With 19 Band 6 scores between them, our three HSC superstars have put this megaguide together over the past week. Five tips from each of Jake Silove, Jamon Windeyer, and Elyse Popplewell: a total of 15 downright brilliant bits of HSC advice. Read on.
Jamon’s Tips:
Write Study Notes Weekly (or Daily)
Study notes are important, I’ll say that straight up. A good set of notes saves countless hours of hunting down that last media article for your essay, or finding that diagram that finally made Relativity click. But there is a trap hidden in this super important tool. The realisation that, before trials, your study notes are not up to scratch, and precious hours are lost adding things to them. Writing study notes is definitely a good way to study, but there are way more effective things you can be doing with your time close to an exam.
The solution? Keep your study notes up to date. Devote a slot simply to writing notes about the content from that week. Or that day, if you are keen. This has multiple benefits. The content is written when it is fresh, so it will be detailed. The notes are always up to date. Plus, writing the notes is a great start for getting the content locked in your brain. That way, time before exams can be used in more practical ways: Practice questions, memorising new, more current media articles, writing practice theses.
Be Ready for Surprises (And Roll With Them)
Your HSC journey lasts 2 years, so let’s get this straight: There is absolutely NO WAY it will all go to plan. You’ll forget about a test, your computer will crash, you’ll get invited to a concert and ditch what was supposed to be your big cram session for Paper 2. No matter how much we try to avoid them, these things happen, but I honestly believe that how you respond to situations like this massively defines how successful you will be in the HSC.
Do your absolute best to not let setbacks get you down. Learn from them, or better yet, use them as your motivation. I had a couple of instances (both for Maths) where my tests results were not where I wanted them to be. One happened to be the Half Yearly Exam, and looking back, I’m glad it happened. It was like a slap in the face, saying “Wake up, you can’t rest on your laurels anymore, this is the real thing now!” An unwelcome surprise, turned into a learning experience. Of course, I don’t wish , but hey, if it happens, use it to your advantage! Of course, take advantage of positive surprises too! Awesome stuff can pop up at random, be sure to take the time to appreciate it. The HSC is made out to be this massive undertaking with a shiny number at the end. Try to consider it more like an Odyssey, a collection of equally important experiences, and you will get much more out of it.
Have 1 Night Off a Week
“Blasphemy. Rest is for the weak!”
Hold on, hold on, hear me out…
The HSC is a full 12 months of hard work and dedication. You spend something in the area of 700 hours in the classroom (based on 60 indicative hours per unit). You are expected to spend about the same amount of time, probably more. Add in cram sessions and late night assignments, you are looking at close to 2000 hours of work. I don’t care who you are; that is tough.
Sustaining a high level of energy on something like the HSC for 12 months (or even, counting Year 11, 24 months) is extremely difficult. I think it is extremely important to get rest.
Taking massive holiday breaks isn’t practical, nor sensible if you want to stay on top of things. So, have one night off a week. Seriously, it is okay, I give you permission. Walk away from the desk. See your friends, watch a movie, go to the gym. Hit the reset button, even just for a few hours on a Saturday night. You will come back refreshed, energised, and ready to go.
Practice Papers Makes Perfect
I get lots of questions about the best way to study for different subjects. There are more in depth guides for each subject in the works (one for Advanced English has already been posted, go check it out!). Every time I get asked this, though, my answer is almost always one thing. Practice Papers.
Practice papers are awesome for a wealth of reasons. They “acclimatise” you to 3 hours of writing non-stop. They give you something specific to work on rather than disjointed study note dictation. They make sure that, as much as possible, there is no question in your HSC Paper that you haven’t seen something similar to. No surprises.
Use ATAR Notes
So wait, there is a place I can go to ask any question about my subjects, and have it answered immediately? And there is FREE lectures? Tips and tricks? Even more awesome stuff coming?… Sign me up!
Jake’s Tips
Study Smart, Not Hard
Throughout your HSC year, it is possible to spend literally all of your time studying. You could spend 5 hours a day, outside of school, on your subjects, writing notes, doing past papers, just staring blankly at a piece of paper.
That is a waste of your time. Studying that much won’t get you an amazing ATAR: if anything, you’ll burn out in a couple weeks/months.
What you should be doing is studying SMART! Come up with techniques to study for each subject, and have a list of specific ways you will improve your knowledge per unit. Seriously, you shouldn’t be going in blind. Have an idea of how you’re going to study for maths: Two past papers a week? Textbook questions? And stick to that. Productive study, not excess study, should be your motto.
Take every opportunity presented to you
Year 12 is the year of opportunities. Whether it be in leadership positions, sport, debating, holidays, or literally any sector of your life. There will be so many options to do incredible things throughout the year, things that you will remember with far greater clarity that your HSC exams.
If you have smart study techniques in place, taking time off throughout the year is completely manageable. You could be School Captain, represent Australia internationally, and still become Dux.
Don’t deny yourself incredible opportunities. Just don’t.
Work together, as a community
Don’t treat your HSC year as some cut-throat competition, where anyone ranked higher than you is your mortal enemy, and every ranked lower than you is some scum of the Earth. By working together, you will all get better marks.
Ignore HSC scaling, ranks, crap like that. Just study effectively, work as hard as you can, and the best way to effectively study is by working in groups. Explaining concepts to other students is the best way to ensure you understand the concept thoroughly. Having a difficult concept explained to you by a student is often way more comprehensible than when a teacher explains the same concept.
Be there for each other throughout the year. There’s absolutely no point losing friends over the HSC. Making it out to be some dog-eat-dog competitive tribal warfare situation will make this year even more shit than it has to be.
Utilise your teachers
In Year 12, your teachers are there to help you. They are there to answer every question you have, to respond to emails at midnight on a Saturday. They know a hell of a lot more than you do, so why not use them as your primary resource?
Getting on good terms with your teachers is super useful, because then they are just more inclined to help you. They’re also generally good people who want to help you.
Organise group/private sessions with your teachers during lunch time, free periods, after school, just anytime that they’re available. They’re better than Google, I promise, plus they come with live explanations.
Use the ATAR notes forums
Imagine having a live question-answer feed, where any part of any subject that you are confused with can be explained within the hour. Imagine free notes, free lectures, free content and general HSC advice like this megaguide. Imagine an entire community built around giving YOU free educational tools.
Stop imagining, and sign up for an ATAR notes account. Post on the forums, answer questions.
See you there!
Elyse’s tips
Sleep
I’m typing this right now with bright eyes and lots of energy because I prioritise a solid sleep every night. In the HSC, this is even more important.
Throughout the HSC you will face days that are completely filled with go-go-go. Get up, get dressed, go to school, go through the motions, move between classes, try really hard to learn some stuff along the way, go eat something at some point, go home, sit at your desk and do more work, dinner, go to sleep. By the time sleep comes around, thousands of thoughts have run through your mind at lightning pace. Your brain is trying so hard to retain all of the knowledge gained. Your body is trying to keep up and keep you running smoothly. Sleep is crucial to learning and retaining knowledge. Not getting enough sleep will also leave you crabby, unwilling to learn, drifting off during important lessons and will ultimately make you lethargic.
“When I’m sleeping, someone else is studying” shouldn’t be something you take seriously – because when you’re sleeping, the person studying is cutting into their precious sleep recovery time – meaning that their memory won’t be as sharp as yours! The only time you should take this quote seriously is when you realise you’ve done no homework for a week because you’re sleeping allllll the time. And by allll the time, I mean, think of that person who you could message at any hour of the day and they’ll reply hours later with “sorry I was asleep.”
You should get 8-9 hours each night. Do you know what is just as bad as not getting enough sleep? Sleeping at different times every single day. If your body can’t trust that it will be committed to a long sleep, it won’t go into full “recovery mode” like it would if your body trusts “Oh its 10:00pm…I’ll start sending some physical signs that it is time to go to bed…okay great…now it’s time for me to recover.”
ZzZZzzzZZzz…
Breakfast
“Student…meet breakfast. Breakfast….meet student. You two will be good friends by the end.”
If you aren’t someone who eats breakfast now: why? The word breakfast comes from the fact that you are literally breaking the overnight fast. You need to wake up and give the body what it needs to last until recess.
A hot choccy and cake doesn’t cut it.
You want some fibres in there, some calcium and protein and of course a piece of fruit. Cereals and granolas are made with the needs of the brain at this time of day in mind. You need to eat enough to last you until your first food break. You can’t cut yourself short early on in the day by spending your second period drooling over what’s in your lunch box, when what you had for breakfast could have meant that you’d instead by writing and retaining notes like the great student you can be.
If you find yourself feeling lethargic throughout the day and you can’t quite work out why – speak to your doctor about your vitamin B intake – students often run low!
Writing, submitting, re-writing.
Your teachers, your peers, and us here at ATAR Notes are ready to help you formulate the best responses you can. This applies especially to subjects that involve essays. When you have a crack at a question, submit it, wait for feedback and implement the feedback. Keep going until you get a mark than what you are happy with…keep going until you get a mark that you are stoked with! It is only then that you think, okay, let’s apply this to another question, or okay, let’s have a go at a past paper.
Feedback is so valuable in the HSC game because ultimately, you’re being marked on someone’s opinion. So if you receive feedback from a range of people with a range of opinions, you can pull together what is most important and push out a killer essay.
Don’t move on: Until you got it, you own it, it’s yours.
If there is a concept that you can’t wrap your head around, don’t put it to bed for weeks, accidentally forget about it and have a harsh realisation the day before the exam that you never, ever understood this topic. If your teacher can’t explain it in a way that sticks with you, and your textbook is no help, sleep on it. Wake up, have another crack. Got nothing? Ask a peer. No help? Hello, hit us up on ATAR Notes!
The beauty of really mastering a difficult topic means that you are kept up to date with your notes, you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment, when your class is ready to move on to a new topic you won’t drag behind, and you won’t have a rude shock when you’re cramming for an exam and you realise you have an enormous gap of knowledge! You need to find the balance between giving something a break and attacking it with fresh eyes and leaving it long enough that it starts to snowball into a giant mound of catch-up.
Use ATAR Notes
Ha! Did you guess?
I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.
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