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March 29, 2024, 03:27:41 am

Author Topic: whys' VCE journal  (Read 79700 times)

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ArtyDreams

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Re: whys' VCE journal
« Reply #195 on: March 25, 2020, 06:57:11 pm »
+5
Glad your enjoying the holidays whys! Seems like you've had a great start  :D

Ooooo some drawing! Would love to see some pics soon if you're willing to share!

Enjoy the rest of your week .

Evolio

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Re: whys' VCE journal
« Reply #196 on: March 25, 2020, 07:23:57 pm »
+4
Hey whys!  ;D
That's really good that you're improving in Abstract Reasoning! Good for you!  :D I really need to be doing more UCAT practise and timed as well. Do you have any tips with timed?

Oh cool about the drawing! What do you usually draw?

Have a great holidays!

whys

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Re: whys' VCE journal
« Reply #197 on: March 25, 2020, 07:39:22 pm »
+5
Ooooo some drawing! Would love to see some pics soon if you're willing to share!
I'll definitely send some once I finish something!

Hey whys!  ;D
That's really good that you're improving in Abstract Reasoning! Good for you!  :D I really need to be doing more UCAT practise and timed as well. Do you have any tips with timed?

Oh cool about the drawing! What do you usually draw?
My biggest tip for timed is probably to not do timed. I think it's important to build on accuracy first. Once you are consistently getting questions right, then start on timed. Usually what happens is people start trying to build up their speed before working on accuracy, which I don't think is as effective as nailing accuracy first and working on speed second. I think this really helped me get more questions right, rather than jumping into timed, only doing 90% of the questions, and only getting 60% of those questions correct.

I like drawing animals! Their anatomy, movement and behaviour are very interesting and fun to replicate on paper. I also suck at drawing humans :P.
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JR_StudyEd

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Re: whys' VCE journal
« Reply #198 on: March 26, 2020, 01:34:11 am »
+5
How's it going, whys?

I'm a former VCE psych student (and a current uni psych student haha), and I have to congratulate you on your impressive scores from last year! A quick look at your subjects, and I've just found out your subject selection is very similar to mine. Love your tips, and your passion for the subject! I do have a question that may benefit the current psych students in the room, have you got any pointers/tips for the research methods portion of the VCE psych course? I don't know if you found it really dry or actually somehow tolerated it. I ask because I found research methods to be almost certainly the most tedious part of the VCE course, and now that I'm in uni, with a LOT (and I mean a LOT) more readings to complete, the dryness of research methods isn't going away, sadly. It would be nice to get some perspective from someone who loved VCE psych even more than I did!

I know it's weird being on a Year 12 student's journal as a first-year uni student, but I still think research methods is a part of the course that is slightly more neglected, which may explain its dryness (to me, at least).
Listens to K-Pop (Twice, Red Velvet, MAMAMOO) and Christmas music all year round.

whys

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Re: whys' VCE journal
« Reply #199 on: March 26, 2020, 02:17:23 am »
+7
How's it going, whys?

I'm a former VCE psych student (and a current uni psych student haha), and I have to congratulate you on your impressive scores from last year! A quick look at your subjects, and I've just found out your subject selection is very similar to mine. Love your tips, and your passion for the subject! I do have a question that may benefit the current psych students in the room, have you got any pointers/tips for the research methods portion of the VCE psych course? I don't know if you found it really dry or actually somehow tolerated it. I ask because I found research methods to be almost certainly the most tedious part of the VCE course, and now that I'm in uni, with a LOT (and I mean a LOT) more readings to complete, the dryness of research methods isn't going away, sadly. It would be nice to get some perspective from someone who loved VCE psych even more than I did!

I know it's weird being on a Year 12 student's journal as a first-year uni student, but I still think research methods is a part of the course that is slightly more neglected, which may explain its dryness (to me, at least).
Hi~
Yay, another psych lover! And it's not weird haha, I really appreciate that you took some time to read my journal - uni students bring a whole different perspective! I hope uni psych is treating you well.

I definitely agree that research methods is one of the least interesting parts of the VCE course, and I can imagine there's even more of it in uni. I think that because students often neglect research methods (I can't blame them!), there's a higher likelihood of doing 'worse' on the exam/on SACs, since VCAA makes scientific research/research methods a pretty large part of all science subjects. Even if you have a sound understanding of all the other dot points on the study design, it's still really important to understand research methods - this is to all the VCE psych students out there! When I did 1/2 psych, I didn't really pay much attention to research methods. I put effort into making notes and whatnot, but stopped there. I had a really superficial understanding of RM and refused to do any practice questions because I like to set myself up for procrastination :P. Fast forward to 3/4 psych, I realised that I really needed to work on RM if I wanted to do well. My teacher gave us a lot of practice for RM at the start of the year (about 1-2 weeks for only RM) but then we never touched it again. I never did any 'extra' work for RM, but I tried not to neglect it. Doing practice questions is one of the most beneficial ways to get around RM, since there's an emphasis on wording and phrasing to get full marks.

I never found RM particularly interesting, but I didn't exactly hate it either. I just got it over and done with so I could focus on the content, then solidified my knowledge with practice questions before each SAC. RM was integrated into many questions, so by exposing yourself to many practice questions, you will have the upper hand in knowing how to answer those questions. I don't really think there's a short way around learning RM thoroughly. I don't really think this applies to uni though, since I'm under the impression that you guys don't get many practice exams/questions as VCE? Is research methods a big part of uni psych? In VCE, I just got it done and closed the book so I could spend time on actual content, but I doubt that's possible in uni, since it seems like research methods is ~everywhere~ there. However, I guess everyone hates/likes aspects of a certain subject/course, and the only thing we can do is get through it.

I also find that many people who don't like RM haven't really gone into learning it thoroughly. This is exactly how I felt before I went out of my way to learn about research methods. I contacted an Australian researcher with my friend in 1/2 psych who had done an experiment with mice with induced schizophrenia symptoms and something to do with NMDA receptors (I can't remember what exactly it was). Learning about their process was really insightful for me - I really appreciate those who do hours of research so we can learn the things we do today! I guess you could say I sort of learnt to respect the part of psych that is RM - it may be boring, but it's an essential part of learning new and interesting theories and models, or testing ones that already exist. Seeing it in this way helped me appreciate RM more, which helped me push through that part of the course. I understand why many students take one look at RM, go 'nope' and don't look at it ever again. However, approaching RM in a new light may help you get into the groove, which puts you miles ahead in VCE since many people neglect RM severely (not sure about uni, does everyone there hate RM too?).

RM was the most tedious part of the course for me, but changing the way I approached it made it more tolerable, and by the end of the year I didn't mind it at all. You could almost say that I started enjoying it. :D

I really hope my insight helped a little, and to all the VCE psych students out there: don't despair! Get RM done and dusted so you can get to the more interesting content! ;)
« Last Edit: March 26, 2020, 02:20:24 am by whys »
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J_Rho

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Re: whys' VCE journal
« Reply #200 on: March 29, 2020, 10:34:18 am »
+1
I really hoped the above dump of words helps in some way haha. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask away!

Yes! It was helpful!
How did you study for it? How did you take notes, did you use flashcards etc?
— VCE —
English 30, Further Maths 33, Biology 33, Legal Studies 27, Psychology 32

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Bachelor of Nursing @ Monash
Bachelor of Counselling & Psychological Science @ ACAP

whys

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Re: whys' VCE journal
« Reply #201 on: March 29, 2020, 02:08:58 pm »
+7
Yes! It was helpful!
How did you study for it? How did you take notes, did you use flashcards etc?

I type my notes on onenote, but it might not work for everyone. I suggest experimenting to find the notetaking style that works for you. I made around 100-ish flashcards with all the questions I got wrong, and went through them before SACs.

EDIT: I'll add a little update in here.
We got our chem SACs back a while ago, and when I saw my score I went like


So yeah, that was a nice surprise. I really did not expect to do well, I honestly don't know what I was writing and still ended up with apparently the highest score (I say apparently because this is speculation from all the scores we know so far). I'm not really fussed with chem, I'll be really happy if I'm in the top 15 in terms of ranking, since everyone is (un)fortunately smart. I'm aiming for top 3 for bio though, which would be nice. I don't know what rank I was for psych, but I think I was in the top 10 somewhere (I know I wasn't rank 1, since my friend was rank 1, and I think the other person who got 50 was also higher in rank than me) so I know you don't need to be in the highest rankings to do well, but I've still got my fingers crossed for bio. The only thing I'm dreading right now is getting back my English SAC... I hope it never comes.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2020, 03:25:04 pm by whys »
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Evolio

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Re: whys' VCE journal
« Reply #202 on: March 29, 2020, 04:28:13 pm »
+5
Congratulations whys! That's amazing!  ;D  ;D
So happy for you!   ;D Yay!

Also, about your english sac, don't worry about it! Enjoy your achievement for now and don't dwell on what could be!



Chocolatemilkshake

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Re: whys' VCE journal
« Reply #203 on: March 29, 2020, 05:08:27 pm »
+4
YES whys, congratulations! You deserved it (it's always such a nice surprise to do better than you thought you did!)

Enjoy the holidays and all the best for bio and english  ;D
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Re: whys' VCE journal
« Reply #204 on: March 29, 2020, 06:04:43 pm »
+4
Congrats whys!! I'm so happy for you!  :)

Don't worry too much about your English SAC, I'm sure you did better than you think, but even if it isn't exactly what you're looking for, remember it isn't the be all and end all; you'll have plenty of other opportunities to do well in the future.

Hope you have a relaxing break!

ashmi

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Re: whys' VCE journal
« Reply #205 on: March 29, 2020, 07:53:28 pm »
+6
whys I'm so so proud of you!! ;D ;D Literally just reread the new updated post and my LORD SO PROUD OF YOU

Congrats for doing so well! All your effort is paying off nicely and go give yourself a pat on the back. It's an amazing feeling knowing that you did much better than expected :D.

Don't worry too much about the English SAC, rather try think of the future!! ;) Take a nice deserved break these holidays~

whys

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Re: whys' VCE journal
« Reply #206 on: April 03, 2020, 01:35:09 pm »
+11
Thank you everyone! ;D

Holiday update!
Stuff that has happened in the past week:
- I finally finished The Good Place
- I cooked stuff (churros and Asian sesame chicken and others)
- I have officially started to use a 2020 dairy so I can write down what I need to do
- I have completed over 3000 UCAT practice questions!

Goals for the end of the holidays:
- Reread + annotate comparative texts for English
- Use all resources for AOS 1 for bio
- Get up to date with chem
- Get ahead in methods
- Write at least 5 AA essays
- Complete 5000 UCAT practice questions
^I know I won't finish all this but it's nice to have goals anyway haha

I currently have the worst sleep schedule where I sleep at like 1-3am and wake up at ~12pm, which really sucks since I waste the entire morning sleeping and the entire night on Netflix or Youtube. Is it just me or do these holidays feel like the long summer holidays? No? Just me maybe 8)

Looking at everyone else and all the productive stuff they do makes me feel guilty for not studying, because I know I should be but I can't push myself to (which is not a good thing!). I need to learn to take year 12 more seriously. That started when I uninstalled league from my laptop at the end of last year. That game cost me so much... I used to play it for hours over the weekends and on the holidays in year 11, which compromised my scores, so I vowed to never play it again (for this year). I guess that's a first step? Sometimes I really don't feel like studying and just end up lying on my bed and doing nothing. I can't go out either (no one can) which feels really confining. I'm a people person and seeing no one except family can get claustrophobic, if that makes sense! I spend lots of time with my family to ease that feeling, but it's not the same as going outside.

I hope everyone is having a great holiday!
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Evolio

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Re: whys' VCE journal
« Reply #207 on: April 04, 2020, 12:19:02 pm »
+5
Yes, the Good Place is amazing!  :) Did you like it?

WOWOW! 3000 questions! That's amazing whys! I've only completed like 1000 or so, so you're giving me motivation to do way more questions every day!  ;D



whys

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Re: whys' VCE journal
« Reply #208 on: April 04, 2020, 12:48:32 pm »
+6
Yes, the Good Place is amazing!  :) Did you like it?

WOWOW! 3000 questions! That's amazing whys! I've only completed like 1000 or so, so you're giving me motivation to do way more questions every day!  ;D

YES! It was really funny and a light-hearted time-pass during the holidays. I'm glad I chose to watch it (despite being like 3 months late oops).

I'm glad I could motivate you! :D
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whys

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Re: whys' VCE journal
« Reply #209 on: April 12, 2020, 02:38:53 pm »
+8
Happy Easter everyone! I hope everyone has had a restful and rejuvenating holiday so far. I don't celebrate Easter, but we do hold an annual Easter egg hunt. We didn't have eggs and my parents didn't want to go out to get them, so we made do with hiding normal chocolates instead. As always, I won, but we always split the chocolates in the end anyway haha (otherwise my sister would be mad because she always finds less than me). Anyways, onto subject updates:

English
Okay, so I really, really enjoy argument analysis! I still have so much to improve on, but I can see the improvement with every essay I write. It's definitely so much more fun than the dreadful text response, which I can confidently say is my least favourite, along with comparative (which is bad because they make up 2/3 of our exam score). I haven't done too much for English, and I've only written 4 essays over the holidays and done nothing else. I want to finish off my text response notes and argument analysis notes before term starts. Luckily, English doesn't have pages and pages of content to write about, so my notes are very selective and include things I want to use in my essays. Our principal released a notice that confirmed there will be fewer SACs this year though, which is very worrying to me because I did horribly in the first SAC and was relying on the other SACs to save my study score... I can't help overthinking this and it really sucks that the coronavirus just had to come now.

Chemistry
Okay, I'm really, very, super behind for chem (NOT an exaggeration). I have so much to do, which I idealistically hope I'll finish within the following week. The concepts aren't necessarily difficult, but I haven't practised any of them at all, apart from the time we used in class to practise. I'm looking at the optimistic side of online school - I'll have no travel time at all, so I'll have so much more time to study than usual. I want to use this time to spam practice questions and do as much as I can, not just for chem, but all my subjects. With our exams also being pushed back, we have even more time. Hopefully, I can bring up my productivity level to at least 50% haha, while I battle with procrastination on the side.

Biology
I think biology is the only subject going remotely well. I'm so ready to do the SAC but I don't even know if the SAC will happen or we're just going to have SAC after SAC when we get back to normal school. I'm kind of bored over constantly revising AOS 1, but I'm afraid I'll forget it all before the SAC so I force myself to do it anyways. I need to get a start on writing notes and doing questions for AOS 2, which we have already partially covered at school last term. Biology is really fun and a good break from my other subjects, and it reminds me of psych (a little bit). I want to try my best and get that raw 50 get at least 45.

Methods
There really isn't anything to say about methods. I'm not wanting an amazing study score in this subject - I'd be alright with 39-42-ish. The content is pretty straightforward, but sometimes I struggle to get my head around some of the harder application questions, but with more practice I'm sure this will improve. I just need to get around to practising... I've finished all my methods holiday homework - I just need to mark my tech-free and tech-able practice SACs and get ahead of the class. I want to finish the textbook questions as soon as possible so I can just focus on checkpoints/practice SACs/exams earlier in the year, since it sort of sucks doing textbook questions when I know I could be doing interesting exam questions.

Oh yeah, the UCAT is a thing. I don't think it will be affected by the coronavirus because you can easily implement social distancing measures (I think), since there's probably only ~15 students at a testing centre at a particular time. Remember when I said abstract reasoning was going to my worst score on the UCAT, and I hated it so much? Well, that has changed. It's now my favourite section and I usually finish with a few minutes to spare so I can go through any patterns I couldn't figure out in the ~40 seconds I allocate to each pattern. I haven't practised VR in a loooong time, but I consistently score in the 30s for that like always and I have no idea how to get into the 40s. I would cry with joy if I ever got 40-44/44 on that subsection in the actual exam. I used to be really good at decision making and I'd usually get like 23-25/29 questions right with some partially correct, but because I haven't practised DM in a long time too, my scores have dropped (rip whys). I think with some more consistent practice I'd probably regain my footing, but I don't know. SJT is always the same, it's not a hard section and it barely counts when they select you for interviews anyway so I'm not fussed about it. Let's go to QR, though. I've never been bad at maths, in fact, I'd go so far as to say I'm pretty good at maths. But this subsection destroys me every time. I can't get the calculations done in time, and the annoying simplicity of the calculator makes me want to bang my head into the wall. It takes me way too long to do the questions, and I don't even get all of them correct anyway, which puts me smack-bang at a scaled score of 650. I don't even know what to do anymore haha. Do I just keep practising and hope I get better..? I don't know, but if I somehow magically do really well in the other subsections then QR won't matter as much if I get an average score in the real thing.

Quote from: The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.
psych [50] bio [50]
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