Login

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

March 28, 2024, 07:05:41 pm

Author Topic: ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"  (Read 11388 times)  Share 

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

brenden

  • Honorary Moderator
  • Great Wonder of ATAR Notes
  • *******
  • Posts: 7185
  • Respect: +2593
ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"
« on: November 23, 2012, 01:23:09 am »
+31
All VCE graduates, please feel free to post what you did with your holidays.
All 2013ers, please feel free to post what you are going to do with your holidays.

Now, what I think you SHOULD do with your holidays.

Relax.
I know you guys have a massive task ahead of you and the very thought of your final year can make you tremble with trepidation. I know a lot of you might be thinking of doing a huge amount of work in order to assuage your nerves and reassure yourself that you aren't behind. Right now, you know you're competing against everyone else so you're thinking "Shit, I've heard of people doing the whole course over the holidays... I'm so behind already!  :-[ :-X :-\ :("
Fact of the matter is, you're not behind. You're already ahead. Your on ATARNotes when most people aren't, that's definitely an advantage. The fact that you're stressing? - Advantage.
But don't get caught up in the looming task ahead. Did Harry Potter have the answer to the 2nd task in a Goblet of Fire? No, he didn't know how the shit he was going to breathe. He would've been stressed as, especially with Hermione all up in his goddamn grill. He turned up anyway, and someone gave him some weed to calm down. And then he swam. He swam like he never swam before. And he saved people in the process.
This is what you should do. Recognise that YOU HAVE GOT THIS, chill out a little bit and stop sensationalising Year 12. And along the way, help people out (and make sure you save the French girl's sister).

Okay enough funny business.

-Read your English texts a minimum of two times each. The first time, just get the gist of things, keep track of the plot and try to identify themes and see how the characters develop a little bit, but don't stress so much. The second time you should go through and annotate it. If you're super keen, write up character summaries and plot summaries just so you've got something to freshen your memory when it's time to do it during the year. But you don't need to do anything too drastic. The way I did this was I got the texts as soon as I got the booklist, read them in the first week of December, and then read them and annotated them again in the last week of holidays (one of them was a play and I'm a quick reader, so maybe give yourself a week and a half).
*This is a must. Reading your texts is absolutely vital. I don't even care if you're a math genius and you think you'll get a 95 and just scrape the 25 in English just to make your course. YOU HAVE TO READ YOUR TEXTS.
-Write your English speech. Do some research etc etc. But then, practice in front of the mirror or in front of an audience if you're quite scared. If you're really scared, video yourself and feel free to message me on AN with a link to your Facebook and you can send me the video as a Facey message and I'll give you some feedback. Also, while we're on the topic: Don't let nerves get the better of you. Chances are, you're the smart kid in your class. Everybody knows the smart kid. What they don't know is that you are nervous. Don't let them see that. Because you are the smart kid, people will EXPECT to see an amazing speech. Even if you give them an average speech, chances are their perception of it will be higher just for the fact that you're the smart kid. If you aren't the smart kid, write a really good speech.
-Do all your holiday homework to a good standard. This one is a no brainer.
-Organise all your pens, books, folders, binders, etc etc. Allocate exercise books for each subject.
-Print off the study design for that subject and stick it on the inside of the exercise book. Read the study design.
-If you don't know how study scores work and stuff, read Paul's guide. *You don't need to be a genius. Just get the gist of it so you know that you're SACs are important so you rank well etc etc.

Those things, I think you should certainly do.

Things that are optional and will benefit you, but things you don't need to do all the same.
-Go through past question threads on AN out of interest (not like a crazy stalker psychopath that must see questions people got wrong)
-Loosely read your textbook and highlight information (more applicable to humanities).
-To go further, highlight the information for AoS 1, Unit 3 and type up notes for that area of study. This should be the absolute most work you possibly do.
-Math kids, I don't even know if you guys have separated stuff like we do(?). For Further, I got my girlfriend to teach me Core loosely (and the only reason I did this is because I didn't take a Math sub in 2011) and that took about 35 minutes. Then I did like the first exercise or something until I knew what categorical data was (funny to think this used to intimidate me because of 2011 lol). P.S; I should get more than 40 in Further. This is all the holiday work I did.
(SOMEONE PLEASE ADVISE THE SPESH AND METHODS KIDS TO SOMETHING REASONABLE)
-Language people; I never took a language but the general consensus is that you should brush up a bit on your vocabulary and especially the grammar rules where applicable and maybe watch a few episodes of television in the relevant language.


What you shouldn't do
-Go psychotic and finish the whole course for every one of your subjects. This is subjective and there will be people that disagree with me but doing the whole course is just superfluous and at times detrimental. It's a waste of your holiday time. The first AoS is PLENTY. I did  the first AoS for Psych and it was beneficial but it made me slightly arrogant at the same time. Doing the whole course (this applies to 2014 graduates doing a Year 12 subject) has the potential to just make you bored and less motivated in class, make you overconfident, make you think you grasp concepts you actually don't because you haven't had them properly explained and a whole other bunch of reasons. More importantly, you need a break. You need mental preparation time. I'm not even kidding. There were a few times during 2012 where I just broke down and cried. Hardcore, gasping for air kinda shit. One of them was the very last day of Term 1. I was so emotionally drained from ten weeks of school (and I received some bad results that day) that everything just came loose and my English teacher listened to me rant about the flaws in the education system, how I didn't want to let it turn me into a monster, how I still wanted to help and blahblahblah. That was after 10 weeks and a light holiday load. I hate to imagine what I would have been like if I had have been studying hard for ANOTHER 10 weeks during my big break.
I also took a camping trip with 7 of my close friends at the time down at the Murray. With only 1 parent who was on another campsite separated from us, this was awesome, and felt like American Pie 2 when they go to the beach house and they feel so happy and stuff. This was an awesome thing to do and if it's viable (probably not with all the curry rules and stuff like that) then I recommend it. If not, just do cool things! Go get ice-cream in the city for kicks, go to the beach, go see movies, have picnics. MAKE THE MOST OF LIFE.
Just, relax, okay guys? That's what I wanted to get across the most. Just, enjoy yourself. 2013 is going to be a massive year for you guys, the magnitude of which you can't even comprehend yet. You're going to grow and mature as people. You'll cry, laugh, and learn. Make the most of it. 2013 is your time to shine. Just make sure you don't burn.  The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long -> Pretty relevant here. If you burn twice as much fuel during the holidays, you'll burn half as long, get to August and be in a massive slump. It happens to a LOT of people. (I made the Motivation Corner in this time).

SO. Graduates, your experience is required. Go ahead.

Best of luck guys,
Lots of love,
Brenden xoxoxo
« Last Edit: November 23, 2012, 01:28:04 am by brenden »
✌️just do what makes you happy ✌️

Tirana

  • Victorian
  • Trailblazer
  • *
  • Posts: 36
  • Respect: 0
  • School Grad Year: 2013
Re: ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"
« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2012, 01:29:10 am »
0
Good advice, thank you!
2013: | Biology | Chemistry | English | Methods | Spec/Further |

brenden

  • Honorary Moderator
  • Great Wonder of ATAR Notes
  • *******
  • Posts: 7185
  • Respect: +2593
Re: ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2012, 01:30:07 am »
+1
Good advice, thank you!
You're welcome :)
✌️just do what makes you happy ✌️

BoredSatan

  • Victorian
  • Part of the furniture
  • *****
  • Posts: 1206
  • <3
  • Respect: +72
  • School: GWSC
  • School Grad Year: 2011
Re: ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"
« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2012, 01:44:55 am »
+4
For Accounting Students:

I would recommend doing at least half of unit 3 in the holidays, this saves you times during the year to focus on other subjects. If you feel really motivated, complete unit 3 in the holidays :P
Master of Dentistry, Latrobe University 2011 ATAR: 99.75
ATARnotes Accounting Unit 3&4 Study Guide Author

Art Vandelay

  • Victorian
  • Forum Obsessive
  • ***
  • Posts: 343
  • Respect: +12
  • School Grad Year: 2012
Re: ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"
« Reply #4 on: November 23, 2012, 04:07:29 am »
+3
For History: Revolutions students:

I found it really useful to take some time to do some light reading, using the study design found on the VCAA website as a guideline of what I should be reading up on. So after I got a narrative account (eg what happened/the events of the revolution), I found it really easy to build upon that knowledge through acknowledging and understanding different historians' opinions and critiques of revolutionary ideas/leaders/events etc.

I think that getting this simple narrative account shouldn't take too long, as you're just really gunning for a basic overview of the revolutions through looking at events/ideas/leaders in chronological order. You organise things thematically (eg Social/Political/Economic/Radicalisation) after gaining this narrative  view, rather than being forced to gain a narrative view and the historiography at the pace of your teacher (which may be too fast/slow for your liking).

Also, gotta mention Michael Adcock's VCE Checkpoints for each revolution: if you're super keen, do the above, and then work through the questions found in the book :P

Honestly just gaining a narrative overview will put you ahead of most of the other Revs students, though... You just have to slowly build up to the consistency that Revs (and VCE) asks of you...

Take it easy!
Monash Arts/Law

abcdqdxD

  • Part of the furniture
  • *****
  • Posts: 1305
  • Respect: +57
Re: ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"
« Reply #5 on: November 23, 2012, 06:06:38 am »
0
For Accounting Students:

I would recommend doing at least half of unit 3 in the holidays, this saves you times during the year to focus on other subjects. If you feel really motivated, complete unit 3 in the holidays :P

Entire Unit 3 is overkill LOL

WINGARDIUM

  • Victorian
  • Forum Regular
  • **
  • Posts: 89
  • Respect: +9
  • School Grad Year: 2012
Re: ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"
« Reply #6 on: November 23, 2012, 08:53:06 am »
+2
Literature Kiddos
As Brenden says, READ YOUR TEXTS! You will have to discuss them in class so its only logical to know them inside out before school starts. I would recommend having a notebook in which you would just jot down your first impressions/views/values/contextual information on author - this will be useful as you develop more in depth interpretations of the text throughout the year. Also it's not essential but if your a lit geek like me, you may find it beneficial (ie interesting) to read literary critiques of your texts before school starts.

French
I did not do much french work in the holidays which was bad and I sort of regretted this. Do short 10 minute activities as much as you can throughout the hols and try to cover reading/writing/listening/speaking.
2011: Biology
2012: Chemistry | Methods | French | Literature |  Psychology | UMAT

max payne

  • Victorian
  • Forum Obsessive
  • ***
  • Posts: 318
  • Respect: +22
  • School Grad Year: 2012
Re: ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"
« Reply #7 on: November 23, 2012, 09:38:39 am »
+4
For further kids (that do methods/spesh) : Finish the whole further course over the holiday (Lols srs it shouldn't take more than 2/3 weeks) And since you do methods, I advise you to do the modules: Trigonometry and Geometry, Graphs and Relations and Matrices. Those are basically already covered in year 11 methods. Then, throughout the year you can just do 1 trial every 1 or 2 weeks and spend the rest of the time on more 'important' subjects. If your doing all three maths you should know that only 2 maths can count in your top 4 and it's very hard to get a higher (scaled) study score in further than methods/spesh unless you crack 45+ which pretty much comes down to luck on the day of the exam. That's why I encourage the above method. Again this is only for people doing all three maths in the same year.

nisha

  • Victorian
  • Part of the furniture
  • *****
  • Posts: 1247
  • Hum Honge Kamyab.
  • Respect: +117
  • School Grad Year: 2012
Re: ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"
« Reply #8 on: November 23, 2012, 10:05:37 am »
+2
  For the cool Chemistry kids:::

Okay, you don't have a midyear. So what? That doesn't mean you can't do anything. Bear in mind that Unit 3 is damn long, and you need/should get a headstart. In the holidays, I did:::
-Well, I literally finished most of my Unit 3 on the holidays. BUT DO NOT DO THIS. It didn't really help me in the end because I had to relearn it all properly. I do recommend though, that you go through the first three or four chapters and complete the chapter reviews. Its generally gravimetry, volume try, stoic stuff, and it would put you in good stead for the first few sacs.
-Compile notes of the first few chapters, but MAKE YOU UNDERSTAND IT. No point in rote learning with chemistry. If you don't understand it, there isn't any point in getting ahead.
-Read the first few chapters of different textbooks to cement your understanding.
Melbourne University-Science-Second year

Am taking in students for CHEMISTRY and MATHS METHODS tuition for 2014 as well as first year chemistry. If interested, pm me. Flexible with location.

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught [/i]

paulsterio

  • ATAR Notes Legend
  • *******
  • Posts: 4803
  • I <3 2SHAN
  • Respect: +430
Re: ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"
« Reply #9 on: November 23, 2012, 10:13:47 am »
+8
I also suggest that those of you who are doing Accounting, Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Psychology to grab the ATARNotes Study Guides for these subjects, they'll be one of the first on the market with resources for the new 2013 - 2016 study design and will provide you with valuable materials for the new exam and course structure, including multiple topic tests, multiple practice exams, model solutions as well as super-detailed solutions to all tests and exams which walk you through each of the questions and explain them in great depth to you.

They're all written by great people who were where you were not that long ago, who understand the nuances of the courses and who have done more practice exams than you can possibly even imagine, so keep your eyes out for them, we've received great words from those who've used the ATARNotes books in the past year, from both schools and students.

Other books are also great - English, PE, Legal Studies, Maths will also be coming out for 2013 - which should be exciting.

Disclaimer: I am an author, so I may be biased, but in all seriousness, all of the books are truly great.

Yendall

  • Victorian
  • Forum Leader
  • ****
  • Posts: 808
  • Respect: +38
Re: ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"
« Reply #10 on: November 23, 2012, 10:36:35 am »
+4
For the Studio Arts students (if any):
Decide your theme, research your theme, develop your theme.

This is absolutely vital for success this year, you must have a strong understanding of what you are going to do and how you are going to do it. Discover your favourite medium, discover your favourite colours and shades, discover your favourite subject matter. If you have an understanding of your years work you can start from NOW. Start your folio, start writing your design brief. You have the power to absolutely obliterate this subject. Also! Visit a gallery and take notes. Do it!

All in all though, relax and keep calm :)
« Last Edit: November 23, 2012, 10:53:14 am by Yendall »
2013 - 2016: Bachelor of Computer Science @ RMIT
2017 - 2018: Master of Data Science @ RMIT
ΟΟΟΟ
VCE '12: | English | I.T: Applications | I.T: Software Development | Music Performance Solo |  Further Mathematics | Studio Arts |

vashappenin

  • Victorian
  • Forum Leader
  • ****
  • Posts: 905
  • Respect: +31
  • School Grad Year: 2013
Re: ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"
« Reply #11 on: November 23, 2012, 10:38:21 am »
0
Other books are also great - English, PE, Legal Studies, Maths will also be coming out for 2013 - which should be exciting.
Wait, so is there going to be a newer edition of the English one for next year??
2013: English, Maths Methods, Further Maths, Legal Studies, HHD, Psychology
2014-present: Bachelor of Laws @ Monash University

Tutoring VCE English, Psych, Legal Studies and HHD in 2016! Tutoring via Skype too. PM me if you're interested :)

Tirana

  • Victorian
  • Trailblazer
  • *
  • Posts: 36
  • Respect: 0
  • School Grad Year: 2013
Re: ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"
« Reply #12 on: November 23, 2012, 10:50:01 am »
0
I also suggest that those of you who are doing Accounting, Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Psychology to grab the ATARNotes Study Guides for these subjects, they'll be one of the first on the market with resources for the new 2013 - 2016 study design and will provide you with valuable materials for the new exam and course structure, including multiple topic tests, multiple practice exams, model solutions as well as super-detailed solutions to all tests and exams which walk you through each of the questions and explain them in great depth to you.

They're all written by great people who were where you were not that long ago, who understand the nuances of the courses and who have done more practice exams than you can possibly even imagine, so keep your eyes out for them, we've received great words from those who've used the ATARNotes books in the past year, from both schools and students.

Other books are also great - English, PE, Legal Studies, Maths will also be coming out for 2013 - which should be exciting.

Disclaimer: I am an author, so I may be biased, but in all seriousness, all of the books are truly great.

Fantastic :)
2013: | Biology | Chemistry | English | Methods | Spec/Further |

Shenz0r

  • Victorian
  • Part of the furniture
  • *****
  • Posts: 1875
  • Respect: +410
Re: ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"
« Reply #13 on: November 23, 2012, 11:19:15 am »
+4
My 2011-2012 holiday was a very relaxed one, and I really only started working from mid-January (so that was 2 weeks until school started). You don't need to break your back working; take it easy, there's really not much that you HAVE to do.

My suggestions:

English
-Reading your books is a must. Aim to have read all your books by the end of the holidays. You don't need to write practise text-responses and contexts by this stage (that can wait until SAC time), but you should try practise writing some Language Analysis pieces and pick your topic for your oral presentation. I wrote 2 practise Language Analysis pieces and gave them to my teacher on my first English lesson (she was a bit surprised, must've been thinking "wow this guy is keen").
-You don't necessarily have to write summaries and notes for your books, because chances are, you're going to reread it in class before your SAC. If you think that it'll help you, go ahead, but it's probably a bit better to start writing those notes a few weeks before the SAC. This will make the material much more fresh and detailed, as you'll have class discussions to supplement your interpretation.

Methods
-Do all the holiday revision sheets, if you've been given any.
-Most of the content in Methods 3/4 is merely an extension of 1/2 material, so you can blast through the course pretty fast. But don't get lured into this temptation of finishing the entire course in the holiday, because it doesn't help. There was a guy in my school who finished both Methods and Spesh courses in the holidays, bragged about it, then proceeded to sleep in class because he had already done all the work, and got bad scores anyway.
-Get a good understanding of basic principles (know the "whys", rather than just memorising formulas)

Chemistry
-Review your stoichiometry. Aim to perfect it, actually. This includes your gas laws, gravimetric analysis, and titrations in particular.
-The U3 course is pretty lengthy, do NOT finish the entire course in the holidays.

Biology
-Just like Chemistry, the course is pretty lengthy and do not finish it in the holidays
-All I did was go through some powerpoints, download Douchy's latest podcast, and do the relevant Biozone sheets.
-Aim to get through the different Biomacromolecules, and have a good idea on the structure of a cell (at least know what organelles are, and what are eukaryotic/prokaryotic cells)

French
-I did like no work for this subject in the holidays, but if you have Schaums, just blast through exercises in that.

On a side note, review the Study Designs and get a good feel of what the course is going to be like. You won't waste time potentially reading irrelevant walls of text in your textbooks.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2012, 11:21:37 am by Shenz0r »
2012 ATAR: 99.20
2013-2015: Bachelor of Biomedicine (Microbiology/Immunology: Infections and Immunity) at The University of Melbourne
2016-2019: Doctor of Medicine (MD4) at The University of Melbourne

paulsterio

  • ATAR Notes Legend
  • *******
  • Posts: 4803
  • I <3 2SHAN
  • Respect: +430
Re: ATT: 2013ers. "What should I do with my holidays?"
« Reply #14 on: November 23, 2012, 01:43:08 pm »
0
Other books are also great - English, PE, Legal Studies, Maths will also be coming out for 2013 - which should be exciting.
Wait, so is there going to be a newer edition of the English one for next year??

Nope, English is still the same study design, so it'll still be the same book as it will be the same course as this year.

The new books which are coming out are specifically the ones for the subjects which used to have 2 exams but are now being condensed to 1 exam - thus their study design and exam format have been revised, so our books are changed to reflect that. There will also be new books being written for subjects where we hadn't had books in the previous year such as the three Maths.