The Countdown

[justwannawish]

Hi!

After prowling around for long, I was recently inspired to begin my own journal to document the last 2 terms of school as I know it 

A bit about me,
I'm a year 12 student who lives just outside Sydney metro. My school is selective, so there is some pressure by the teachers to do well since we have more advantages than many schools around the country but it also means our students are somewhat competitive as well. That being said, I think our yeargroup is extremely tightknit and caring about one another, and I find that to be a strong advantage of our school.

I currently do Ext 2 English and Maths, with Physics and Chemistry making up my 12 units. I probably do the best in Maths ext 1 and English, but my ranks are the worst in these subjects haha, because everyone is so close together in terms of marks. I enjoy English Ext 2 the most by far, since I really like my major work and honestly find it a good balance between my more STEM subjects.My worst subject is probably physics, mainly because I'm not consistent with my marks and often do badly in tests, so I'm ready to work hard and do better. Especialy since I had a pretty bad term 2 with a lot of family issues, so I'm eager to make up for it this term and get consistently good marks across my subjects. 

Ideally after year 12, I would like to go into medicine, which seems like an overused idea somewhat but has been my dream for the longest time. My dream uni would be USYD but I don't think I'd ever make it into med there, so hopefully UNSW would be my second choice.

What else is there? I do a lot of public speaking and leadership roles at school, and am also involved in our formal committee, which is also something I'm really excited for. I like Kpop haha and got to go to a concert last year with my best friend

I'm kind of a really boring person, so I think that's it. Hope to hear from any potential readers soon!

 

[fantasticbeasts3]

Hey justwannawish, awesome to see you're starting a journal - your contributions here on AN have been amazing!

My questions for you:
- What's your Ext 2 major work on?
- Why are you interested in medicine?
- What field of medicine would you like to get into?

Keep up with your goals, and you'll get there :-)

All the best!

[justwannawish]

Hey justwannawish, awesome to see you're starting a journal - your contributions here on AN have been amazing!

My questions for you:
- What's your Ext 2 major work on?
- Why are you interested in medicine?
- What field of medicine would you like to get into?

Keep up with your goals, and you'll get there :-)

All the best!

Hey,

My major work is a fictocriticism, which is an essay with fictive elements to it. My concept looks to investigate the historiography (which is basically the historical authencity) of Shakespearean villains, with a close comparison of Macbeth and Richard III. With that, I analyse the morality of these characters and try to find why they have been portrayed as such, which is a lot more fun than I make it out to be.

Med has been a long time dream of mine, and it's gotten to the point where I can't see myself as anything else than being directly in the field and saving lives. In a way, illness is a huge equaliser in countries with free health care like Australia, so I would like to be able to help all those that need it. That leads me ino the field I would like to work in. Honestly, a surgeon of some sort like a neuosurgeon or an Emergency Room surgeon would be the best for me, because I find I am able to be calm under pressure and deal with these situations to the best of my ability

[justwannawish]

I was sick for most of last week :/ and that kind of stuffed up my revision plans since I couldn't really focus on anything without getting a massive headache. Now, I'm still pretty sick but I'm getting better so I'm trying to get back on track and start doing some work! I'll do a plan here, so you guys can hold me accountable for what I don't do (maybe I'll procrastinate less then!)

Our four unit maths exam is first and then 3U, so I'm going over some integration of exponentials, trig and inverse trig for the next few hours. I also have to do some rates of change work and exponential growth of change too. If I'm super productive, I'll do some motion calculations too, depending on how much time I have, but it's not a major concern at the moment since we only just started it at school and probably isn't going to be in our test .

After dinner, I am then going to do some 4U practice by finishing the Fitzpatrick exercises on integration. I had a session with my maths teacher in which we went over some volumes and I'll do some work from that as well fingers crossed

Hopefully if all goes well, I'll be able to do another entry in my logbook for English too tonight, otherwise, I'll do it tomorrow as my first priority.

So a pretty jam packed day, but it should be good

[Louisa North]

This was so so encouraging to read!! Keep pushing on, we are nearly there! Just get excited for a mini rest after trials and then for the endless rest after HSC is thankfully done and dusted. Keep going my friend, we are so so so close!

[justwannawish]

This was so so encouraging to read!! Keep pushing on, we are nearly there! Just get excited for a mini rest after trials and then for the endless rest after HSC is thankfully done and dusted. Keep going my friend, we are so so so close!

Hi!
I'm so glad it was encouraging because the last thing we want to do now is lose motivation. It's a long and ardous journey, but it's so close to the end, that I can almost feel it (also how scary is that?.  I need to start doing university applications and UMAT more regularly but also have my ext 2 major work and other subjects to focus on, and it's driving me mad! I'm trying to take it one step at a time for the time being

Over this past week, I've pretty much finished revising for maths ext 1 and going to just get stuck into past papers!  I did however neglect my physics after finishing my notes for Ideas and Implementation, which is not good, but our assessment is mainly going to be on experimental data which should be fine (fingers crossed) so I'll work on that over the long weekend. So glad that we have the Queen's birthday weekend here, it fits so well with exam schedules haha.
Got my ext 2 test next week, but it's just on the topics we did this term, so it's not that bad since Integration is probably the only topic I truly, truly get and volumes is kinda fun.

But I'm kinda worried about the pace of our school in regards to topics. We're nowhere near to properly finishing Ideas for physics and need to do Quanta as well from start to finish. In chem, we've done ~half of CMM and also need to do Industrial Chem. From the previous cohort's results, it was really obvious their option marks were a lot lower than their core and our teachers keep on lecturing us about it's how they slacked off, but I feel like it's because our teachers are beginning to rush so they can get the brunt of everything out before trials. We did the photoelectric effect in less than an hour and stuffed in all of Planck, Einstein and their histories as well, and I only get it from doing my own research.

Maths seems to be a bit faster. For ext 1, we're up to simple harmonic motion and after that we have geometric series, probability and binomials (and I think that's it). We started mechanics in ext 2, and then it's just harder 3U, which ought to be fun :/

I'm going to do some volumes practice tonight and then revise some physics (I find myself liking Ideas the most out of all the physics topics, does anyone else agree with me? Maybe it's my inner history buff kicking with Planck and Einstein!)

[justwannawish]

Exams are next week! I've already done my maths advanced and ext 2 exams (our school makes us do both until trials) a few days ago, and I'm not entirely happen about ext 2. Made some silly, silly mistakes on what was probably the easiest test our school has set The gap between me and first keeps on growing which kind of concerns me about the HSC internal marks. But no point crying over split milk (I say as I mope about XD)

I'm hoping ext 1 goes better and I can scrap into the top 10, so that when trials approaches, I'm at a better standing.Tonight I'm going to do a first draft of my reflection statement and memorise the last bits of my physics so I'm completely ready for exams. 

[justwannawish]

Class is back on track and I have extension 2 due really soon. I've finished both my reflection and my draft, but I'm worried about what they'll say especially since it's worth like 60% of our final mark! I never got an external mentor since all the people I emailed refused, and I'm scared of the critcism I'll get from the external markers since my mentor is as invested into the process as I am :/

I'm not sure who to ask, especially since my family situation makes it difficult for me to afford expensive tutors. Any advice?

I've received my extension 2 maths marks back, and got 90%. I know it's a good mark, but if not for stuffing up that one question, I could have gotten 100% and that is literally my dream for extension 2. But I'll continue to work hard and see where it goes!

Spoiler

The thing with 4u maths is that I really can't drop it because of how guilty I'd feel. My parents have spent so much on tutoring and have paid for all of it by sacrificing their own desires and comforts for my studies. I catch a train every weekend to go there and it's kinda physically draining but I'm constantly motivated by what my parents have done for me. That's why I'm kinda (very) cut about my results, bc every mark I lose makes me more worried for my internals. I'd be so disheartened if I don't get an E4, because it's the least I can do. The same goes for physics, which I'm hopeless at but I can't drop and risk all that money going down the drain. So I'm determined to prove everyone that I was deserving of all that time and money spent on me, and do the best I can do!

Going to get maths advanced, extension 1 and chem back tomorrow! I'm looking forward to advanced, since it doesn't count haha and hopefully I do really well on all of them!

[justwannawish]

Well, I got all my marks back before the break, except for Extension 2 English, which was due on the last day of school anyway. I'm not exacty sure of what to say because none of my marks matched any of my predictions? or at least surprised me in some kind of way, both good and bad. I had a lot of things to say and it's probably a bit boring so I'll leave it under spoilers if anyone is intereted!

Physics

Spoiler

I was probably the most nervous for physics and thought I'd either aced it extremely well or flunked it extremely badly. It was one of those exams that was easy theoretically, but also was extremely vague and it seemed like numerous answers were right for each question. I spent half the exam doubting myself and that kinda threw me off for the rest of it. After listening to other people talk about the exam, I was sure that I did miserably because all their answers didn't match up with my interpretation. Tbh, both interpretations were equally as valid, and the entire cohort agreed that it was something the markers ought to have made clearer.

The other classes got their results back before my class did and that wait was painful.The kids that are topping physics are largely in another class but even their marks ranged from mid 90s to 40%, just because the teachers marked weirdly, though consistently, to a confusing marking criteria. So, I was dreading physics and then I got my results- 92% and was first in my class! I still think the questions were silly, but I'm so so glad I was able to do well after my bad half-yearlies!
 

Chemistry

Spoiler

Well, unlike physics, I entered this test with a lot more confidence that I was probably entitled to. Context of composer: Tired HSC student on their last exam, over the stress and anxiety and who trusted they knew what they were doing. When you consider the fact I spent most of my study time not studying chem thinking I could just revise it in the gap after my other exams, I was theoretically stuffed yet lacked the foresight to study.

This fresh and meaningful discovery hit me when I strolled into the exam hall and discerned that I was grossly underprepared and I might have wanted to not play tetris and go on facebook the night before. But alas for my conscience, I persisted with my cockiness when I saw the test, which was straightforward and simple. It made sense and I was 80% shook at my good luck. A voice in my head, my ego probably, congratulated me on acing what seemed like the easiest chem test we ever did and doing perfectly on it

Then, I got my marks back _rip. I got 94% and don't actually know what I lost marks on since our teacher kinda lost our papers but I'm kinda (very) salty at myself for (most likely) being overconfident and stuffing everything up. We'll see what happened when we get the paper back for good.

Maths Ext 1

Spoiler

Tbh, I'm glad I made the mistakes I did as I would have otherwise never have thought about those questions like that. I got 91%, which isn't that high, but wow, the average was surprisingly low for our year, even though it wasn't on many topics and most of the test was very doable.. One of my friends gets high 80s, low 90s for every exam and her ranks is in the thirties, though you'd expect it to be higher.   

The SHM was tricky tho and so was the inverse trig questions. but I was able to get them out  My rank should have risen somewhat bc of that exam so I'm glad. I hope trials is similar in difficulty and my capability, though our teacher admitted that last years' trials were unreasonably hard for all units. Not many of the kids doing advanced only passed the 2U exam, which makes me worried at how hard it'll be this year  Fingers crossed!

We have two more topics to do at school before we're done! And that's a scary but also exciting feeling. It's been a long road but we're almost there 

 

These holidays are going to be mainly UMAT and trials. I've got a holiday course I attend for physics and chem, which lasts til 6 each day. It's quite draining but it'll be useful when the time comes. I'm hoping I get a good UMAT because I honestly can't see myself being anything besides a doctor now and I've wanted this dream to come true for the longest time. I'm applying everywhere but first choice is definitely UNSW at this point and then Western Sydney, UNE, Charles Sturt, University of Queensland, and then Bond. Also need to get cracking with the applications for everywhere.

I was listening to a song the other day and it gave me the necessary motivation for the journey that's ahead of us. i've posted the lyrics below and hope it'll give you the same message of hope it gave me. The song is SNSD's Into the New World if anyone's interested

Don’t wait for a special miracle
There’s a rough road in front of us
With unknowable future and obstacles, I won’t change
I can’t give up

[justwannawish]

School starts in a couple of days and UMAT with it! I'm kinda freaking out over it. I don't think I'm prepared enough or just good enough in general. And it's killing me slowly because UMAT seems like my best chance for undergraduate medicine since I won't ever get the 99.95 atar for USYD . With so many universities placing a large weighting on UMAT, I can't help prioritise it over my exams which are relatively late (week 4/5). Some of my friends have been to MedEntry tutoring and get in the 120s out of 134 there. I feel like I should also have done more preparation. But it's just so expensive that I chose not too. Wednesday next week is too close and yet I also want it to be over so I can fully concentrate on trials.

Applications for university courses are also making me want to cry. I don't know how to tackle all these questions about myself and I've been procrastinating my JCU and UNSW application so badly. I'm not sure how to answer why I want to be a doctor in a candid but also intriguing way. I just honestly want to give back to the community and if i can't change the world, I might as well try to save it. And you can't save the world if you can't firstly save your neighbour. I want to be a surgeon because I like working under pressure and giving people another chance at life is one of the most meaningful moments I think you can experience.

I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm panicking over nothing and everything all at once. Any advice?

[fantasticbeasts3]

Hey justwannawish!

First, good luck with the UMAT! I'm sure you'll smash it :-) You might not feel prepared now, but in any test situation you always know more than you think. Don't worry about your friends who have gone to MedEntry tutoring because it may feel like they have an advantage, but like the HSC, it's definitely possible to do well without tutoring. :-)

With the university applications, don't focus on trying to be intriguing - just be honest! If anything, I think what you've written in your entry is awesome. Maybe you can start by answering the questions in point form, then elaborate.

Also, take a break once in a while! You do have a lot to do but your mental health is just as important, if not more important.

Best of luck :-)

[justwannawish]

Hey justwannawish!

First, good luck with the UMAT! I'm sure you'll smash it :-) You might not feel prepared now, but in any test situation you always know more than you think. Don't worry about your friends who have gone to MedEntry tutoring because it may feel like they have an advantage, but like the HSC, it's definitely possible to do well without tutoring. :-)

With the university applications, don't focus on trying to be intriguing - just be honest! If anything, I think what you've written in your entry is awesome. Maybe you can start by answering the questions in point form, then elaborate.

Also, take a break once in a while! You do have a lot to do but your mental health is just as important, if not more important.

Best of luck :-)

Hey!

Thank you for your advice, it honestly means so much to me to know that someone is reading this and supporting me!
I've begun to rewrite my application in point form as you suggested and now it's just a mess of things I want to include, but it's beginning to mould into something comprehensive! My application is starting to take shape hopefully though I might make another post about the specifics of the application soon.

I think today I'll continue doing UMAT and tomorrow get cracking at physics. I've been taking breaks when my mum is home since I haven't seen her much these holidays with my holiday classes and her work. And it's been so good to spend time with her. I need to manage this and trials and increase my efficiency haha.

[justwannawish]

Remember when I said I'd get cracking at physics, lol, that was a lie. I'm sorry. I kinda just had a break from non-UMAT things and spent time with family, which isn't something I get to do often. Can't believe it's the last term already! I'm feeling psyched and ready though trials seem like they will kill me. But here it is, the accumulation of thirteen years of schooling all into a fun/stressful couple of months.

(And uni applications and references and I need to fix up my ext 2 argh before it's due during trials. Hearing the word discover or some permutation of it is making my heart skip a beat. But after UMAT, I'm going to make a better schedule and post it here and actually stick to it, I promise to all my (potential?) readers or maybe it's just a promise to myself, which is fair enough too)

And speak of the devil, UMAT is tomorrow!!!! At this point, I'm just watching some more youtube clips on tackling UMAT rather than actually doing ACER papers or anything. But I'm hoping I'll do well! I feel like I want to succeed more than anything else in my life

We'll see how it goes XD

[fantasticbeasts3]

Good luck for tomorrow!!

[justwannawish]

It's been a very long time since I've last posted and for anyone still interested, I'm alive barely! I've a lot to update since I've done both trials and UMAT in that time frame.

UMAT

Spoiler

Honestly, I'll regret this line in two weeks, but I don't think it was as hard as I expected. Like it was hard, don't get me wrong, I looked at half of those pick the middles, laughed hysterically (hopefully only internally, though that could explain why my supervisor looked like I was insane...) and guessed C. But I think I expected something 1000 times harder, I expected to have to guess all those 134 questions and have no clue for anything and resign myself for sitting the GAMSAT haha. And I call myself an optimistic person!

For the first time, I think my Section One was the best  , which is hilarious because I think I flunked all the practice tests with Section One. Usually my scores go: Section 2, Section 1, Section Three, but I think it will go 1, 2, 3. But I'll learn whether I was right soon Though the way I answered was all over the place, I think I started with Q131 and then just flicked the booklet to random questions and did all my Section 2, and then went chronologically and then went to the end again to keep up the adrenaline. My leg started jiggling argh, it's honestly my biggest annoyance and it kept on happening.

I went in the morning to Olympic Park and though I had to wake up a bit earlier, it was actually probably better for me, because it was over! After the exam, my dad bought pizza and I fell asleep on the short ride home haha and couldn't be bothered to head back to class. What was once the focus of my life was done, and a month later I have to admit, I'm proud of myself for getting through it. Hopefully, it went better than I expected to save my failing ATAR from crumbling into the dust. 

Trials
So this beast also came by and attacked with the gusto of ...idk tbh, it just ended me. I am not confident with my results at all, but my teachers keep on reminding me it's my rank that matters more than the mark for this. Though I'm not sure whether my rank would be improved at all... but last time, I was sure I did the best on chem and flunked physics, but there wasn't much of a mark difference between them. Fingers and toes and eyes crossed!

Maths Ext 1

Spoiler

  I walked in confident and smiling since my friends and I were all making stupid jokes before and then I opened the exam. Haha, what a joke.  It was somewhat harder than the HSC, but we all thought the teachers did a really good job at mimicking it- the questions were very HSC like rather than textbook questions. And luckily, there weren't any typos- our school always seems to end up with a typo in our Advanced papers. Though I feel like the marks would have to be adjusted, since we had an induction question worth one mark! And our teacher figured it out today and changed the scheme for it, though some kids skipped it bc of the low mark associated with it.So idk what's happening there. I know I lost around 5 marks but even then, I had done some killer trials before, I'm looking at you, Ruse, so I was glad it wasn't on that level of difficulty. Our teachers have finished marking our exams but they can't give out marks or anything until the security period is over (we use independent papers)

Ext 2 Maths

Spoiler

My ext 2 teacher is a honest beast and finished marking our papers the day after we did it. Give me some time to recover haha. I'm ranked 5th overall, and I'm happy with that. I'm a bit worried though, our teacher said that was a hard test but I thought the HSC was significantly more difficult? There were more questions I could do in our paper than in the HSC (though our paper didn't include binomial bc we haven't covered it in ext 1) and I'm reminded of the need to continually work hard and keep improving my marks. My rank can't change (it better not, I'll fite someone lol) but my mark can and will with my dedication to the course.

Physics

Spoiler

I did this the day after Ext 2 and was more dead than not. I feel I answered stupidly for some questions, and I don't remember what I answered for the long response. Tbh, was totally expecting a q on transistors/semiconductor doping/Einstein's contribution/Planck, but did I get any of those? Nope, which was probably a good thing bc I forgot everything rapidly after my exam We haven't gotten our marks back, apparently one of the teachers hasn't started marking though we did it in the first week of exams, but he apparently just didn't want to start since he finished marking year 8 science tests... interesting priorities haha, but I can't fault him for not looking forward to our fudging.

Chem

Spoiler

I'm going to get roasted so hard in chem. Out of a combination of stress and stupidity, I totally forget about lead acid cells and fudged the comparison between them and button cells so badly (worth 7 marks). I also I'm hoping I get pity marks but idk. Not looking forward to my results but hopefully I just edge out a 90, I'll find out soon. crossed fingers and hands and everything, wishing on 11:11, shooting stars and four leaf clovers here

English Ext 2

Spoiler

I handed it! It was a huge weight off my shoulders and a lot of my blood, sweat and tears have gone into it. I'm actually happy about it and really enjoyed the writing process. I found it to be more rewarding than I initially imagined it to be and a welcome break from all my other subjects. I'm hoping my results will reflect that but either, it's an unit done!

I hope that recap was a solid summary of my last month and a bit. I'm going to be more regular as I get my marks back though Until then, see you!