Gem Gem's VCE Journal ;D

[gemmaruffin]

When I started planning what I was gonna do for exam revision, I made big to do lists for each subjects - what I needed to know, etc (study designs can be great, but most of my teachers also made nicely summarised versions of key points we needed to know), what I didn't understand (highlighted).
Then from there, I figured out what needed to be prioritised. Once you have the to do lists, you can start chipping away at points for all your subjects gradually Plus, it's really satisfying to be able to cross off stuff on a list.

I think from memory, I first covered stuff I hadn't learnt properly and stuff I didn't understand at all. So for me, this meant getting my methods teacher to reteach me some concepts, and getting my chem teacher to also say, explain how to do a certain type of question. Then once I'd covered that, I started gradually revising stuff I was more familiar with.
Maybe try making sure you're on top of concepts before doing practice exams? Not much point in doing a practice exam if you can't answer any of the questions (I found this happened to me in methods lol).

So yeah, I guess make a list of stuff and prioritise it and then do stuff in order based on that
In the end, if you don't have a super ordered system, that's fine - just getting the revision done is the main thing!

Since your goal is a high ATAR, I won't give any advice at all on what to do, since I didn't get a high ATAR. I will however say what not to do .

1. Don't have a plan for the whole study period
-Get a plan, it makes your life easier and also less brainpower & time is spent figuring out your schedule everyday. It doesn't need to be perfect, just have a basic framework to fall back to should you need it.

2. Don't see your teachers for help
-This is depending on your teachers, but they tend to give you leeway for consultations typically so take advantage of them. If any give you their phone number, use it, heck abuse it for help if you want to.

3. Only doing VCCA exams
-Students actually do this, yes VCCA does your exam, but other companies' practice papers are written by assessor; current or past. They also have a good grasp on what is coming on your exam.

4. Treats everything as a priority
-As K888 has mentioned above, you have to prioritize your study. Is studying stuff you know weighted the same as stuff you don't know?

5. Staying up late to maximize study time
-This logic is just plain stupid and follow the whole "Work Harder" . Just don't. What you should do is have No distraction, intense, quiet/minimal sound sessions . That way you maximise your study period because I know some people don't talk about doing x hours, really did y hours on study and z hours on ATARNotes.

6. Rely on memory recognition
-You want Recall . Recognition is like seeing the answer from multiple choice, recall is like remembering something of the top of your head. [Look up a psychology website for more detail on this]

Good luck and if you want more concert advice, check out the study timetable guide by Evan Dowsett , also the Exam tracker and statistic excel file, if you like tracking how your going and EEEEEEP's awesome archive on exams .

Thank you so much guys!

[brenden]

The big question here is, where will Gemma end up this Friday/Saturday night?!

[heids]

The big question here is, where will Gemma end up this Friday/Saturday night?!

placing bets on her squeezing into the oven

[K888]

The big question here is, where will Gemma end up this Friday/Saturday night?!

I'm thinking maybe an al fresco theme, potentially someone's fish pond or swimming pool

[gemmaruffin]

Let's hope it's not anywhere too cray cray 

[Joseph41]

Let's hope it's not anywhere too cray cray 

How was your day today?

[gemmaruffin]

How was your day today?

Sorry haha, I was studying (((
Yesterday, I managed to finish all my summaries for both chem and methods, which I'm super stoked about because now I can really hone in on just practise questions today!
Got some methods practise exams back today that I'm happy with (averaging an A - seeing that it's my 10%, I'm stoked), and in class this morning we did 2011 exam 2 which tbh, was a mess
Planning on studying hardcore this afternoon and tonight for chem and bio, let's see how we go

[gemmaruffin]

AHHHH I feel sooo bad for abandoning this!!!
New week, new me 
Alas, it's been a hectic past few days!
So I had my chem and bio SACs on Thursday, and boy am I glad they're over, hoping that I did well in both of them because there wasn't anything that threw me off too much (except for that one question in bio about sickle cell anemia testing in America compared to Australia....)
On Friday, we had a music festival between 4 of the schools in the area, and it's all to raise money for East Timor. It's every three years and I was #blessed to get in in year 12! 
It was such a fun day, spent most of it at the rave cave and a bit at the chill out stage watching some of my talented friends perform.

This weekend has been pretty good, as I really honed in on some english and bio stuff I really needed to get done, so I felt a bit accomplished from that. Also managed to work Saturday during the day and just got home from an evening shift, and went to an 18th too (unfortunately, didn't end up in a bathtub this time  )
I'm really excited for this week, I've got Performing Arts Day tomorrow and a Seminar Day (pretty much just a chill day where we talk about our lives), so only 3 days of class and then I'm done  yeeeeet

[gemmaruffin]

OH MY GOD FORGOT TO ADD
guess who's going to Drake!!!!! 

[K888]

OH MY GOD FORGOT TO ADD
guess who's going to Drake!!!!! 

Eeeeeee! So exciting! Hope you enjoy it, Gemma.

(except for that one question in bio about sickle cell anemia testing in America compared to Australia....)

So, what is the difference?

[gemmaruffin]

So, what is the difference?

um......
hhahah nah, we got given a graph pretty much showing that there was a higher proportion of people in America who got it than in Australia, and I just said that in America they would be more likely to screen for it because it affects more people.

[gemmaruffin]

So finally, all my SACs are done!! I feel like now I can breathe a sigh of relief, and turn to the real stress at hand - exams 

I got my last chem and bio SACs back, which I was quite happy with, and turns out I got the sickle cell anaemia question right!

Term 3 is now over, so I'm (sort of?) looking forward to 2 weeks without actual classes to sort out all my revision and get my life together. My first exam is in 25 days, so it's all sort of coming down to the hard stuff now! I did my first Chem unit 3 practise exam today, and I got 67%, so obviously, I've got a bit to do 

Update on my personal life - I ain't gettin in no bath this weekend, I have to work from 10am-10pm 

[gemmaruffin]

23/9/17
So I'm currently on my break at work, and I thought bringing my laptop would be useful so that I would study...just logged into the bunnings wifi and now I'm procrastinating heaps 
It's actually the best feeling right now being on school holidays and having all my SACs done, because I've got time to organise myself and get ready for exams. Yesterday, I spent half an hour picking the type of pens I wanted for exams, decided on a 0.5mm uniball pen and legit no regrets, it flows so nicely! Is it weird I get excited over pens?? I also bought and organised my revision folders, and worked out that I only really have to sort out notes for AOS 1 of chem, which is good (thanks past life me for prepping summary notes throughout the year  )
This week ahead looks really exciting, I've got some days planned just for study, on Wednesday I've got a practise oral with my Italian teacher and I'm going to Bryson Tiller, and on Friday (if I'm not working), I'm planning to come along to the meetup 

[gemmaruffin]

1/10/17
New month, new me (lmao nope)
Can’t believe we’ve finally hit October! By the end of this month I’ll have one exam done, finished classes and it’ll be one day before the English exam
So last week was really productive, I got all my notes sorted, and started some intense revision. Currently on my way to good old Atar notes lectures today too, so should be good!
It is a shame that I couldn’t go to the atar notes meetup, I got called into work last minute (not complaining, got double payyyy)
This week is practise exam after practise exam at school, so pretty much my holiday/school without school/torture is over

[gemmaruffin]

8/10/17

What an insane week this has been fam!
So the ATAR notes lectures were awesome last week that I decided to wake up super early again today and go to two more! Chem and methods today, gonna be hectic lmao

So I had practise exams today, which overall I was quite happy with. I think I need to do the most work on my text response essay for English, and then everything else I should be okay. My first exam is in 10 days!!!!
I’ve also had heaps of time this week to reflect (read: procrastinate reflect) on this year and be thankful to myself for actually putting in the effort all year so that I’m not killing myself to study now. That’s probably my biggest piece of advice - just get all your revision and notes sorted as you go throughout the year, and when you come to the end, all you have to do is collate it into one big folder full of the most important notes, SACs and practice exams. It’s probably the most helpful thing I did for myself last year for health, and now again I think it’ll be quite useful too.

Let’s just hope these two weeks are super productive and I actually get shit done!
Gem