Making notes vs Buying notes? (1 Viewer)

[Zokunu]

Title says all...is it worth buying notes/essays from others? Or should I make my own notes? I find it hard making notes because their is so much "stuff" that seems important and you just keep putting them on the syllabus dot-points/expanding your notes even more, which is going to be hard to remember ==''. I will give you an example of what i did today...



• Choose equipment and perform first – hand investigations to demonstrate the following properties of water:
- Surface tension
- Viscosity

Expected result:
Water forms rounded droplets on clean glass and wax whereas the other liquids do not.
Detergent lowers the surface tension of water and so it forms a film rather than droplets.
Hexane flows faster than water or ethanol as it has a much lower viscosity.

Summary:
• High viscosity = Flows more slowly
• The water droplets would be well rounded and stand high above the glass surface.
• The dilute detergent solution would form a film on the glass rather than a drop.
• The detergent lowers the surface tension of the water and the drop is correspondingly flatter.
• The presence of the detergent (a surfactant) interferes with the hydrogen bonds that hold the surface of water molecules tightly together.
• The adhesive forces between the glass and the detergent solution are now stronger and the detergent solution spreads out over the glass surface.
• Surface tension decreases as the temperature increases.
- At the higher temperature the molecules of water have greater kinetic energies.
- This greater molecular motion acts against the formation of hydrogen bonds.
- The water molecules move slightly further apart, so the attractive forces between molecules decrease.

(not complete yet btw)
so...what do you think?

 

[bedpotato]

Definitely make your own notes for the sciences.

I didn't make any notes for prelim, but I guess this would be good practice for when you decide to make notes for HSC. Don't worry if your notes from prelim aren't as good as you want them to be, learn from prelim to make "perfect" notes for HSC. For HSC though, I did make notes and I found it to be very helpful. As you make notes, you learn along the way and the notes you make are suited to you/your needs (esp. if you're a perfectionist ._.). Even though not making can be very time consuming and sometimes just annoying/tedious, it's worth it at the end.

Some tips:
- Use a variety of sources when making your notes (a couple of textbooks, some notes from other people, and maybe websites for some of the syllabus dotpoints). But don't have 5 textbooks in front of you and 10 sets of other peoples' notes lol.
- For the sciences, it would be a good idea to make your notes syllabus based. Look at the verb in the syllabus dot point and answer that. This will help you make your notes concise and relevant to the syllabus. If you're having trouble writing notes for specific dotpoints and you don't know what to include, ask your teacher. They should be able to help you with this.
- For experiments, you need an aim/equipment/method/risk assessment/variables etc. because they might ask you to write a method for a specific practical in the exam.
- Try to write some of your notes in your own words, rathern than just copying directly from the textbook. This will make it easier for you to understand and remember your notes.
- Try to include diagrams/tables/flowcharts in your notes as opposed to huge lengthy paragraphs. Again, this will help you be concise.

That's all I can think of now. Good luck!

 

[Zokunu]

Definitely make your own notes for the sciences.

I didn't make any notes for prelim, but I guess this would be good practice for when you decide to make notes for HSC. Don't worry if your notes from prelim aren't as good as you want them to be, learn from prelim to make "perfect" notes for HSC. For HSC though, I did make notes and I found it to be very helpful. As you make notes, you learn along the way and the notes you make are suited to you/your needs (esp. if you're a perfectionist ._.). Even though not making can be very time consuming and sometimes just annoying/tedious, it's worth it at the end.

Some tips:
- Use a variety of sources when making your notes (a couple of textbooks, some notes from other people, and maybe websites for some of the syllabus dotpoints). But don't have 5 textbooks in front of you and 10 sets of other peoples' notes lol.
- For the sciences, it would be a good idea to make your notes syllabus based. Look at the verb in the syllabus dot point and answer that. This will help you make your notes concise and relevant to the syllabus. If you're having trouble writing notes for specific dotpoints and you don't know what to include, ask your teacher. They should be able to help you with this.
- For experiments, you need an aim/equipment/method/risk assessment/variables etc. because they might ask you to write a method for a specific practical in the exam.
- Try to write some of your notes in your own words, rathern than just copying directly from the textbook. This will make it easier for you to understand and remember your notes.
- Try to include diagrams/tables/flowcharts in your notes as opposed to huge lengthy paragraphs. Again, this will help you be concise.

That's all I can think of now. Good luck!

mhm, should you care about your Yr 11 notes in Yr 12 tho? Especially when you're doing the HSC?

 

[enoilgam]

As I've said millions of times on BoS, it depends on the person. For me, writing notes and summarising was my primary way of learning the content. Plus, I found structuring notes my own way helped me a lot. So writing my own notes was a way better idea for me. Then again, I know a few people who have done really well and they just used other people's notes.

 

[Zokunu]

As I've said millions of times on BoS, it depends on the person. For me, writing notes and summarising was my primary way of learning the content. Plus, I found structuring notes my own way helped me a lot. So writing my own notes was a way better idea for me. Then again, I know a few people who have done really well and they just used other people's notes.

kk. thx

 

[bedpotato]

mhm, should you care about your Yr 11 notes in Yr 12 tho? Especially when you're doing the HSC?

not really. Content is completely different.

For chemistry it would be useful if you've forgotten some concepts such as types of bonds. If you have your notes you can just go over them to refresh your mind. For bio, not really. Don't know about physics.

But don't throw your notes away, keep them IN CASE you need them

 

[Zokunu]

not really. Content is completely different.

For chemistry it would be useful if you've forgotten some concepts such as types of bonds. If you have your notes you can just go over them to refresh your mind. For bio, not really. Don't know about physics.

But don't throw your notes away, keep them IN CASE you need them

k, thx man

 

[Drifting95]

inb4peoplestartsellingnotestoyou

 

[vtx]

You buy notes to help you make your own.
The most important thing is to make them high-yield, i.e. only the most important information. Each module should be around 25 pages of word using standard formatting.

 

[kewon]

Unless you are extremely competent I would recommend buying notes. It saved me a whole heap of time and i doubt anything I could have prepared would cover the syllabus as concisely.

 

[Jinks]

As I've said millions of times on BoS, it depends on the person. For me, writing notes and summarising was my primary way of learning the content. Plus, I found structuring notes my own way helped me a lot. So writing my own notes was a way better idea for me. Then again, I know a few people who have done really well and they just used other people's notes.

This basically. For some of my subjects I made my own notes and others I used other peoples notes paid for/free. However whenever I used someone else's notes I made sure they were easy for me to understand, and I still annotated them a lot.

 

[Zokunu]

You buy notes to help you make your own.
The most important thing is to make them high-yield, i.e. only the most important information. Each module should be around 25 pages of word using standard formatting.

Far, i did 16 pages for a module and thought it was alot, since people in my school only do 3-4 pages of notes for an exam, some of them cbf . =='' Anyways thx guys

 

[Candidate]

Far, i did 16 pages for a module and thought it was alot, since people in my school only do 3-4 pages of notes for an exam, some of them cbf . =='' Anyways thx guys

When I have modules I like, I make my notes in paragraphs instead of dot-points (except for history) such as for my recent Legal module and Biology module. It commits it to your memory better than reading other people's notes and requires you to think out responses to the syllabus dot point, rather than plot lots of points which are easy to forget. it also forces you to be concise and have a structured response already in your memory– very useful for short answer responses in exams.

I used dot-points earlier in the year and found it was far too easy to include excessive information due to the easy nature of plotting points down the page (I found dot-points great for cramming and memorising essential info like quotes, dates or formulas).

 

[obliviousninja]

Better off to write your own notes because they actually mean something to you and you understand it as it is moulded to the way you learn best.

 

[ACI]

For content heavy subjects you ideally want to write your own. Start off with the syllabus then you expand it by adding heaps of notes (as much is necessary for you to understand the concept). Add notes from different sources as mentioned by Bedpotato. Once you have expanded and you understand all the stuff you need to, summarise and keep summarising until you end up with the syllabus.
It also helps to use flash cards for these types of subjects as you can easily sort out important info and get straight to the point rather than reading through heaps of pages. Flashcards are also effective in building you understanding and long term memory of content and it takes less time.

PM me for more info if you are interested

 

[j12onuzim]

Do you normally hand-write your notes or type them up?
Also, how long are they?

 

[bedpotato]

Do you normally hand-write your notes or type them up?
Also, how long are they?

Depends on you.
I type them up, looks much neater and is easier to edit. But nothing wrong with handwriting.

As for the length, depends on which subject. For bio/chem, usually 20-30 pages depending on the module.

 

[Zokunu]

Do you normally hand-write your notes or type them up?
Also, how long are they?

i type my notes up on word. Normally I would go to the resources section and open up notes for the same module, and try and combine all "relevant" stuff in for each dot-point. Then rearrange it into my own words. Is this like..a good way for making notes?

 

[Menomaths]

I write out all my notes, this way I'm able to retain most of the content.