you don’t want to go down that path, go to a tutor for a couple of weeks with specific questions you are struggling on.

 Don’t worry about what happens AFTER the exams. So many people worry about the scores they will get, what uni they are going to, how they are celebrating schoolies. Worry about those after the exams or else they just distract them.

Matt is right: Probably most important Discipline/Commitment.

It is easy to get distracted but self disipline is the biggest thing. If you work hard (and have worked hard through the year), the results will come your way. My reward was a good score and I got into the uni I wanted. I made a lot of sacrifices and worked hard throughout Year 11 and 12 (even at the expense of my social life) but it was worth it. You probably won't be under more stress but the people who put in the work usually get the reward they deserve.

Good luck!

 

[justthedukes]

DOnt worry too much. School means jack shit anyway. Too much emphasis placed on how much it means to your future. Trust me, a lot of my friends who busted their arse during Year 12, have said that they didnt need to.

Yeah I agree to an extent, theres too much emphasis placed on your ENTER, they make you belive that your score determines your future, and that is so wrong.

It all depends on what you want to do, if you know what you wanna do, your set. Of course you want to get the best possible result, but if you dont it doesnt mean jack.

I know 2 guys that got 90+ and did a course that they werent sure about, ended up hating it, dropping out and doing a pre-ap.

So yeah, figure out exactly what you wanna do, set yourself a goal, then you'll be right.

 

[Mattlowry]

Yeah I agree to an extent, theres too much emphasis placed on your ENTER, they make you belive that your score determines your future, and that is so wrong.

It all depends on what you want to do, if you know what you wanna do, your set. Of course you want to get the best possible result, but if you dont it doesnt mean jack.

I know 2 guys that got 90+ and did a course that they werent sure about, ended up hating it, dropping out and doing a pre-ap.

So yeah, figure out exactly what you wanna do, set yourself a goal, then you'll be right.

Well you said 'to an extent' so i suppose i don't totally disagree with you..

You are exactly right in that it depends on what you want to do. If there is even the slightest chance you will want to go to uni then definately bust your ass.

People who say 'the result doesn't matter' or 'too much emphasis is put on it' are generally kidding themselves. There is an emphasis put on it for a reason.

Hypothetical. I get into Swinburne with a course needing say 70 to get in. I get 71 as my enter. Even if i get good results Melbourne would probably not accept me. Monash may not either. What i am saying is, why bother with all this hassle when you can just get a good enter and get into the course straight away.

It is much easier to transfer out of one high quality course to another then it is from a lower quality course to a higher one. People who say 'if i go bad i can just transfer later'. It doesn't work that way.

You won't go from Arts at Deakin to Medicine at Melbourne even with good results.

It isn't the end of the world, if you work hard during uni you can make up for it, but that will take alot more effort (and years of your life. Not months. Years) to get to where you would have been if you had worked hard originally.