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March 29, 2024, 08:03:26 am

Author Topic: 50% exam  (Read 2470 times)

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jasmine24

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50% exam
« on: August 09, 2020, 08:02:40 am »
+1
Hi, I was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to study/remember everything for the 50% exam. Like would it be better to do lots of practice Q's like maths or focus on knowing the content/revising notes
Thanks!

Bri MT

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Re: 50% exam
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2020, 11:45:47 am »
+5
Hey!

There is a lot of advice on how to study for chemistry exams out there. QCE chem is pretty similar to VCE chem & I recommend you read Vaike's guide (he got the best possible study score in chem) on how to prepare. There's a bunch of other guides, advice and resources which will be largely (but not all) applicable to QCE chem here

Here's my advice:
- understanding first, then practice questions
- understanding terms is much better than focusing on memorising definitions
- look at what mistakes you made in IAs and try to learn from those. Add these to a log of mistakes and keep adding to your log of mistakes as you do practice questions
- once you understand the content, check that understanding and practice applying it with questions
- exam style questions are much better than textbook questions for exam prep - check out the NESA (nsw) and VCAA (vic) past exams to get access to more practice questions (let me know if you have any trouble finding these - happy to help). Check questions against the syllabus to see if relevant and if you have any doubts feel free to ask
- you want to do at least 1 full exam under exam conditions and exam timing, preferably more.
- learning from each exam question you do and the answers is better than skimming through a bunch of practice questions and not learning much from each. Quality > quantity.
- if you're unsure of how got that answer check your notes and if still in any doubt ask!
- it's generally recommend to leave your best quality practice exam until last but if you've already looked at this then don't stress over it.
- TAKE CARE OF YOUR WELLBEING. It's much easier to learn, remember & concentrate when you're happy and healthy. Don't just study 24/7


I hope this helps :)

cunglee0805

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Re: 50% exam
« Reply #2 on: September 20, 2020, 09:17:19 pm »
0
Hey!

There is a lot of advice on how to study for chemistry exams out there. QCE chem is pretty similar to VCE chem & I recommend you read Vaike's guide (he got the best possible study score in chem) on how to prepare. There's a bunch of other guides, advice and resources which will be largely (but not all) applicable to QCE chem here

Here's my advice:
- understanding first, then practice questions
- understanding terms is much better than focusing on memorising definitions
- look at what mistakes you made in IAs and try to learn from those. Add these to a log of mistakes and keep adding to your log of mistakes as you do practice questions
- once you understand the content, check that understanding and practice applying it with questions
- exam style questions are much better than textbook questions for exam prep - check out the NESA (nsw) and VCAA (vic) past exams to get access to more practice questions (let me know if you have any trouble finding these - happy to help). Check questions against the syllabus to see if relevant and if you have any doubts feel free to ask
- you want to do at least 1 full exam under exam conditions and exam timing, preferably more.
- learning from each exam question you do and the answers is better than skimming through a bunch of practice questions and not learning much from each. Quality > quantity.
- if you're unsure of how got that answer check your notes and if still in any doubt ask!
- it's generally recommend to leave your best quality practice exam until last but if you've already looked at this then don't stress over it.
- TAKE CARE OF YOUR WELLBEING. It's much easier to learn, remember & concentrate when you're happy and healthy. Don't just study 24/7


I hope this helps :)

hi!! really love what you're doing to help us struggling in the hell that is chem. I was wondering if the western Australian practice exams were worth looking at as well? Also, when it comes to answering exam questions what is your strategy to ensure you're hitting all the points that the marker is looking for?

Bri MT

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Re: 50% exam
« Reply #3 on: September 20, 2020, 10:32:59 pm »
+1
hi!! really love what you're doing to help us struggling in the hell that is chem. I was wondering if the western Australian practice exams were worth looking at as well? Also, when it comes to answering exam questions what is your strategy to ensure you're hitting all the points that the marker is looking for?

Hi :)

Thank you!

I'm not very familiar with WACE but I've had a quick scan through the syllabus & 2019 exam and it seems like a great fit for QCE chemistry; I would definitely recommend looking at those questions too. In fact, I recommend you do most recent WACE chemistry exam as an exam rather than just picking questions from it :)

For answering exam questions, part of it is gaining familiarity (e.g. this is a standard yield question - I'm going to talk about what the change is, how it's opposed in accordance with L'Hopitals principle, and what the result of that is) and building that up through your practice. When you look at an exam question I would encourage you to look at how many marks there are and try to guess what those marks are for. You won't always get it right but by thinking about it before you answer the question and checking after you'll learn how marking schemes work & what to expect more quickly. You should also record any marks you missed out on in your log of mistakes.

Now as for that initial guessing, here are some things to think about:
- Did you answer every part of the question? (and what verb did they use? Contrast? Compare? Explain? List? These should have different responses)
- Have you shown enough working for the marker to see your thought process and credit you for it?
      - If working from a diagram or graph, have you shown that clearly?
- Does your final answer completely answer the question including units?
- Did you explain any concepts needed?
- Did you use appropriate vocabulary?
- For diagrams & graphs, did you label everything you need to including appropriate units?
- For scenario based questions, have you clearly linked to the given scenario?

I hope this helps!

cunglee0805

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Re: 50% exam
« Reply #4 on: October 31, 2020, 11:52:11 pm »
0
Hi :)

Thank you!

I'm not very familiar with WACE but I've had a quick scan through the syllabus & 2019 exam and it seems like a great fit for QCE chemistry; I would definitely recommend looking at those questions too. In fact, I recommend you do most recent WACE chemistry exam as an exam rather than just picking questions from it :)

For answering exam questions, part of it is gaining familiarity (e.g. this is a standard yield question - I'm going to talk about what the change is, how it's opposed in accordance with L'Hopitals principle, and what the result of that is) and building that up through your practice. When you look at an exam question I would encourage you to look at how many marks there are and try to guess what those marks are for. You won't always get it right but by thinking about it before you answer the question and checking after you'll learn how marking schemes work & what to expect more quickly. You should also record any marks you missed out on in your log of mistakes.

Now as for that initial guessing, here are some things to think about:
- Did you answer every part of the question? (and what verb did they use? Contrast? Compare? Explain? List? These should have different responses)
- Have you shown enough working for the marker to see your thought process and credit you for it?
      - If working from a diagram or graph, have you shown that clearly?
- Does your final answer completely answer the question including units?
- Did you explain any concepts needed?
- Did you use appropriate vocabulary?
- For diagrams & graphs, did you label everything you need to including appropriate units?
- For scenario based questions, have you clearly linked to the given scenario?

I hope this helps!

Hi! I was wondering, what is the best approach to using our perusal time for science papers? We get 5 minutes perusal and I know not to even try answering these questions in my head but I subconsciously do it anyway.

keltingmeith

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Re: 50% exam
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2020, 12:13:45 am »
+2
Hi! I was wondering, what is the best approach to using our perusal time for science papers? We get 5 minutes perusal and I know not to even try answering these questions in my head but I subconsciously do it anyway.

For pretty much every exam, your perusal time should be your planning time. Look at the question, read it, and in that 10 seconds it takes to read the question, ask yourself - do you think you can answer this question. If yes, ignore it, move on. You don't have long to make this decision, so you need to make it based on your initial thoughts only. Does it look like one you've answered before? Is it a topic you're extremely confident in? You don't have the time to start to answer the question, only to decide if you can answer it. The reason for this is so you can move on to the next question and make the same judgement - do you think you can answer that question? By the end of the perusal time, you should have a list of questions in your mind that you're not confident you can answer. If you have more perusal time, then you can spend some time on those, and trying to figure them out - but the key is, once you can start writing, you should start working on the questions you know you can answer.

The reason for this is simple - if you run out of time at the end, and there are questions you haven't answered, you don't want the questions with no answers to be questions that you could answer. If you waste 20 minutes on a question that you're going to get wrong because you didn't know what to do, that's 20 minutes you could've spent finishing questions that you do know the answer to. If you finish all the questions you can answer early, then any time spent trying to answer questions you weren't confident about isn't time wasted - it's time well spent, trying to answer those questions.

If you finish perusal time and don't want to spend the last of it working out questions you're unsure about, or you're confident you can answer all the questions, then I would spent the rest of that time in the multiple choice section. Find some questions you can answer, answer them, memorise what the option was. I'd only do this for 2 or 3 questions, but do it for any you're confident you will remember what the option is. Then, once you can start writing, immediately colour in the bubbles for those questions, then move to the short answer section. It's not worth your time starting with multiple choice after writing time starts, again in case you run out of time at the end and need to start guessing multiple choice, but you don't waste time on it if it's time you couldn't spend on short answer /anyway/.

Bri MT

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Re: 50% exam
« Reply #6 on: November 01, 2020, 08:28:27 am »
+1
Hi! I was wondering, what is the best approach to using our perusal time for science papers? We get 5 minutes perusal and I know not to even try answering these questions in my head but I subconsciously do it anyway.

Hi!

I personally like to do my exams in order from start to end but a large part of that is that I would set strict time allocations for myself and intentionally leave enough time to go back to more challenging questions later. The first thing I would do after perusal time ends is write down at time it should when I finished each major question part/page, then when I was going through the exam I would check the time at those "checkpoints" to see if I was far ahead or behind schedule. This helped me have a feeling of control and knowing that I was on track throughout the exam. It was also important for me in learning to slow down and read the questions fully as before I would finish practice exams early but with silly errors and not always really answering what the question wanted.

Despite this difference in technique, I still liked to read through the questions in reading time. I would particularly focus on longer short answer ones and not figure out each answer, but figure out how I would approach the question.

For exams I have found more difficult, like my uni maths exams, I would take a more similar approach to keltingmeith and focus on answering what I knew I could answer first.

Different people have varying thoughts regarding multi-choice. Some people like to leave it to near the end so if they run out of time they can at least guess the bubbles (which you can't really do for short answer). I like to do multi-choice first because it's generally much easier to full mark and seeing the options available can give you hints and reminders about the content.

There's no one right way to tackle an exam but do go in with a strategy and do have practiced it before you apply it in the real exams.

I hope this helps!

cunglee0805

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Re: 50% exam
« Reply #7 on: November 01, 2020, 08:39:01 pm »
0
Hi!

I personally like to do my exams in order from start to end but a large part of that is that I would set strict time allocations for myself and intentionally leave enough time to go back to more challenging questions later. The first thing I would do after perusal time ends is write down at time it should when I finished each major question part/page, then when I was going through the exam I would check the time at those "checkpoints" to see if I was far ahead or behind schedule. This helped me have a feeling of control and knowing that I was on track throughout the exam. It was also important for me in learning to slow down and read the questions fully as before I would finish practice exams early but with silly errors and not always really answering what the question wanted.

Despite this difference in technique, I still liked to read through the questions in reading time. I would particularly focus on longer short answer ones and not figure out each answer, but figure out how I would approach the question.

For exams I have found more difficult, like my uni maths exams, I would take a more similar approach to keltingmeith and focus on answering what I knew I could answer first.

Different people have varying thoughts regarding multi-choice. Some people like to leave it to near the end so if they run out of time they can at least guess the bubbles (which you can't really do for short answer). I like to do multi-choice first because it's generally much easier to full mark and seeing the options available can give you hints and reminders about the content.

There's no one right way to tackle an exam but do go in with a strategy and do have practiced it before you apply it in the real exams.

I hope this helps!

thanks so much for the help guys! much appreciated ;D