Wingdings' VCE Journal

[whys]

Hi Wingdings!

Congrats on those amazing SAC scores for chem and eng lang. And don’t feel afraid to try out for med - you’ve got nothing to lose (except your sanity ... I’m just kidding haha). I know it can be intimidating when it seems like the people around you have years of practice, but it is never too late to start and I know plenty of people who started preparation very late or did very little preparation at all, and are currently studying medicine! It’s great that you’re finding the time pressure doable, I know that certainly wasn’t the case for me (cue traumatic memories of leaving so many questions blank because I didn’t get to them in time). In the time you have, you definitely have opportunity to improve your UCAT skills, so all the best! What made you decide to try out for med? Was it something that’s been on your mind for a while, or something you decided on a whim?

[wingdings2791]

whys

Hello whys, thank you so much for your reply!! You have no idea how long I've envied your unbelievable achievements so it certainly is an honour to be in the presence of such godliness T^T and I definitely feel my brain beginning to come apart at the seams just thinking about medicine sometimes xd. How are you finding med so far? Is it similar to how you imagined it?

I've always wanted to do med, just never seriously considered trying to get in because I didn't think I'd get good enough results for it. But I'm now clinging to the bit of hope that ATAR calculators have given me; guess it couldn't hurt to just sit the UCAT right? I'm shocked too that you left questions blank and still beat 97% of prospective med students?? Please allow me to access your brainwaves. That's really reassuring though, that you can afford some room for mistakes and still do well. I really hope everything goes well and that you're enjoying uni very much

Yesterday marked my third Thursday of no classes! (my only period being cancelled) Of course, last week I was smart enough not to check Compass in the morning and travel all the way to school, only to leave after a whopping 10 minutes, but nevertheless it's nice to practically have a holiday every week xdd. I can't believe we're already a month into term 2, with the particularly hellish saga of Chem, Methods, and Eng Lang (in three weeks' time) now fast approaching. It's so strange to think that year 12 is practically half over too. Times flies when you're not having fun T^T

Eng Lang
U3 AOS2 short answer SAC happened last Tuesday and it was a... slightly disappointing experience. Although all the questions were very predictable, I certainly didn't write quite enough for the 5 marker and my answers weren't all up to standard I wanted. For now, Eng Lang is spending some time on the back burner; I'm just collecting a lot of contemporary examples and hoping that my results won't threaten my positive face needs ;-;

Methods
Not bad so far. I guess I'm still finding Methods a bit easier than my other subjects so not super worried about it. However, the fact that the imminent SAC is four hours is slightly blood-curdling so I am still a bit anxious for it. So far, I'm dropping around 1-2 marks on my class tests and practice SACs so it's looking up for me but I have really got to be careful not to become overconfident : P

Chemistry
I have by far spent the most time on Chem in the last few weeks but please, somebody grab me by the collar and force me to memorise the fuels content. It's just so much dryer than the calculations, so I keep avoiding it and probably to my own detriment. Luckily, I don't think our next SAC will test it so at least that's a relief. Other than that, I'm starting to enjoy Chem a lot more because a lot of the topics are starting to relate to each other, like galvanic/electrolysis with redox and reaction rates from Bio. Let's hope my grades in this subject remains at equilibrium, or the system (me) will be forced to favour the exothermic pathway ;-;

UCAT
UCAT practice questions are actually pretty fun; DM and AR are so similar to typical IQ tests and puzzle book problems. I've been using the PassMedicine subtest practice papers mostly for the last month or so and I'm starting to get 800+ on VR/DM and 700+ on QR/AR. What confuses me is that everybody I've discussed it with seems to find VR quite fiendish and QR relatively cruisy, whereas for me it's definitely the other way around. The QR questions are just so long and require so much reading, they feel more like VR than VR at times! Fingers crossed it's just because everyone seems to use other UCAT companies and QR is just skewed a little difficult (yikes)

A song recommendation to end this update- Pyongyang by Blur. Study hard everyone!

[whys]

whys

Hello whys, thank you so much for your reply!! You have no idea how long I've envied your unbelievable achievements so it certainly is an honour to be in the presence of such godliness T^T and I definitely feel my brain beginning to come apart at the seams just thinking about medicine sometimes xd. How are you finding med so far? Is it similar to how you imagined it?

I've always wanted to do med, just never seriously considered trying to get in because I didn't think I'd get good enough results for it. But I'm now clinging to the bit of hope that ATAR calculators have given me; guess it couldn't hurt to just sit the UCAT right? I'm shocked too that you left questions blank and still beat 97% of prospective med students?? Please allow me to access your brainwaves. That's really reassuring though, that you can afford some room for mistakes and still do well. I really hope everything goes well and that you're enjoying uni very much

This is praise that is well over what I deserve, but thank you! (and honestly, I don’t know how I made it in either.) It’s quite an enjoyable course, with a lot of faculty and peer support along the way. I love the content so far, but I miss the face to face aspect of it, as well as no clinical placements this year. I’m excited for when we can fully transition back to in-person classes, placements next year and more opportunity to practice the clinical skills we’ve learnt. Also a lot of partying and just having a good time, which is what uni’s for, right? I don’t think I imagined med to be any specific way - my thinking never got that far, and was instead stuck at worrying if I’d get in or not!

P.S. when I said I left questions blank, I meant when I was practising, not in the real exam! I highly recommend you don’t leave any questions blank in the real thing (I certainly didn’t), and if you can’t get to them in time, guessing the answer is much better than leaving them blank.

[wingdings2791]

whys

So glad to hear that! It does suck a bit not having all the course experiences you normally would; personally placements are a big reason why I wanted to study med too but at least now that the vaccine is slowly rolling out, there's an end in sight I'm so excited for you to have an opportunity to apply all your new skills and knowledge. And yeah, I know exactly what you mean (always consoled by the fact that even if I don't get in, at least (probably going to) Melbourne Uni would mean conveniently going to the city all the time xd)
P.S. Haha got that xd. Better approach it like any other multiple choice test then.

Well, it's almost mid-June already and only a few weeks remain until the end of term and I think I speak for all when I say fjdbbbjlajkfJFASLFJAJBjkAHHAHAHhahhah
Quite a lot has happened since my last update. In fact, this is probably one of the only times I've not been updating here because it's been too busy rather than too uneventful. Hitting the peak of SAC season with my formal previously scheduled for today not going ahead due to lockdown and another two gruelling Eng Lang assessments left before the end of term, I imagine everybody's schedule has been quite loaded much like my own.

Over the last two days, I sat my first Methods SAC (U3, tech free and tech able, two hours each). Having largely neglected to do enough practice but done some checkpoints and practice papers, I sat down to the tech able paper on Tuesday feeling slightly unprepared, shaking slightly (whether from stress-eating chocolate or pure adrenaline, we'll never know). But it actually wasn't the absolute worst. Being quite a long paper and having a rather brutal few application questions (three variables in an intersection problem between a derivative and composite graph... hahahaha...), I did sweat profusely when my CAS started buffering and taking a break at the one-hour mark, but I did manage to understand everything, get to what seemed like a reasonable answer for each question, and check about half the paper before time was up. I don't want to hang onto any score projections but I'd be surprised if I did supremely horrible on this one.

Tech free was similarly okay and leagues easier than tech able. I felt all right after finishing about 40 minutes ahead of time, but already I've realised a few mistakes I didn't manage to catch (not filling in endpoints, a graph with an interesting shape that I drew very awkwardly and could cost marks). Overall, it definitely could've gone a lot worse, but I'm still a little hesitant to say it went particularly well.

In other news, I got quite the eye-opener when Eng Lang short answer results were released this week. 13/20.

My playlist quite agrees

Now I know this isn't the most disastrous score ever given that the average was quite similar, but it does still come as a bit of a shock to me. I felt I performed so much better on this SAC than my first one, and the fact that I try harder for Eng Lang than anything else... I definitely took the wrong approach to the questions. Especially with one that concerned front focus, I've never been too sure of it as a concept (what qualifies as front focus? Can pretty much all fronting be called an attempt to draw reader attention?) Really hoping I can redeem myself on Tuesday or I might be looking at seriously compromising my ranking soon

On the other hand, I'm rather relieved at having had a relatively easy time with Chem this term. TSFX is resuming for revision lectures this week, and I truly think I've grappled all the U3 content properly this time. Let's just hope it stays this way in the second semester : P

[wingdings2791]

Week 9: finished.



Can I just say for a second how relieved I am now? Hellish as it may be, I’ve got only one SAC left to go this term! It definitely feels like a huge weight has lifted now that the bulk of assessment are done for this half of the year, especially with holidays and formal just around the corner. Even though I shouldn’t complain already having so much more freedom with only three subjects, I truly can’t wait to have a proper break from VCE, just for a day.

I got both Chem and Methods back this week. I’m very content with Chem; lost around 3/50 marks, which makes it my best SAC score yet this year. Methods was… well ehh. I really, really wanted a 90+ only to miss out by a few percent, but I suppose I’m still relatively okay with how I did. I keep justifying those stupid, stupid mistakes by saying oh but it was a difficult SAC! Oh it won’t be so hard in November! but I still hope there’s enough time for me to improve and just maybe have a 95+ moment in the exams.

Eng Lang
Yikes. My U4 AOS1 SAC (short answer) is next Thursday and to say the least I'm feeling a little unprepared. Because I'm used to more general, exam-style short answer questions, it's hard to know exactly how to approach this assessment (especially seeing as my previous approach didn't seem to work... even more yikes.). After barely spending any time on identity content in class, the teachers have left us with a very dodgy understanding of their expectations. For now I'll just take full advantage of my knight in shining armour tutor's topic-specific practice papers and cross my fingers.

Methods
I did my first VCAA exam today (wow milestone right?): 2008 exam 1, which wasn't too difficult. I lost 1 mark on a domain question, which was a pretty silly mistake, but I tend to always mess up on these because there's always a bracket or exclusion that I forget. We're fairly deep into calculus content at this point; just finished definite integrals today; circular is all done as well. I feel like I've got hope to do well on the exams at this point but definitely need a lot more tech able practice as I'm not exactly a CAS wizard (yet)

Chemistry
All done with U3! I'm not super secure in the idea of being yanked out of my beloved thermochem/redox/equilibrium comfort zone and plonked right into organic U4 nomenclature definitely doesn't mix with silly mistakes, and anybody who knows me would already know anything precise and anti-silly-mistake is my VCE arch nemesis. I'm planning to really step up my studying game for this half of the year since I still think my prospects for 43-45 are still there.

UCAT
Finally gathered up enough scraps of mental effort, concentration, and brain cell to sit my first full-length, timed UCAT mock yesterday (from Passmedicine). VR wasn't so bad but I constantly tossed between Can't Tell and No for so many questions T^T. It’s always so annoying when the text is like Cannot Confirm Nor Deny (Pearson, what do you want?!) I definitely found DM much harder than usual after a little fatigue from VR; my mind just started going in circles. You know that feeling when you’re reading when tired and you understand each individual word but they make no sense together? Yeah that.

QR and AR are also slowly but surely coming along. I don’t know if it’s the company I use or if QR is particularly hard on Passmedicine, but it definitely was a drag to get through after incinerating my brain cell in the earlier sections. My fingers always get so clumsy and feel like giant salamis hopelessly prodding at the calculator keys (ahem the culmination of my 12-year piano career) once time starts ticking. My AR scores are slowly getting to a consistent 700+ so that’s good. Now just to keep it that way aaHHHH TT^TT



Yes, we need more afterthoughts after such a disappointingly brief update, I know, that's what you're thinking. xd in all seriousness, that's probably quite enough blabbering from me for one day. Time to get back to work. Until next time : D

[dedformed]

Woah hello there fellow vce student!

I've been hovering over atarnotes in the past week because my nationality is of the procrasti, and this has been a pleasure to read over the bathroom break (sorry for tmi).

Can totally relate to the fingers-feel-like-salamis bit after incinerating brain cells UCAT stuff, by the end of my mocks my eyes are so dry from the glare they feel like yarnballs in my eye-sockets. I've resorted to wearing sunglasses because of how jarring the colour scheme is (and now I've discovered I could have requested to have it changed because of my migraine, fun!)

Your work ethic regarding ucat is quite the inspiration for me as I procrastinate reading journals on my throne. When are you sitting yours? Regardless of the upcoming doomsday your mock results look quite promising so I do wish you the best!

Cheers
Nelope:) (dont need to add the Pe when im on my throne, sorry i had to do that)

[wingdings2791]

I swear I meant to update sooner... heck, I even wrote half an entry last week but my laptop said no.

dedformed

HELLO 'Nelope! I certainly had a good laugh at your reading situation, thank you for that you definitely flatter me way too much, I just really like ranting about the UCAT but honestly although it can be fun... it certainly is a lot of work. You seem to be going really well in your preparation too, so good luck! I'm sitting mine on the 25th, so really quite soon. Fingers crossed I haven't wasted 50 hours on nothing hehe.

Man it must be tough having to deal with totally unrelated problems like the less-than-optimum aesthetic of the UCAT platform. At least you've found a solution though if it's any consolation, I get the same thing with my contact lenses from staring at it too long and they fall out of my eyes. Sometimes I get nightmares about that woman who lost 28 pairs in her eye when I can't find the lost contact too. Maybe you can get into med, become a doctor, and please give me an examination so I can stop sweating every time my contacts disappear off the face of the earth. XD

Holidays went pretty well by my standards honestly. I didn't go out much in the first week and got through all the circular functions and integration questions from the textbook in a few days, which was kind of an extreme sport for my poor 15 cm ruler. Also finally managed to plow through most of the U3 Chem revision which I'd been dancing around for a term, so I'm quite relieved that that's out of the way for now.

In the second week, I had my first and last formal. It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be to be completely honest; although I anticipated terrible food and a lot of shuffling around awkwardly and probably getting caught in 1849012e⁵ unflattering photos, it was actually only one of those things (guess which one) XDD seriously though, they served lamb shank that slapped, my feet only died in the last hour, and no double chin photos. Afterwards, I pulled my first all-nighter ever at an airbnb.

click for details

11.30 pm: I hobble into the apartment, really concentrating on not letting my ankle roll. We're all pretty tired but what's certain is nobody is sleeping anytime soon. First check of Ubereats to see how far we'll need to lower our standards
1.30 am: a full-course Chinabar takeaway order, the movie Lights Out, and a few bottles later, almost everyone is utterly and completely, wasted. Someone is on the balcony talking in an American accent, another's legs have given out, and somebody else has dropped to the floor to do the worm.
2.00 am: no energy left. My only other sober friend is quickly becoming very aware that this is going to be a long night.
4.30 am: I totally give up on sleep. Doing the dishes it is
6.30 am: A glorious breakfast consisting of the oat cappuccino thingy provided by the airbnb host. Boy I should've known from the colour not to drink that.
10.00 am: Probably getting dirty looks from parents for looking like a bunch of vagrants at playground. At this point, I don't think they'd be surprised if I begged them for loose change. The flying fox was really long and was so fun though, wish I'd known about that one earlier
11.00 am: Deciding to get numbingly spicy wontons to maybe shock me out of my sleep deprivation symptoms; to no avail. Instead, I choked and my friends literally washed them wontons in plain broth and ate the rest.
12.00 pm: Going home to spend 3 hours looking through formal photos
7.00 pm: as close as I'll get to sticking it out until 9, falling asleep xd

I expected myself to make a more grandiose return to this thread but honestly, school is uneventful as always; I barely show up having almost no classes, and at this point most of my studying is just geared towards preparing for whichever SAC is closest. I feel like I need to be raising my scores if I want all 40s, and sometimes I just sabotage myself by not keeping up with subjects that aren't going through SACs. For this term I guess I thought oh, I'll try to hone in on specific assessments less, but as getting 90+ SAC results already takes all my energy and sometimes still doesn't work, kind of afraid that I'll just jeopardise myself again by lowering my SAC average, which jeopardises my exam prep WHICH turns into a vicious cycle where I end up doing well on nothing. 

UCAT is creeping uncomfortably close (next Sunday) and it's more than a little daunting. Having just done the official mock A and gotten an obscene VR score, I'm not sure what I should be expecting next week as I always thought VR was one of my strongest subtests after DM. QR certainly was not nice either; I got absolutely destroyed by the just the sheer amount of reading I needed to do to find the interest rate for an Oriental Carpet, then getting an answer and realising I didn't convert from dollars to pounds. Either way, med isn't necessarily my one and only, so it's all right if I don't get the score I want. It hasn't happened yet, and at least I'll have more attention to fully focus on VCE.

Anyways, I hope everyone's term 3 experience is smooth and relatively unstressful. Until next time : )

[wingdings2791]

The UCAT: How it went

Actually, I don't think I ever properly mentioned here that my UCAT test date was the 25th of July. That means that yesterday, I FINALLY completed probably the most difficult test I've ever had to prepare for (AMEB theory probably feels boycotted by that statement xd). Overall, I'm extremely EXTREMELY happy with my score: I never thought I'd ever come even close to what I got on the real thing. After months and months and admittedly, a straight week doing nothing but 9 hours of UCAT a day, I can't express the relief of finishing this first step to med. I'm writing now because whys' extremely comprehensive description of the UCAT experience was a huge source of comfort for me so I've been inspired to make this gigantic update that hopefully will at least be a bit of ~themed entertainment~ for anybody who's scheduled to do it in the next two weeks hehe.

Now for the REVEAL (prob the only thing anyone will read):

AHH RESULTS

Verbal Reasoning: 700
Decision Making: 740
Quantitative Reasoning: 830
Abstract Reasoning: 800
Total: 3070
Situational Judgement: 623

I'm still shocked beyond words... from when I decided to just take the UCAT because 'wHy nOt' to realising that I really wanted to try and give it all, I don't think I ever, ever expected this. It's so surreal, that now instead of having dreams about AR shapes looming over my head, I might actually have a chance at an interview (?!??$#$?E34) which is already more than I ever would've thought possible. T^T

VR
On the whole, VR was definitely a bit difficult. The first text I had to read was about the Tet Offensive and man, it was NOT a very forgiving start to the exam. All the questions on it demanded a pretty detailed understanding of the information and I think two asked for implied motivations, which ngl escalated my heart rate quite a lot. 14 minutes remaining, and I'm still on Q17. At that point, I became frantic, trying to get through the multi-paragraph Incan artefacts text wall, which eventually I just abandoned because god knows I'm not going to remotely understand let alone remember an Incan code's ciphering timeline with 12 minutes on the clock. After that text, I still think I did get a reasonably (reasonable for UCAT LOL) gratuitous paper in that a lot of the true/false was very straightforward; however I definitely struggled with the time and had to guess around 4-5 questions. I'm not sure if it was also because of exam stress, but for comparison I certainly found the real thing slightly harder than official mock A.

DM
OH no. Given that this was always my best subtest, I didn't go nearly as well on DM as I had imagined, although I'm still quite satisfied with how I did. Something that definitely threw me off was the syllogisms; as Passmedicine (which doesn't include multi-answer syllogisms in DM) was my only source of practice questions other than the official banks, I definitely wasn't accustomed enough and it came as a bit of extra time pressure as well. With VR as well, I've always found it hard to distinguish between yes/no/can't tell, because??? if something isn't stated but implied??? _HELP Thankfully, I got through the paper with relative ease otherwise; the numerical-based questions were really easy and I remember everything looking really familiar, which was so reassuring. Looking back, I really wish I'd started using the official questions much earlier on; maybe it would've made a little difference to my score. But oh well, still happy with it

QR
I definitely went into this nervous as HECK. I even conducted a mechanical keyboard heist (sorry to my brother) at like 11 pm the night before just to test the numpad again: I was scared beyond imagination that I would freeze up and forget how to type properly under all the exam stress. To be completely honest, I might've considered wearing ski gloves to the exam venue (which I actually bought and wore to a piano exam when I was 12- I've never been skiing xd) to be extra safe but decided that was maybe a little bit too ridiculous, even for me. There were no tax questions, no weirdly complicated data plots; it was so easy to understand and I actually kind of cruised through this subtest. I finished with a whole 3:14 (pi) minutes left and I definitely felt it was going to be a lot better than my mocks. Turns out it was! I still find it... just shocking that what was once my worst section that I scored 4 4 0 on one time (no no you heard nothing) was actually my best one on the real thing.

AR
By the time I reached AR, I really didn't even feel nervous anymore. Maybe it's the fact that AR has the shortest time allocation, but by then I was starting to think I had AR under control. Besides, I did okay on the mocks, which were reputedly harder than the real thing, so it couldn't be that bad right? And thank god the odds were definitely in my favour yesterday. I wasn't sure of my performance just after; I'd been predicting maybe a 700, because there was this one pattern that I couldn't fully get despite coming back to it to spend 4 minutes on it ALONE so I started to seriously doubt the credibility of my other choices. Certainly it wasn't a bad experience because most of the patterns were super typical; shape, colour, number of sides, all things you'd find in those AR most common acronyms on Medify. On the whole, I didn't find time pressure too bad because I got lucky with all those easy 'two black, three white' type patterns that let me just fly through a lot of the test, so that was a huge relief xd.

SJT
[clown voice] I will admit, after I found out that SJT isn't really important and doesn't contribute to your cognitive score, I totally just sidelined it. On the real thing too, I read and filled in everything but just finished the exam before time was up (I think many, many people had the same idea tbh xd). Before I really approached the pointy end of my preparation, SJT was kind of fun and I'd always use to take a break from VCE stuff or the harder subtests... because it's still technically revision right?? RIGHT? (say right) Anyways, despite clowning this section, I'm not really fussed about it and not surprised either (who needs social skills what are those anyway) HAHAH.

What a monster of an entry; sorry in retrospect to anybody who actually trudged through that mess. To everyone who's still awaiting judgement day (xd jks), I wish you the absolute BEST OF LUCK!! You're gonna roll into that computer lab and think to yourself, why did I worry about doing the same two questions I've seen all year? Piece of cake. Stay calm and smash that UCAT, it's got nothing on you.

[dedformed]

Heyyyaa!

Whenever I read a UCAT update I get so nervous my hands start shaking (no joke) and I typed my password wrong four times to log in and reply. I can only imagine myself oscillating like a sine graph during my QR calculations in the real thing.

CONGRATULATIONS! That is such an amazing score, and it really shows how much work you've put in to get to this stage! I did read your whole update btw, only after you bullseyed me with the "this is the only part people will read".
Lucky your centre was open, too. Haha i had to move mine (it was supposed to be yesterday and the only next feasible date was late August so I went from "time to die UCAT tomorrow" to allowing some cooling down because hell does such intense prep burn you out. 9 hours a day?! I can imagine you getting off your seat with all the bones cracking. If you're into it we could look into starting an asmr channel of UCAT prep bone noises.

Anyway those are amazing scores and it must be such a relief to be able to breathe non UCAT air after months of stress! Time to nail ATAR!

Wish me luck for mine beep boop

Nelope, considering your ski glove promotion

[wingdings2791]

dedformed

Thank you so much for your kind words Penelope. I definitely understand your predicament (my blood pressure immediately doubles whenever I catch so much as a whisper of results: rip my poor heart December 13) so it's a huge relief not to have something huge to keep anticipating for the time being. But now that we've both been granted freedom, I think we'll have to improvise a little though and go for VCE prep bone noises instead (don't worry my arthritis isn't improving, plenty of business opportunities).

How and why is it already almost term 3, week 5?! I don't seem to recall waking up, going to school, studying, going to sleep 20 times since July. The clock just seems to keep accelerating these days- when I'm doing things it always hits me: how is it dinner again when dinner was three seconds ago? or it's already time to practice piano again? Maybe it's a side effect of aging. If that's the case, I'm not quite keen on years lasting microseconds when I'm properly a senior citizen. :3

Since finishing the UCAT, I've had kind of a busy time: my Methods SAC that was scheduled before lockdown 5.0 got squashed in with both Eng Lang and Chemistry, so you could say I would've been happy if there was more time in between. Still, hell week is officially over for me now, hence the fantastically entertaining, long-anticipated entry you're reading now~

Eng Lang
I had my SAC on Tuesday this week after school. Definitely wish I had time to do more than two practice essays, but I went in thinking it'd probably be fine since I'm quite familiar with writing essays for U3.

The topic we got was something like: 'The evolution of Australian English shows the evolution of Australian values and attitudes. It appears we are increasingly accepting of the differences.' Now it took me a solid second to even unpack this in my head; I feel like my contention could've been a lot clearer but the multi-focus of this prompt threw me off. Should've brought my senior citizen bifocals so I could've really examined both sides of the topic. But oh well, it's just one SAC, and it's a split one too (worth 6%). Hopefully everything works out fine.

Methods
Methods is actually going pretty well, I'm very happy to say! My last SAC happened on Wednesday afternoon and I feel pretty great about it. Everything seemed really straightforward, and this time having properly learnt all the important CAS functions, I wasted no time on doing long-winded calculations by hand and had ~40 mins to check my answers. No results yet but I'm pretty sure it's a 90+. I'm really really hoping I can do well on the exam and get a good ss with enough work before that fateful November day, so I must not slack in these last 87 days!!!

Chemistry
Saturday morning: the sun was shining, the birds were tweeting, and the U4 AOS1 SAC was quite literally threatening to disembowel my ss. I've had the experience of being underprepared for assessments, but the fear had always at least driven all the content into my head a few days before.

I walk into the SAC feeling... actually kind of confident. I'd meticulously memorised all the IUPAC naming conventions, studied every physical property and reaction pathway, done a decent amount of practice questions and performed ok. Then I open the SAC paper to see a 9-mark HPLC questions staring me in the face.

No this isn't happening, I thought. Why did I really think analytic techniques wouldn't be that important?? I sighed and just got to work on the rest of the SAC. Coming out of it, I think I actually did all right. I answered everything pretty confidently (although I did guess maybe two MC?) and managed to get an answer for the last question, which most people left blank. I answered that HPLC extended response with what I did remember from lectures and the textbook; hopefully at least some of it would score some marks.
If not, I'll just stick my head in a chromatography column and watch my single brain cell melt and drag itself down the tube (serves it right)

Now I hate to make everyone always sit by the window and wait longingly for these riveting details of my VCE, but that's all for now. Must. Get. Back. To. Studying. Have a good week 5 everyone. XD

[beep boop]

dedformed

Thank you so much for your kind words Penelope. I definitely understand your predicament (my blood pressure immediately doubles whenever I catch so much as a whisper of results: rip my poor heart December 13) so it's a huge relief not to have something huge to keep anticipating for the time being. But now that we've both been granted freedom, I think we'll have to improvise a little though and go for VCE prep bone noises instead (don't worry my arthritis isn't improving, plenty of business opportunities).

(Image removed from quote.)

How and why is it already almost term 3, week 5?! I don't seem to recall waking up, going to school, studying, going to sleep 20 times since July. The clock just seems to keep accelerating these days- when I'm doing things it always hits me: how is it dinner again when dinner was three seconds ago? or it's already time to practice piano again? Maybe it's a side effect of aging. If that's the case, I'm not quite keen on years lasting microseconds when I'm properly a senior citizen. :3

Since finishing the UCAT, I've had kind of a busy time: my Methods SAC that was scheduled before lockdown 5.0 got squashed in with both Eng Lang and Chemistry, so you could say I would've been happy if there was more time in between. Still, hell week is officially over for me now, hence the fantastically entertaining, long-anticipated entry you're reading now~

Eng Lang
I had my SAC on Tuesday this week after school. Definitely wish I had time to do more than two practice essays, but I went in thinking it'd probably be fine since I'm quite familiar with writing essays for U3.

The topic we got was something like: 'The evolution of Australian English shows the evolution of Australian values and attitudes. It appears we are increasingly accepting of the differences.' Now it took me a solid second to even unpack this in my head; I feel like my contention could've been a lot clearer but the multi-focus of this prompt threw me off. Should've brought my senior citizen bifocals so I could've really examined both sides of the topic. But oh well, it's just one SAC, and it's a split one too (worth 6%). Hopefully everything works out fine.

Methods
Methods is actually going pretty well, I'm very happy to say! My last SAC happened on Wednesday afternoon and I feel pretty great about it. Everything seemed really straightforward, and this time having properly learnt all the important CAS functions, I wasted no time on doing long-winded calculations by hand and had ~40 mins to check my answers. No results yet but I'm pretty sure it's a 90+. I'm really really hoping I can do well on the exam and get a good ss with enough work before that fateful November day, so I must not slack in these last 87 days!!!

Chemistry
Saturday morning: the sun was shining, the birds were tweeting, and the U4 AOS1 SAC was quite literally threatening to disembowel my ss. I've had the experience of being underprepared for assessments, but the fear had always at least driven all the content into my head a few days before.

I walk into the SAC feeling... actually kind of confident. I'd meticulously memorised all the IUPAC naming conventions, studied every physical property and reaction pathway, done a decent amount of practice questions and performed ok. Then I open the SAC paper to see a 9-mark HPLC questions staring me in the face.

No this isn't happening, I thought. Why did I really think analytic techniques wouldn't be that important?? I sighed and just got to work on the rest of the SAC. Coming out of it, I think I actually did all right. I answered everything pretty confidently (although I did guess maybe two MC?) and managed to get an answer for the last question, which most people left blank. I answered that HPLC extended response with what I did remember from lectures and the textbook; hopefully at least some of it would score some marks.
If not, I'll just stick my head in a chromatography column and watch my single brain cell melt and drag itself down the tube (serves it right)

Now I hate to make everyone always sit by the window and wait longingly for these riveting details of my VCE, but that's all for now. Must. Get. Back. To. Studying. Have a good week 5 everyone. XD

Hi Wingdings!

I'm sure you sure fine on your chem sac. Everyone has slip ups every now and then. Tbh, the feeling when you haven't studied for a certain topic and the first thing you see is the topic you haven't studied. It's the worst.

You seem like a very hardworking person, with your previous 40+ ss. (Don't have to flex so much on us, yk? JK JK JK.) Keep up the good work ethic and you'll do just fine. Congrats on such as good UCAT score, you smashed it fellow VCE comrade!

Over and out,
Beep Boop

[wingdings2791]

beep boop

Hi beep boop, thanks so much for your reply! Ahaha I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one still suffering the effects of bad time management, it truly is a 0/10 experience to shame all others. Best of luck to you too for all your studies (or would that be 01100111 01101100 in beep boop? xd), you'll smash everything I know!

Yet another harrowing five days of school have passed (and the procrastination monkey has awoken a bit early ahahahh.........)

... I need to work harder

Yesterday I received my Methods SAC back: exactly 90%, pretty much the exact raw 40 cutoff score on exam 2. Now, I don't want to be that person who complains... but I did think I'd get a slightly higher mark seeing as I found it so easy. Maybe I'm just way too confident for my own good? What if the actual exam is difficult? What do I do when I can only scrape together the bare minimum mark during a relatively simple, single-topic test? Sigh. It's still meant to be a good score, so I'll just be happy with it. I hope I've still got enough time to improve, else I'll have to really focus on Chem to save my med hopes and dreams.

In other completely unrelated news, I finished The Serpent, The Alienist, and Mindhunter recently, having been on a small crime drama roll (that didn't affect my ability to study properly I swear). In each, there's a combination between the suspects being established early and found only at the last second (ahem last minute last episode), makes for a lot of suspense. It's not really surprising when you think about it, but those series focused on how so many serial killers kept close to the media, craved fame so badly, did anything to stay relevant. Sometimes I wonder how socio and psychopaths, who show such a profound absence of empathy, can care so much about how they're perceived by people they'd kill without blinking. Anyways, if you like crime series, definitely try one of these; I think they're worth it.

Now it hasn't been that long since I spilled the excessive amount of beans on every painful detail of my VCE, so yes, I only came here to gripe for attention. Everyone please don't waste time like me and study hard! Only a few months left.

[The Cat In The Hat]

beep boop

Hi beep boop, thanks so much for your reply! Ahaha I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one still suffering the effects of bad time management, it truly is a 0/10 experience to shame all others. Best of luck to you too for all your studies (or would that be 01100111 01101100 in beep boop? xd), you'll smash everything I know!

Yet another harrowing five days of school have passed (and the procrastination monkey has awoken a bit early ahahahh.........)

... I need to work harder

Yesterday I received my Methods SAC back: exactly 90%, pretty much the exact raw 40 cutoff score on exam 2. Now, I don't want to be that person who complains... but I did think I'd get a slightly higher mark seeing as I found it so easy. Maybe I'm just way too confident for my own good? What if the actual exam is difficult? What do I do when I can only scrape together the bare minimum mark during a relatively simple, single-topic test? Sigh. It's still meant to be a good score, so I'll just be happy with it. I hope I've still got enough time to improve, else I'll have to really focus on Chem to save my med hopes and dreams.

In other completely unrelated news, I finished The Serpent, The Alienist, and Mindhunter recently, having been on a small crime drama roll (that didn't affect my ability to study properly I swear). In each, there's a combination between the suspects being established early and found only at the last second (ahem last minute last episode), makes for a lot of suspense. It's not really surprising when you think about it, but those series focused on how so many serial killers kept close to the media, craved fame so badly, did anything to stay relevant. Sometimes I wonder how socio and psychopaths, who show such a profound absence of empathy, can care so much about how they're perceived by people they'd kill without blinking. Anyways, if you like crime series, definitely try one of these; I think they're worth it.

Now it hasn't been that long since I spilled the excessive amount of beans on every painful detail of my VCE, so yes, I only came here to gripe for attention. Everyone please don't waste time like me and study hard! Only a few months left.

Stick to it and grab the wheel back from the procrastination monkey!

[eloisegrace]

Yesterday I received my Methods SAC back: exactly 90%, pretty much the exact raw 40 cutoff score on exam 2. Now, I don't want to be that person who complains... but I did think I'd get a slightly higher mark seeing as I found it so easy. Maybe I'm just way too confident for my own good? What if the actual exam is difficult? What do I do when I can only scrape together the bare minimum mark during a relatively simple, single-topic test? Sigh. It's still meant to be a good score, so I'll just be happy with it. I hope I've still got enough time to improve, else I'll have to really focus on Chem to save my med hopes and dreams.

May I just say that 90% is way above what you need for a raw 40 in methods - I got ~82% on exam 2 (with 87% on exam 1) and I got a raw 42. I also never got 90% on methods SACs, so you are in great stead!

[wingdings2791]

Replies

Stick to it and grab the wheel back from the procrastination monkey!

HAHA, I'll be sure to slam the brakes on that pesky thing! xd

May I just say that 90% is way above what you need for a raw 40 in methods - I got ~82% on exam 2 (with 87% on exam 1) and I got a raw 42. I also never got 90% on methods SACs, so you are in great stead!

Thank you so much for that insight Eloise, that's so reassuring to hear! Hopefully I can just nail the exam then, fingers crossed. I drip with the burning flames of jealousy when I see those amazing maths results- you did absolutely phenomenal! Hopefully I can live up to those standards too~ good luck with what we've got left of year 12 and keep pushing on!

Another day, another three compulsive UCAT website visits in hopes of seeing preliminary test stats. I can't believe the testing period is literally over already- every prospective med student, their key to entry is already somewhere out there. (or maybe I should think about why I'm describing percentile scores like soulmates?)

The start of exam prep
It's mid-August and we all know what that means! AHAhaha! I finally did my first Chem practice exam over the last two days and oh dear god was it NOT a smooth experience. Maybe it's because it was a 2013 paper (Lisachem), but I struggled so much throughout and kept making stupid mistakes when I thought I'd fully figured out what was going on. I got 11 multiple choice questions out of 30 wrong?!?!? The titrations content especially, since I haven't so much as thought about it since 1/2. It's so demoralising but what are the alternatives right (sigh). Methods is still going all right and I'm hoping to get a start on Eng Lang soon. At least one full exam before the holidays would be good so hopefully I'll actually do it TT

Uni plans
I don't think I've ever talked much about plans for next year (other than desperately chasing med), and that's because I'm... admittedly not sure what else I look into. Here's my rather barren VTAC preference list so far:

Is this even a list

1. Medicine - School Leaver Entry (F/T) (Monash University, Clayton)
2. Biomedicine (F/T, P/T) (University Of Melbourne (The), Parkville)

I guess I've been so focused on these two degrees, I haven't given much thought to what happens if neither works out. Blame the stupid ATAR calculators for giving me false hope probably. It's probably kind of conceited, but I sometimes find myself thinking of Melbourne Biomed as my 'fall back' course, as if I'm guaranteed to get in. It's a minimum of 96.00, not really a piece of cake. What am I thinking?

For a while I wanted to study music (possibly even abroad). It seemed like such a dream to do one of my hobbies for a living, but over time I started to realise that it wasn't just as simple as that. Music is definitely a really intense pursuit; my teacher constantly describes how lots of her fellow students didn't eat unless they were on the brink of fainting because they thought it was a waste of valuable practice time!? Yeah, fair enough that was Russia, but I'm just not cut out for that. Except for those lucky few maestros and concert performers, music degrees almost inevitably lead to teaching, which I'm not sure I want to do. Anyways, I'm thinking of putting down Radiology at Melbourne, or even Optometry etc. I'm fairly certain the medical field is what I want to do, and I wouldn't mind studying either at all! I hope I can be sure of my preferences soon though; fingers crossed I'll at least have finalised my course list a few weeks before deadline : //

I'd better leave it here before I use up all the time I'm meant to be studying on mindless rambling. Stay safe, push on through this week, and keep working hard (instead of hardly working like someone... aha)