kuuhaq
Studitory
Hey all!
Phil here from Studitory - a platform for exam question practice specifically for NSW Prelim/ HSC, just wanted to spread the word before Term 4 / HSC starts.
Currently we've helped over 3000 Y12 students - so almost 5% of the whole cohort !!
We have over 25,000 real exam questions categorized by topic/subtopic/difficulty, mock exam builders, flashcards, AI tutor chats, forums, group study functionality - across 17 of the most popular Prelim/HSC subjects.
Link: studitory.app
Join our community: https://discord.gg/ESNMg6JunU
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Advice for now until HSC:
Now that trials are done - there's around 2 months left until the HSC, and I assume you will have learned most or all of the content. Here's my advice for what you should do until the actual day.
1) It's in your best interest to raise your whole cohort up.
Because of the way the internal mark is structured - you want to make sure all your peers are doing well, so that your cohort has a high pool of marks in the actual HSC to draw the school marks from. If you are a strong student, you want to be helping others ( helps reinforce your learning ) , if you are a weaker student - you want to be getting help from others. You are no longer competing with your peers - you are on the same team now. Study in groups, but not parties - keep in touch online, at a library, in a cafe, etc.
2) Try to transition away from notes & flashcards slowly, as you do questions and papers.
An athlete that trains only locally can only know he is as good as his local competition.
An athlete that trains internationally knows how good he is compared to the whole world .
If you train only on notes, what happens when the HSC challenges aspects of your knowledge you've never considered?
You need to rely less and less on using notes to recall knowledge - having them ingrained in you - and then start exposing yourself to more and more unique types of questions - challenging that core understanding you have. The more different types of questions you do - the less chance that during the exam you realise you didn't actually understand the concept properly.
3) Develop a strategy for answering each question type.
Exam markers have to go through hundreds of papers - they don't care if you've written the MOST eloquent solution (unless you're state ranking MExt1/2) , they only care that the marking criteria points have been hit. This means you can get the same marks for a concise 3 liner vs a 6/7 line brain dump that dances around the question.
What this means is you can work backwards from a question's marks to figure out the minimum that you need to write. When you do practice questions and exams - try thinking through this lens - and validating your approach in the review by looking at the marking criteria. Eventually, you will start to develop a strategy, and questions will start being much easier to approach. There's only so many questions these exam writers can create from the dot-points - and as you do more questions, you will see patterns in the way they expect you to respond. Practice makes perfect
4) Maintain your mental and physical health.
There's plenty of time until the HSC. You probably won't see your cohort as regularly as you did before.
Don't let exam preparation affect your mental and physical routines - meeting friends, getting good sleep, going to the gym, playing games to relax.
FWIW - I don't even think your university degree is that important, I studied Actuarial/ Finance, but now I'm here building a website
.
Phil here from Studitory - a platform for exam question practice specifically for NSW Prelim/ HSC, just wanted to spread the word before Term 4 / HSC starts.
Currently we've helped over 3000 Y12 students - so almost 5% of the whole cohort !!
We have over 25,000 real exam questions categorized by topic/subtopic/difficulty, mock exam builders, flashcards, AI tutor chats, forums, group study functionality - across 17 of the most popular Prelim/HSC subjects.
Link: studitory.app
Join our community: https://discord.gg/ESNMg6JunU
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Advice for now until HSC:
Now that trials are done - there's around 2 months left until the HSC, and I assume you will have learned most or all of the content. Here's my advice for what you should do until the actual day.
1) It's in your best interest to raise your whole cohort up.
Because of the way the internal mark is structured - you want to make sure all your peers are doing well, so that your cohort has a high pool of marks in the actual HSC to draw the school marks from. If you are a strong student, you want to be helping others ( helps reinforce your learning ) , if you are a weaker student - you want to be getting help from others. You are no longer competing with your peers - you are on the same team now. Study in groups, but not parties - keep in touch online, at a library, in a cafe, etc.
2) Try to transition away from notes & flashcards slowly, as you do questions and papers.
An athlete that trains only locally can only know he is as good as his local competition.
An athlete that trains internationally knows how good he is compared to the whole world .
If you train only on notes, what happens when the HSC challenges aspects of your knowledge you've never considered?
You need to rely less and less on using notes to recall knowledge - having them ingrained in you - and then start exposing yourself to more and more unique types of questions - challenging that core understanding you have. The more different types of questions you do - the less chance that during the exam you realise you didn't actually understand the concept properly.
3) Develop a strategy for answering each question type.
Exam markers have to go through hundreds of papers - they don't care if you've written the MOST eloquent solution (unless you're state ranking MExt1/2) , they only care that the marking criteria points have been hit. This means you can get the same marks for a concise 3 liner vs a 6/7 line brain dump that dances around the question.
What this means is you can work backwards from a question's marks to figure out the minimum that you need to write. When you do practice questions and exams - try thinking through this lens - and validating your approach in the review by looking at the marking criteria. Eventually, you will start to develop a strategy, and questions will start being much easier to approach. There's only so many questions these exam writers can create from the dot-points - and as you do more questions, you will see patterns in the way they expect you to respond. Practice makes perfect
4) Maintain your mental and physical health.
There's plenty of time until the HSC. You probably won't see your cohort as regularly as you did before.
Don't let exam preparation affect your mental and physical routines - meeting friends, getting good sleep, going to the gym, playing games to relax.
FWIW - I don't even think your university degree is that important, I studied Actuarial/ Finance, but now I'm here building a website
.