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How to excel in senior year studies (yr 11/12)-99+ ATAR graduate (2 Viewers)

strawberrye

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I've gone through this thread a couple months ago and it was honestly really helpful. I don't remember if there was a post on how to organise everything so forgive me if it's already been mentioned. I'm having a hard time deciding how to keep my notes, worksheets, etc organised for next year. I'm taking very content heavy subjects (Legal, Modern, Ext English, Eco, Business) and I was wondering if someone could give me advice. I was thinking of using binders but I'm a huge perfectionist and I think I would go crazy if my papers started ripping out or getting crinkled. I could use plastic sleeves but aren't they a hassle? Also, how should I revise for these subjects after school other than making notes? Any advice would be much appreciated :)
Hi there, sorry for the belated reply, I guess my holiday mode got the better of me :). Unfortunately, I am not the best person to ask because I was one of the most disorganised individuals you could know if I was still in high school, because I didn't really study through notes, but rather through the process of writing notes, hence re-finding the actual contents was less important than the actual process of summarising for me. However, I think you can always type your notes up because you can change formatting, colour, add or delete information whenever you want, a much greater flexibility compared to writing everything down. I never really used binders or plastic sleeves, but perhaps get a plastic folder with many plastic sleeves and you can label each sleeve and that would be a way to go, or just stick or write everything in a separate notebook for revision. What I find very useful when making notes is after each topic, I would summarise key content and ideas in a one page mind-map, I am a bit of a visual learner and I find mind-mapping helped me a lot in connecting each area of sub-content together.

Besides making notes, one of the most effective way of revision is to attempt past HSC questions or if you are still in preliminary, try to get your hands on some preliminary paper, or try the questions in the textbooks relevant, I think that it is by constant answering questions and testing out how well you know and can apply your content to different situations, you will maximise your learning efficiency and learning outcome <3

Merry Christmas and I hope you have a Happy New Year! Happy Organising :)


First of all, I really appreciate the help you are giving. I plan to get a high ATAR and hopefully into medicine and I understand it isn't a walk in the park, my issues involve motivation, I do have resources regarding pass papers, text books and the internet as a whole. I understand to get in medicine you have to have a balanced life with social, physical, academic and mental life all in balance. Currently I am in year 10, holidays have started for me and I plan to finish year 11 topics in Cambridge which will help me score 90+ in pass papers. I also have chosen my subjects (Bio, Chem, Physics, 3 unit maths, economics, religion, eng adv)- I basically chose 14 units so I can drop out some subjects I dislike during first 2 weeks. Regarding motivation I usually create short term motivation involving gaming, I usually will study so at the end of the day I can plan video games, this isn't a very good motivation source as I won't study without the thought of video games at the end of the day. Since the holiday started I have created goals; 8 sessions of study per day (1 session = 50 min, usually have 10 min walks). Despite all this I just wanna know what was your motivation to achieve such a great result + how I can develop a long term motivation that will benefit across my 2 years of senior school :) much appreciated! :D
Thank you for your appreciation:) I would write a long essay outlining how to develop motivation, but to save you time, it just boils down to finding something you genuinely believe in. Say if you believe in medicine, than become passionate enough about it that you are willing to make sacrifices necessary to achieve the results you need and have the passion to stay and exceed your own performance. I don't think that studying to play video games later is necessarily a bad motivation, I think one of the most important thing to sustain consistency in academic performance is not to deny yourself things you like, but rather do the opposite, make time everyday to do things you like and that makes you happy. I watched dramas everyday after school, but I timed myself so that it doesn't significant erode my study time and despite sleeping often at 10pm or 10:30pm at the latest, I achieved all-rounders so the point of the story is, as long as you study efficiently, i.e. study hard, play hard-it is fine :).

Perhaps this earlier extracts from my study guide may help you a bit:
I was an extreme case. I valued studying quite a lot, particularly in high school, I knew studying a lot was the only way to achieving my dream degree, i.e. involving the study of law, and hence I knew I didn't have much option but to sacrifice some fun and just focus on my studies in order to achieve a longer term dream. That doesn't have to apply to everyone, it is not a solid rule, as I have made a disclaimer earlier on in my guide, none of the advice was meant to be solid. It was just a sharing of my personal experiences, often based on my own personality traits of being a slight introvert, and as such, doesn't need to be followed, perhaps just considered as a very rough guideline.

Motivation is a product of goals and thoughts, if you changed your thoughts from I am not going to be very motivated to I may not be motivated now, but I can be motivated by establishing some solid goals, having an unstable/flexible way of thinking rather than a stable way of thinking is going to assist you to change your mindset to a more positive one.

I had one motto I adopted throughout my HSC-when you fail, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again. I also only listened to motivational songs on my iPod, you would not have been able to find a single romance song on my iPod during my HSC-songs like Miley Cyrus' The Climb, David Guetta's Titanium, Kelly Clarkson's What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger, even the 2010 Haiti earthquake song-collaboration from various artists was on frequent repeat countless times during my HSC-listening to them not only motivated me but to always remind me there are more unfortunate events and less fortunate people in the world-and this makes me even more grateful to study. I also came from a migrant background, and I personally gained a great appreciation for all the sacrifices my parents made for me to be in Australia and get the opportunity to pursue a territory education, so that really at the end was the strongest motivation-I really didn't want to let them down-so I couldn't stop fighting until the very last second of the HSC exam-I had to give it my best shot regardless of what failures I had encountered. I had this feeling-of fighting hard to prove myself worthy to be called an Australian ever since I came-almost 10 years ago now-and in many ways, the struggle continues-but I never give in and I will never foreseeably give up-hence I saw the HSC as a kind of short finale to all the years of extra effort and study I had put in, unlike most people who probably had more comfortable lives than me(particularly in terms of learning English) and so put a lot more effort in senior years compared to others. For me, I didn't have much of a choice, from my memory, and I still try to do this, I put in 110% in every single thing I devote myself to-a principle and philosophy that has continued with me today in arenas beyond study.

Hope this was somewhat helpful and all the best for your senior studies journey:)

Hope everyone is enjoying the Boxing Day sales :)
 

strawberrye

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If you have any questions relevant to senior studies, feel free to ask:)
 

drsabz101

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Hi Mei, firstly thanks so much for the detailed advice:) . I'm going into yr 11 this yr, and wanted to know about how to balance work between tutoring, school, and UMAT prep? Tutoring is 3 days a week with a total of roughly 10 hrs p/w. How much time should I be allocating for my umat studies, and ontop of this stay sane.

Thanks!
 

eyeseeyou

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Is tutoring for the HSC 100% necessary, especially for english. physics or chemistry?

Also, how did you get a band 6?
 

L_Chan

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i want some advice/ opinions
I'm entering yr 11 and im debating if i should drop 3U maths to 2U Mathematics

Subjects:
- Adv Eng
-Design and Tech
-Society and Culture
- Community and Family studies
- Business
- Maths Ext

I'm not feeling ever confident in 3U maths and i was told that its crucial to come 1st in all of my subjects in school, in order to get like a 99.95 or 90+ ATAR im kind of confident in coming 1st, 2nd or 3rd in all of my subjects besides Adv Eng and Ext Maths, Adv Eng probably 6th/ 20 students and Maths Ext probably 4th out of like 8 students.

If i were to drop 3U maths for 2U at the beginning of Yr 12, since most of the time i will be doing is revising 2U since i've already done it in Yr 11 3U then im pretty confident in becoming 1st in 2U. So in conclusion i really don't know if i should drop or not since 3U scales high? but i was heard its all about the rank?
 

strawberrye

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Hi Mei, firstly thanks so much for the detailed advice:) . I'm going into yr 11 this yr, and wanted to know about how to balance work between tutoring, school, and UMAT prep? Tutoring is 3 days a week with a total of roughly 10 hrs p/w. How much time should I be allocating for my umat studies, and ontop of this stay sane.

Thanks!
Hi there,
Unfortunately there are not enough information for me to able to personally advice you on how much you spent on UMAT practice, because that depends on the efficiency of your study, how you are currently performing in the UMAT right now, how much school work you have to do, whether you have a lot of school assessments and I think the best way to determine whether you are spending too much time on UMAT practice is to trial and error, in the sense to look at your assessment results for semester 1 and if they are optimal with UMAT practice, that means your UMAT practice time is fine. Unfortunately, I haven't done the UMAT myself before so I have no idea what is an optimal amount of practice time-sorry about that. However I still hoped my study guide would assist you in making the most of your senior year studies:)


Is tutoring for the HSC 100% necessary, especially for english. physics or chemistry?

Also, how did you get a band 6?
Tutoring for HSC is never 100% necessary to get a band 6 in any subject, I myself never went to tutoring for physics or chemistry, although I did start tutoring in mid of year 12 for English, but that was just because I wanted extra confidence to confirm my abilities in English-I was already rank 1 in English in my school before I went to tutoring. To be honest, no amount of tutoring can help a person achieve the marks they want if they don't put enough effort in themselves-tutoring is not a magic fix. How I got a band 6 is basically encompassed in all the advice I have given in this study guide, including subject specific ones as well as general motivation ones.

i want some advice/ opinions
I'm entering yr 11 and im debating if i should drop 3U maths to 2U Mathematics

Subjects:
- Adv Eng
-Design and Tech
-Society and Culture
- Community and Family studies
- Business
- Maths Ext

I'm not feeling ever confident in 3U maths and i was told that its crucial to come 1st in all of my subjects in school, in order to get like a 99.95 or 90+ ATAR im kind of confident in coming 1st, 2nd or 3rd in all of my subjects besides Adv Eng and Ext Maths, Adv Eng probably 6th/ 20 students and Maths Ext probably 4th out of like 8 students.

If i were to drop 3U maths for 2U at the beginning of Yr 12, since most of the time i will be doing is revising 2U since i've already done it in Yr 11 3U then im pretty confident in becoming 1st in 2U. So in conclusion i really don't know if i should drop or not since 3U scales high? but i was heard its all about the rank?
I don't know the school rank of your school, because that is also kind of important in determining how important ranking 1st in your subject is. In general, if you come from a lower rank school (which seems probable given the very small candidature of Advanced English and Maths Extension) then it is pretty important to be the top, however, you should also pay attention to how close the marks are between the 1st and 4th, if all of you guys are really competitive and the marks are very close, then there isn't a significant motivation to drop it because moderation of marks later on will take care of everything else. 3U does scale high, but as with any subject, a subject's scaling only matters if you achieve a certain mark, if you get below that mark, you will be scaled down no matter what subject you do. If you are not that passionate about 3U, and it is not a prerequisite of a university course you are considering of doing, then drop it and spend more time on improving on your English Advanced rank. Hope this helps and all the best of luck with everything:)
 

strawberrye

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If you have any questions related to senior school studies, feel free to ask:)
 

drsabz101

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Hi mei! Question, can u give an exemplar of a study timetable for an advanced yr11 student.
Also I really want to complete certain topics for phys,chem and bio yr 11 , so I can get a headstart on yr 12 work, except I am not sure how to achieve this. Like after every class should I be memorising my notes according to the syllabus, then so when it comes to the exam it will be easier to study for, and hence can use all this time to improve other areas and try to get ahead of the cohort.
- What did ur schedule consist of when you were in yr 11- like 2 hrs of maths, 2 hrs of chem etc ?

Thanks ^^
 

dtmtrano

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Hi mei! Question, can u give an exemplar of a study timetable for an advanced yr11 student.
Also I really want to complete certain topics for phys,chem and bio yr 11 , so I can get a headstart on yr 12 work, except I am not sure how to achieve this. Like after every class should I be memorising my notes according to the syllabus, then so when it comes to the exam it will be easier to study for, and hence can use all this time to improve other areas and try to get ahead of the cohort.
- What did ur schedule consist of when you were in yr 11- like 2 hrs of maths, 2 hrs of chem etc ?

Thanks ^^
You shouldn't rlly be worrying bout yr11. It doesn't even matter tbh. My advice is to have fun and dw bout school. Save your energy for yr 12 when it rlly matters.

Sent from my C6903 using Tapatalk
 

eyeseeyou

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You shouldn't rlly be worrying bout yr11. It doesn't even matter tbh. My advice is to have fun and dw bout school. Save your energy for yr 12 when it rlly matters.

Sent from my C6903 using Tapatalk
I does matter in essence since it's the year which prepares you for the HSC. Lots of people have that habit of screwing around in the prelim year and then they're like "don't worry it's not the HSC yet" and then when the HSC comes, they're screw up the bumhole because of their habit of laziness in the prelim year
 

strawberrye

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Hi mei! Question, can u give an exemplar of a study timetable for an advanced yr11 student.
Also I really want to complete certain topics for phys,chem and bio yr 11 , so I can get a headstart on yr 12 work, except I am not sure how to achieve this. Like after every class should I be memorising my notes according to the syllabus, then so when it comes to the exam it will be easier to study for, and hence can use all this time to improve other areas and try to get ahead of the cohort.
- What did ur schedule consist of when you were in yr 11- like 2 hrs of maths, 2 hrs of chem etc ?

Thanks ^^
Hi there,
I think it is very hard to give an example timetable because I have outlined basically a lot of how I organised my time after school on the first few pages of this guide, whether it is in my subject specific advice or my advice on how to make a good timetable. I think for me, I started to regularly assign myself work from year 12 subjects while I was studying year 11, but then I had already learnt year 11 by myself a year before so perhaps this approach doesn't necessarily work the most effective for you. I think you should prioritise your year 11 school work first, do what is immediately in front of you to the best of your ability and don't worry excessively about getting ahead in year 12-to be honest, the summer holidays between year 12 term 1 and term 2 is plentiful time for you to get ahead and revise, and also the last term of year 11 because not much usually happens.

I focused my schedule on what I needed to finish in terms of homework and assessments, and then I left time for revision, and if there is any extra time left, that is for studying for year 12. I think you should not be so focused on memorising your notes per se, but rather really understand what you are learning, memorisation will only get you so far-i.e. not far because there will be questions in both year 11 final exams and year 12 where questions are focused on your understanding, not just rote learning, when you understand, memory becomes a very easy piece of cake. Do things one step at a time, don't try to do everything ones and hopefully things work out for you. Hope this helps-if you have any further questions, feel free to ask:)
 

writeful

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Hi strawberrye, I want to thank you for writing this guide, I feel much more secure now. I want to ask just how important is writing up summary notes for a subject such as chemistry or physics? When and how often should I write these notes? Is it alright to not write any notes at all and just do past papers? Thanks again.
 

Jackthommy99

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Hi, I have recently dropped from 2U maths to the General 2. I am very passionate about law, and and am worrying that I will not be able to get in a law course at University. Is it possible with General 2 Maths? Also, at the moment, I am doing Ext English and Adv. I am finding Ext. more enjoyable than Adv. and I am worried that the level of discontent with advanced is going to drag my marks down. I think this discontent is stemming from the predictability of the course, journeys, how fun. Any help or tips or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Also, how do you get moderator of this forum?

Jackthommy99
 
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strawberrye

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Hi strawberrye, I want to thank you for writing this guide, I feel much more secure now. I want to ask just how important is writing up summary notes for a subject such as chemistry or physics? When and how often should I write these notes? Is it alright to not write any notes at all and just do past papers? Thanks again.
To be honest, summary notes is a way for you to process the information you learnt and to retain it for long term memory. No one can give you a precise number of when and how often you should write these notes, it depends on how much time you have and how much you need/want to learn for a particular subject. I personally wrote notes, but I remembered content through the process of writing notes rather than looking over my notes again and again, I could say if you have a method to meaningfully decode the information you learnt-for example, explain it to someone else you can possibly get away with not doing any notes, because you have digested the information in a meaningful way that you will retain. However, this is pure speculation and I always think some sort of personal summary is always good, you really should have a really solid grasp of knowledge before attempting past papers-because only then you can test how much you know and don't know. All the best with everything :)

Hi, I have recently dropped from 2U maths to the General 2. I am very passionate about law, and and am worrying that I will not be able to get in a law course at University. Is it possible with General 2 Maths? Also, at the moment, I am doing Ext English and Adv. I am finding Ext. more enjoyable than Adv. and I am worried that the level of discontent with advanced is going to drag my marks down. I think this discontent is stemming from the predictability of the course, journeys, how fun. Any help or tips or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Also, how do you get moderator of this forum?

Jackthommy99
Anything is possible, your subjects don't determine your chances, it is your perception of your subjects that determines it. I have always say this many times, but I will repeat it, don't waste time worrying about the future, spend time in creating your future and defining your own marks. I personally also found extension one english more enjoyable than advanced, because it allowed me to engage and explore with one concept for a really extensive period of time, whereas in Advanced, it seemed to frequently to be on a very fast paced route and it was hard for me to fully appreciate what the texts and concepts I was going through. I don't necessarily think Advanced is more predictable than English Extension One, but rather you need to change your mentality and learn to appreciate the sort of texts that are in both, you get exposed to a lot more variety of concepts in Advanced compared to Extension, changing your attitude and trying to do your best in every module will be crucial to your performance, no one else can change your attitude besides yourself. Perhaps try to brainstorm yourself about the rubric, look for interesting related texts, find your own links and ideas and hopefully that makes it more interesting.

I got the moderator of this forum because I applied for it lol:)-and the other moderators thought I was knowledgable enough and good enough to be one I guess:)
 

Jackthommy99

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Ok, thanks. I appreciate the help. This thread has helped me and quite alot of other people tremendously. I find it inspiring that even after your HSC, you endeavor to help others.

Jackthommy99
 

strawberrye

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Ok, thanks. I appreciate the help. This thread has helped me and quite alot of other people tremendously. I find it inspiring that even after your HSC, you endeavor to help others.

Jackthommy99
Thank you so much for the appreciation-I don't get that very often, I personally believe that HSC really do offer many doors, particularly on hindsight as I enter into my third year of a science/law degree at UNSW. I hope you do practise these tips and I wish you all the best for your senior studies. Perhaps you could give back to others when you finish your HSC and inspire other people:). Anyways, if you have any questions about anything related to senior studies in the future, feel free to ask on this thread :)
 

sugahoneyicetea

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Re: Advice from a graduated HSC student on how to excel in senior year studies(yr 11/

Thank you I learnt a lot from this :)
 

strawberrye

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Re: Advice from a graduated HSC student on how to excel in senior year studies(yr 11/

Thank you I learnt a lot from this :)
Thank you, I am glad you did-I hope you apply these tips and achieve your HSC aspirations :)

If anyone has any further questions relevant to senior study that is not covered in this thread so far, feel free to ask :)
 

B3A13

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Re: Advice from a graduated HSC student on how to excel in senior year studies(yr 11/

All these tips are amazing :)

A tip to add is to make sure that your notes are extensive but not overly detailed where it is not necessary --> you can get caught up on fine details that are not required for test or essays etc..
However, this is if u are finding that your notes are lengthy- if so look back and try to make your points brief and precise. Please don't make notes too short that they become worthless.
 

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