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How do I succeed in these subjects? (1 Viewer)

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Dec 17, 2016
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2018
Hey, so I chose:

English Advanced
English Ext.
Business Studies
Legal Studies
Ancient History
Modern History
and Music

Obviously there is a lot of reading and writing involved, but any other tips are appreciated :)
 

Fantasmos

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Business studies: Memorise that syllabus. Like, being able to recite it is essential for passing, because after the year the content will come naturally, but you'll need to link it in your head under subheadings. There's some studynotes that'll make acronyms that you should memorise.
 

chickencoop

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Make critical dot points for all of your subjects. Since you have chosen pretty much all of the HSIE subjects, you will no doubt have a lot of notes by the end of the year and throughout your HSC - which is why it is essential that you make concise notes and only put in what is necessary.

Getting a head start on English by reading over your prescribed texts is also a good method to get ahead of the pack and alleviate some workload from one of your core subjects. Personally i had pre-written essays for all my English texts based on very common questions (eg - the effect on the community..., how it affects the individual..., how does it reinforce the intertexuality..., textual integrity..., and so on), and generally edited them throughout the year so i wouldnt have to worry too much about needing to write up new essays. Of course my teacher strongly advised against this strategy, but hey whatever floats your boat you know... ;) i ended up getting a b6 anyway
 
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Hey, our subjects are almost identical so I think I can help you here! Now, I don't claim to be some sort of expert on these subjects; everything I list is simply from experience. I hope it helps you :)

English Advanced: The #1 trick for English is to submit past papers. Hell, even essay plans are useful as they outline how you'd tackle a question, certainly useful in developing a cohesive and sustained thesis; getting these marked by a teacher is essential to ensuring continued improvement.

Always scour the Rubric, especially for the AOS. Essentially, most of the questions are drawn from here and if you know it pretty thoroughly it's doubtful you'll be surprised by a trickily-worded question. This also lets you focus your studying so that you become more targeted and effective at consolidating what you need to know.

English Extension: Now I dropped EE1 halfway through Year 11 but from memory, the subject focuses more heavily on developing deep and profound theses that should be a cut above the ordinary kind you usually see in Advanced. All I can say here is to really know your texts. Read them. Read them again. Again and again. This will help keep the content fresh in your mind and give you a larger pool of quotes to draw upon in an exam; you might be able to make it through Standard or even Advanced without reading your texts, but I'm telling you straight, definitely not in EE1.

Business Studies: The syllabus is your friend. DO NOT base your notes off a textbook because these often include a lot of superfluous 'junk' that will not be tested. If I had a dollar for every time I included some worthless bit of info because I thought it *might* be in the exam.

For the extended responses, practice makes perfect. You need to hone your essay-writing skills because the type of essay required here is different than in say, English. Dispense with the flowery language and get right to the point. Be sharp, precise, and thorough. For the reports, this is even more important as the truncated structure automatically positions you to be concise.

Legal Studies: For Legal, you need to be in tune with the happenings of the outside world, particularly during the HSC. What I would give to be a year younger so that I could capitalise on the ongoing legal kerfuffle happening over in Victoria re: young offenders; you have a great opportunity to use this information to your advantage. When I was doing my HSC, the young offenders furore was just starting to break and was in its very early stages. Nevertheless, I remember reading about the state Opposition's plan to adopt a 'law and order' campaign to crack down on young offenders. Keep in mind this was only days before the HSC and what do you know, I ended up using it in my exam. Being contemporary is absolutely critical.

You also should get into the habit of substantiating your claims with a solid bedrock of facts. For Legal, the acronym is LCMDIS (Legislation, Case Studies, Media Reports, Documents, International Instruments, Statistics). Including a healthy mix of all of these will ensure you get great marks for your essays which are a huge component of the course.

Ancient History: Know your sources. I remember in my Ancient History classroom there was a huge poster "Keep calm and cite your sources". This was obviously funny, but also helped hammer home the importance of using evidence. Of course, you can always do a solid and make up quotes and attribute them to real-life historians if you're in a pickle. However, for archaeological sources, you simply MUST know them. That is that.

Modern History: Modern is a little different from Ancient in that it does not explicitly require that you incorporate sources into your essays, personality section excluded. Nevertheless, it's always a good idea to include them if you can. Modern, like many of these HSIE-based courses, is all about evaluation. Therefore, practising the way you structure an argument and make judgements will be very helpful. Again, good notes are especially critical since you need to know more specific dates (down to the month) instead of just a yearly approximation as is the case with Ancient.

In any event, your fate is in your hands. Use this advice to get ahead.

Happy hunting!
 
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sourmilk

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Other than remembering the syllabus word from word, I have managed to survive by making everything into simple to remember acornyms.

Marketing: RIPS
Operations: RIPS
Finance: RIPS
HR: RIPSE

Whenever you see a question asking for a topic question, just remember RIPS (Role of x, Influence of x, Processes of x, of and x Strategies) this will help you in the long run.

I remember in the HSC I couldn't cram the part in finance about the unreliability of financial reports. I ended up making a stupid rhyme which helped me tremendously because that was one of the reports. If you can't remember the jargons - just make your own acronym.
 
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Business Studies: The syllabus is your friend. DO NOT base your notes off a textbook because these often include a lot of superfluous 'junk' that will not be tested. If I had a dollar for every time I included some worthless bit of info because I thought it *might* be in the exam.
I'm just back from studying this subject, and wondering if the information in the textbook isn't in the exam, then what is? It can't all be extended responses; I'm guessing there's a multiple choice/short answer section, too.
 
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I'm just back from studying this subject, and wondering if the information in the textbook isn't in the exam, then what is? It can't all be extended responses; I'm guessing there's a multiple choice/short answer section, too.
It's all syllabus-based, not from the textbook. They can use pretty much all the parts of the syllabus to phrase a question, whether it be multiple choice, short answer or an extended response. Of course, some parts lend themselves more to particular styles of questions.

The reason I say not to rely too heavily on the textbook is because it usually includes diagrams, outdated or poorly-explained case studies and a million different ways of explaining something. When writing your notes, this all adds up and eventually makes them very clunky. As I said before, the best thing to do is to check the syllabus and ask yourself, do my notes explain this concept thoroughly?.

For the right mixture of fastidiousness and simplicity, I recommend using Chapman's, Business Studies in Action.
 
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