With only 21 days till the Methods exam, we all realise like never before that our days are numbered. It’s crucial to make sure you’re in your best form for exam day, so we thought we’d put together a few tips to help you pwn that exam…

Do smart revision

VCE students probably cause more environmental damage than the timber industry, if you think about the thousands of students mercilessly printing practice exams across the state. And practice exams are an indispensable way of exam preparation. But it shouldn’t be the only way!

Practice exams are only one of many tools (or weapons, depending on your philosophy of VCE) available to you. At times, doing one more practice paper isn’t quite the way to go. Sit back, relax, and think carefully about what you’re doing…
• Do I feel like I’m improving this way?
• How will doing another practice exam prepare me better for the exam?
• What areas of weakness do I have that aren’t being addressed by practice exams?

Use the Study Design

The VCAA Study Design is what defines the Methods course – it specifies exactly what can and can’t be examined. As such, it’s worthwhile going through the study design ‘key knowledge’ and ‘key skills’ sections, and carefully looking through each of the dot points, asking yourself: “on a scale of 1-10, how confident am I with this topic?”

If you’ve come across a topic you’re unfamiliar with, it’s time to do some targeted revision! Use topic-based resources like study guides, notes, your textbook, practice questions and so on to brush up on that topic specifically.

Use Methods Exam Reports

VCAA examination reports are an excellent way to understand what VCAA expects of students, and to pick up tips and warnings along the way. For each VCAA exam you complete, read the examiner’s feedback for each question carefully.

Got a question right? Good on you! But make sure you still read the comments, because often you can get a question right but still lose marks (for instance, due to incorrect notation). Often the examiner’s report will mention some common mistakes made by students, like so:

methods exam report

methods exam report 2

Didn’t quite get the marks? Don’t just cross it out – make sure you LEARN from your mistakes! Read the solutions in the examiner’s report (or seek help) until you understand what you got wrong, and why! This is also definitely something you’ll want to enter into your exams log (see below).

Keep a Methods ‘Exam Log’

Doing more and more practice exams isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but are you getting the maximum benefit out of each exam you do?
Setting up a Methods exam log is definitely something that helps this. Set up an excel spreadsheet, and record each practice exam you attempt, noting the following:

  • • Score and percentage
    • Time taken
    • Mistakes/why you lost marks
    • Additional comments

This way, you can see how you’ve been improving and any mistakes you’ve made at one glance.

Before starting each practice Methods exam, read through your exams log and take note of why you’ve lost marks in earlier practice exams. Think carefully not only about what you lost marks on, but why – was it a silly mistake? Misread the question? Forgot a concept?

If you’re finding that you tend to make the same mistakes over and over again, take action immediately. Think of what you can do to prevent it from happening again.

For instance, a common issue among students (mentioned time and again in examiner’s reports) is giving the correct answer, but in the wrong form. One way of combating this is to read the question twice – once before doing the question, and a second time after you’ve answered the question, to make sure you’ve not only solved the question, but stated your final answer in the form requested.

So for all those tricky questions you just can’d answer, drop by the Methods board and let us know! And stay tuned for more exam advice over the next few weeks!