Do you know what makes you tick? Can you use it to your advantage? (1 Viewer)

clintmyster

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I've never really known what works for me. I've always been a person to ask everyone how they study and am intrigued learning new techniques but in the end cram and whatever like the rest so I don't know if thats the best for me or not.

From this trials however i put cramming to the absolute test. I mean who reads and entire years worth of notes in 4-5 hrs? Who memorises 3 module essays in 5 hrs!
For me, I noticed that reading everything outloud and paraphrasing it as if I was trying to teach someone really helped me. Sometimes I even questioned my notes saying whether they were right or not, and sometimes they were wrong and it was good finding those mistakes. Some of my mates said I like arguing a lot which is why I do better in speeches and essays rather than in creative stuff haha. I guess this worked wonders for me. It didn't matter that I had few diagrams or pictures in my notes and rather had dotpoint after dotpoint of information.

Another thing I found is that if I feel extremely confident "like i know everything" that actually calms me down a lot. Like before UMAT, I was freaking out. I never done worse on a test then i did on UMAT. Maybe it was because I was not confident. These stuvac days tho, I mean I have about 12 hrs at home to do whatever. I spend like 5 hrs doing work and the rest just reassuring myself that I'm set even if im not. Then I cram using the technique above and it actually works. I even do past papers out loud so I can do them in half an hr to an hr as opposed to 3 hrs! It works wonders for chem, phys and ancient.

Have you guys found what makes you tick yet? Does it help knowing what it is?
 

iRuler

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I dont have a perfect method, but mine is reading over notes twice, Writing them down mostly by memory, if I forget I just look at them and keep going, after that I retain the information for a good length of time. The only thing is that I need about 3 days each, firstly read and write, then I need to re-read the second day and sometimes the third day to make sure I know it.

For maths I just go over the theory work, do 1-2 questions then a few past papers, works most of the time.

Still looking for a better way =/
 

Dannnyku

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I like to write everything i need to know (notes, essays) down on paper, then read everything two or three times.
After that: make up ridiculously hard questions and answer them --> read it out load and mark it pretending i'm a really harsh marker --> Cry over the shitty mark --> redo the question until its good.
Maths I'll leave till the night before, practice tricky questions, and do heaps of past papers.
 

clintmyster

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does that essay technique help though?
You know how teachers say hand in practice responses that are completed under time, does anyone actually do that? Like whats the point of handing in an essay under timed conditions if its not as good as the typed one?
 

Macdwg

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because it gives you a good indication of what your capable of doing within that set period of time. Teachers will then be able to help you improve from there.
No point handing in a perfectly typed essay, only to be able to recall parts of it due to time constraints in an exam.
 

clintmyster

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because it gives you a good indication of what your capable of doing within that set period of time. Teachers will then be able to help you improve from there.
No point handing in a perfectly typed essay, only to be able to recall parts of it due to time constraints in an exam.
But why do you need a teacher for that? Improvement? You have the improvement in regard to a type essay.
 

hairspray

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For business studies.. i spent my time memorising the syllabus and referring to the case studies when memorising each dot point. That worked best and memorising the syllabus worked wonders when writing out the biz report =)
 

Scinery

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yeah if theres anything ive enjoyed about this HSC its finding out what does (and doesn't) work for me.

I divide english essays into my main points and argue with my essay like clint said until i can remember the whole thing in <20 or so prompting words which i then make 1-sun 2-shoe 3-tree etc. not to mention the "journey" method lol. It works really quickly i find.

Mindmaps worked amazingly for modern history since everything is so interconnected. History extension i figured we just need the jist of each historian individually. Chemistry i generally do badly but learning the actual syllabus dot points helped learn the content.

still havent worked out what makes me go for maths though...hence why i probably failed XD. i guess i just cant be bothered doing questions over and over like i should. unless there is a better way?
 

clintmyster

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still havent worked out what makes me go for maths though...hence why i probably failed XD. i guess i just cant be bothered doing questions over and over like i should. unless there is a better way?
One secret is doing your maths hw and actually not letting it go till you get everything right. If you get something wrong, its imperative you discuss it with your mates or your teacher. If the teacher's dont check your hw well do the questions that you feel are different. Namu posted a great guide to succeeding in 2u but it does carry on to the higher levels of maths.

After that its just past papers under exam conditions. Think about, why do very few people not get a full score in 2u maths? Its not because its an overly challenging course, its due to not having the best exam technique and ability to get out information during testing conditions. From now till the hsc thats what you got to do!
 

Scinery

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yeh the plan was to do 1 math past paper and 1 chem past paper every day from today until hsc, then i realized we still have to go to school ><. lol but i do hope to finish successones twice before the exams. not quite sure what to do with english though, since it's over etc. i suppose just appropriating different text types and questions..
 

clintmyster

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about 50 days to go, id say 2 papers a day is sufficient. If you get home from school say at 4, you can mix a 2hr subject and a 3hr subject. Like for me I wake up at like 5 so i'd do a 2hr paper then and a 3hr paper maybe 5-8pm. The idea for english is just that can try and tweak your practice essays so teachers say you could get 20 or 15 for this essay if you apply it to the question well.
 

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