Year 12 has been and still is, the single most beneficial year in my schooling life. I have learnt so much in this past month that the last 12 or years has failed to teach me. Below are some lessons I have learned far, and I really hope they become of use for you.
DISCLAIMER
While I might sound like I know what I am talking about, I am not qualified at all to talk about this
![Grin ;D](https://www.atarnotes.com/forum/Smileys/default/grin.gif)
. These lessons are just something I wish I knew earlier, and lessons I have learned the hard way. It might not apply to you, or even make sense to you, but that is okay!!! As long as you take these lessons into consideration, that is fine, because everyone I have talked to wished they knew this earlier.
1.BalanceLife is all about balance. You need to make sure you have a balance between everything in life. That includes work and play, healthy food and junk food, ANYTHING. More importantly, you need to make sure that you have a clear balance between school assessment tasks and self-study.
Towards the beginning of term 1, I procrastinated on my assessments, doing some sort of self-study. I didn’t know what to do with them, so I kept delaying them until they were due in 4-5 days. What effect did this have? I spent two consecutive days staying until 3:00 AM, and the third day a final all-nighter, starting my ancient history presentation at 3:00 AM and finishing it up just before I was to present it in the afternoon.
And due to procrastinating on assessments and doing them at the last minute, I did no self-study. Because of this, I left study up until the night before my half-yearlies.
See what I did there? I had no balance. I focused on study a bit too much at one point, and assessment tasks at another point. As a result, I did not do well in either of them. You need to have a balance, doing everything every day. Study is only good if you are consistent, which brings me to my next point:
2. ConsistencyPlease, if you take anything away from this article, take away point no.1 and this: BE CONSISTENT. It doesn’t matter how intense each study session is, as long as you do a little bit of work every single day. Doing low to moderate intensity study is much better than doing high-intensity study for two days and doing nothing for the next week. Please try to be as consistent as possible.
Now that you know what you need to do, how do you actually follow through?
3. Organisation
That is where your organisation skills come in. Again, it depends heavily on you, but I would personally vouch for timetables to be honest. I have tried
to-do lists in the past, but I could never become fully productive.
It wasn’t until I knew how to make an effective timetable that I actually began to study every day and be consistent.
As well as that, you must make sure to track your assessments as well. You can do this in any form but basically needs to show you how many days until the deadline.
I also suggest adjusting your weekly timetable the night before each day, so that you have a cohesive and well structured day ahead of you that suits your needs.
But how do you actually maintain all of this?
4. Beating procrastination
Procrastination sucks. The feeling when you know you should be studying, but you don’t. I get that feeling all the time, but it can be beaten. I suggest watching this video by Joseph41, who lists strategies for beating procrastination.
Personally, for me, I always procrastinate. I think what we all need to do is to establish set routines, and perhaps the only way to do it is just to start. Think about it. Pushing through a week, a month to establish a routine that will ultimately reward all that effort you put into the HSC is so worth it. Below are some articles that will hopefully help kerb your procrastination behaviours!
Article by James Clear, who looks super in-depth into procrastination. A super helpful guide by Joseph41 on procrastination.A TED talk on procrastination by Tim Urban. A classic.An superb article by Tim Urban on how to beat procrastination.5. Have a study plan for each subject
You need to know how to study for a subject to actually study for a subject. Obvious, right? Not to me. Far too often I will realise the best way of studying for a particular exam three days before the exam! So, as soon as possible, right down on how you will study for each subject.
However, so you choose to do, try to centre it around active recall. Basically, active recall is just anything to do with making your brain put effort into remembering something. Below are some videos and articles to help you learn how to do maximise your study time.
Part 1 of a video on how to effectively study for exams by Ali Abdaal.Part 2 of the above video.Another study guide by Anaas Nuur Ali, super helpful.Something a bit more specific by Ali Abdaal on approaching new content. Super good.A guide on how to do super well in all your HSC subjectsA guide on how to memorise content.A guide on different stages of study.A complete database of all ATARnotes articles. Super awesome if you are tracking for some specific advice.6. Assessments and how to do well in them
I am going to be super brief on this one, as many schools will often have different ways of marking assessments. However, there are certain steps you must complete to do well in them. I would first suggest starting an assessment task by break down the marking guideline. Far too often have I seen my classmates, who put in their hardest efforts and get an average mark. Why? They have not specified to the marking guideline. Subtle marking criteria such as integrates scientific references throughout the report can make a vital difference to your mark. Figure out what the teacher expects of you by breaking down the guideline. I would then create a series of steps to complete the assessment task. While you may not always follow these steps, it is crucial you do this as you will always have a sense of direction for where you are going. In the spoiler is an example of one.
Example
Below is what I have done when I have received my assessment notification for my English assessment.
Marking Guidelines- Independently composes a complex text reflecting understanding and interpretation and critical analysis
Self explanatory. Basically, make sure you really understand both texts and just go really in depth. - Thinks interpretively, critically and discerningly to evaluate and compose texts that synthesise complex information and ideas.
Just show that you know what you are talking about. Just look at a shit tonne of articles, books etc and develop a really deep understanding. For everything you read, think about it and ask yourself questions. Just go one by one and develop your understanding continually. - Investigates and evaluates the relationships between texts.
Now this should happen after you have read everything. You should begin by reading study guides/ articles that talk about the relationship between Richard III and looking for Richard. Think after each read of the relationship, and write it down. Write down what YOU think, no matter how shit it is. It is your perspective and that it what matters. Write down what you have just read and what you think about it after every single thing you have read. This should consolidate your understanding and gives you a good set of notes for you to refer back on. This should be for everything or almost everything to read.
- Explains and evaluates nuanced cultural assumptions and values in texts and their meaning on effect.
Just spot out what the author assumes in their text and how it influences what you think about the text.
Steps to completing the assignment
- Read a tonne of articles relating to the historical and political
- After each article, write down what you think and what you have just learned.
- You could make a table where you compile quotations from the article, then your analysis of it. Make sure to include a formal reference to the article as well. This should take up most of your time.
- Answer the question “define the historical/ political context which is Shakespeare’s and Pacino’s world.”
- Afterwards, compile quotations and moments of both texts that illustrate your perspective of the historical/ political context.
- Use study guides, but manipulate it in a way so as to show your own understanding.
- Just look through both texts and record stuff that relates to historical/ political context.
- Use columns such as quotation, technique, explanation and reference.
- After this, talk about how Pacino expresses Shakespeare’s context and how the docudrama reflects and uses Shakespeare’s context. Basically, you should analyse and see how looking for richard talks about the historical/ political context of Richard III. This should be alright, as you have analysed a tonne of stuff in detail.
7. How to deal with a bad assessment mark
There is no getting around to it. You will always feel shit when you get a bad mark, at least for me. But try to become optimistic about it. Yeah, sure it might have lowered your rank by some places, but you still have the potential to do really well in the HSC. The HSC examination is the final goal, and everything before that is really just practice. Learn from where you made mistakes, and don’t hate yourself too much for it.
For example, I have recently gotten my half-yearly mark for chemistry, which was about 85.5%. While it is certainly not bad, considering the help the teacher has given us in revising for it, I should have clearly gotten better. By analysing it, I have found that I am very imprecise in my answer. I know the content, but I haven’t as yet developed the precise band 6 response as yet. This is because I haven’t done as many questions as I should have and that now I should try to dedicate some time for answering questions.
See? I have analysed my paper in depth and spotted where I significantly need to improve. But this is absolutely fruitless if you don’t actually apply it. So learn from what areas you need to improve, and implement it into your timetable/study.
8. You will not always follow all the steps written here.
At some point or another, you will not follow every single step I have written here. Some days you will seriously do nothing, or at some days you will cram in your assessment task. It’s fine. It’s a part of human nature. But we must actively try to implement these steps into our lives. Think about it, we put a massive effort into the HSC, whether we like it or not. So we need to streamline that effort into things that actually produce results.
Damn, this did take quite a bit of effort!! For those who have read all the way, hopefully this has been beneficial to you. It has to me, and I hope all of you will at least take away something useful from this. Post down below additional lessons you have learned along the way as well!
A joke to reward you:
Spoiler
What do you call a train carrying bubble-gum?
A chew-chew train.
Happy studying!!![/list]