ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => Victorian Education Discussion => The VCE Journey Journal => Topic started by: DogBlackTheBlackDog on June 03, 2018, 02:40:17 pm
-
Someone told me I should start a VCE journal so once I'm in uni I can look back at how dumb I was back in high school. With that established, here's a self introduction:
My name's Joel and I'm currently in year 11 at a (sort of) private school in Melbourne's west. Currently doing 7 subjects, including 2 3/4s:
• English
• General Maths
• Global Empires (revs 1/2)
• Food tech
• Chemistry (bludge)
• Ancient history 3/4
• Auslan 3/4
I know what you're thinking (I get these questions a lot). Auslan? Seriously? Yes. Am I deaf? Not really. Do I wear hearing aids? No. Are my family members deaf? Yes. Does that bother me? No, unless I'm on the toilet and suddenly run out of toilet paper, cos no matter how loud I yell it won't help (that bothers me quite a lot).
What am I gonna do after VCE? I'm not sure. My subjects are a little all over the place, as you can probably tell, and I'm not exactly strong in any of them. So far my favourite subject is probably food, least favourites are English (sadly compulsory) and chemistry (which I am only doing due to peer pressure from my much more academically brilliant friends). I'm planning on dropping chem in year 12 anyway, since I'm doing Auslan externally but my school still requires me to do 6 internally.
Little bit more about me (hope no one's getting bored), I'm aiming for an 85+ ATAR but honestly I won't be surprised if I end up with a 75. My grades so far aren't the greatest: averaging a B in all my subjects except maths (C) and chem (pretty much failing). My older brother graduated 2 years ago with an ATAR of 97 and currently studies commerce at Melbourne, so I feel like my parents are pushing me to be like him. As you guys might have guessed, I'm not nearly as ambitious.
I recently just did a maths sac (are they even called sacs at year 11?) and I'm probably getting a 60% (I can feel it).
I'll aim to update at least once a month lol. Probably more often once I'm actually in year 12 when my life gets a lot more dramatic.
Is anyone still reading this...
-
Hey!
Welcome to the forum! Looking forward to reading more updates! :)
It must be interesting living with deaf family members, I've always wondered how I'd cope with that to be honest! :)
What interests you about Food Tech? :)
-
Hey!
Welcome to the forum! Looking forward to reading more updates! :)
It must be interesting living with deaf family members, I've always wondered how I'd cope with that to be honest! :)
What interests you about Food Tech? :)
It's pretty interesting hahah! It's actually surprisingly loud (so I've been told) as most of the time we talk normally since we find lip reading easier, though recently I've been forcing everyone to sign to help me with Auslan.
Food tech is a fun subject (even though I'm one of the only 2 guys in a class of 20 girls hahah). I probably won't do anything food related in the future, but I'm keeping my options open. Also, cooking's pretty easy and when compared to my other subjects the theory is easy to grasp too. I guess it's mainly the idea of a more hands-on approach to class that really interests me.
-
Hey man! I don't want to sound creepy, but I think I know you... (Or I could be wrong and this would soon turn incredibly awkward. Just ignore me if I am mistaken). I'm also at a private school in the west and there's a year 11 called Joel in my Ancient History class. Any chance that's you? ;D
Is there a dude in your class that has a year 12 jacket with potassium written on the back?
Are you Delia's brother?
-
Are you Delia's brother?
I'm not sure if it's explicitly against the forum rules or anything, but it might be best to keep personally identifiable information between the two of you via private messaging etc.
Just my two cents.
-
I'm not sure if it's explicitly against the forum rules or anything, but it might be best to keep personally identifiable information between the two of you via private messaging etc.
Just my two cents.
Oops sorry! I've changed it :)
-
There are so many things I love about this thread!
First of all, where'd you get the VCE journal recommendation, out of interest? Somebody from school?
Otherwise, I love your subject selection! Really interesting. Auslan in particular - I actually wish I knew heaps more about this (studied linguistics at uni, but only touched on Auslan briefly).
This journal has really excited me haha, particularly because we can follow almost all of your VCE journey! Can't wait to hear more. :)
-
There are so many things I love about this thread!
First of all, where'd you get the VCE journal recommendation, out of interest? Somebody from school?
Otherwise, I love your subject selection! Really interesting. Auslan in particular - I actually wish I knew heaps more about this (studied linguistics at uni, but only touched on Auslan briefly).
This journal has really excited me haha, particularly because we can follow almost all of your VCE journey! Can't wait to hear more. :)
Thank you!
I was recommended to start one by a friend who's already in uni, who said that it was pretty fun to read after graduating. I guess it kinda motivates me to study cos a lot of people in this thread got 40s and even 50 in their year 11 subjects.
-
Thank you!
I was recommended to start one by a friend who's already in uni, who said that it was pretty fun to read after graduating. I guess it kinda motivates me to study cos a lot of people in this thread got 40s and even 50 in their year 11 subjects.
Love it!
Can't wait to share your journey (in a small way) with you. :)
-
Post-GAT feels...
Longest 3 hours of my life. At least it’s over and now I can go home and listen to some music while trying to make awkward conversation with a girl half my age, eat some grapes, clean my windows, and wait for a roast duck to fly into my mouth.
(Did anyone do the GATchphrase btw? I made a really subtle hint to it in the second writing task)
Anyway, an update on school overall:
For my 3/4 subjects, I'm currently averaging a B+ for Auslan and B for ancient, which sucks. I was especially pissed at my Auslan mark, since I was so close to an A, but I got a mark taken off cos I was mouthing the words while signing and apparent that's not allowed. I went home and checked previous examination reports and it didn't mention anything about mouthing words. Maybe my teacher was just extra picky.
I can't really whine about my B for ancient though, since I must admit I haven't worked on it too much. I'm average in my class right now, (my teacher has a system of marking so that B is always the average grade no matter how easy or hard the SAC was). We're starting Rome soon though and I'm really excited. Hopefully I'll be able to redeem my grades, since so far they haven't been ideal.
As for my 1/2s, chem is definitely my worst nightmare right now. My teacher had engraved the words 'carbon' into my mind to the point where I get headaches when people mention global warming. Recently we had a sac which I failed - 32%, though I passed the redemption with 88% (which I'm REALLY happy with). I got about 2 hours of sleep the night before though, since I was too busy cramming stuff into my head (if only grades like that came without the expense of my mental health lol). The 88% really boosted my morale, it's probably horrendous to some people out there but to me that's amazing.
English - I still haven't gotten the hang of this subject. It's so subjective, I feel like I can do something on one essay and get an A, then do the exact same thing on another essay and get a D. Got nothing else to say about it. So far averaging somewhere between C+ and B. We’re starting 1984 soon.
Maths - well our SAC finished, got a solid 64% (at least I passed). Even by my standards I think that was horrible, especially when the average was around 75. With the holidays coming up soon I'll be diving into the world of mathematics and I'm planning to get ahead and finish all the textbook questions for the next chapter before our teacher starts teaching it, that way I won't be lagging behind like I always do. Hopefully will update on my progress.
Food - I have a love-hate relationship with this subject at the moment. Love because it's the most practical and hands on subject I do, it's probably the most applicable-to-real-life subject in doing, AND it's fun. Hate because it actually scales down so much it's depressing. Recently I visited the careers counsellor at school who encouraged me to drop food tech and keep chem for year 12 instead of sticking to my original plan of dropping chem instead. (I thought career counsellors were supposed to encourage students to follow their interests instead of scaling 😂).
I know a student last year who did similar subjects to me (except PE and busman instead of Auslan and ancient), she ended up with a 60-something ATAR, but could've gotten an ATAR in the mid-80s if raw scores were taken into account instead of scaled.
Of course you could argue that I should just work super hard and get high 40s for all my subjects so they no longer scale down, but it doesn't seem that realistic.
Till next time! Hope everyone’s getting a well deserved break after the GAT.
-
School started on Tuesday, and on the same day I got two sac marks back. First, I got an 86% for our last auslan sac, which I’m more than happy with (finally an A ye boi). My latest chem score isn’t nearly as pleasing to look at though... I just passed (at least I don’t need a redemption this time).
I also have 2 sacs coming up in week 3, for food studies and ancient. I’m feeling pretty prepared for food, though nowhere near as confident for ancient. Rome is confusing as hell and it’s so content heavy. I’m not stressed about it at the moment, but I know once week 3 comes I would freak out, since ancient is my 3/4, unlike food. (Less than a month ago I was so excited for Rome, now I just wish we could go back to studying Greece)
Global hasn’t been too bad at the moment. That and food are probably the only subjects I can say I’m thoroughly enjoying right now, plus my teacher is so passionate about this subject it’s contagious. Learning about the Phoenicians is especially interesting, cos in ancient we’re learning about the exact same geographical area, just different time periods.
One problem I do have with global is, why can’t they just make it 1/2 revs?? There are four revolutions in revs anyway, why can’t vcaa just split them in half and make two of them 1/2 and the other two 3/4? As fun as the content is, the fact that 1/2 global empires has nothing to do with 3/4 revs is kinda unmotivating.
That’s enough ranting from me lol... till next time.
-
Thanks man for that much needed motivation!
On a side note - weren’t you year 12s supposed to be at formal on Friday evening? What were you doing on atar notes 😂
-
What were you doing on atar notes 😂
Being on ATAR Notes is never not appropriate. ;)
-
Haven’t posted in a while, so here goes -
We just had a general sac, and for once I’m feeling pretty confident. I managed to finish the entire sac and had time to go over and check my answers, so I would say that’s already an improvement. We also got back our chem report recently, and I did a lot better on it than I thought I did. Most of my marks were unsurprisingly lost due to the discussion part, but other than that I’m pretty happy with my score.
English and food studies have been slipping recently. Maybe it’s because I’ve been spending a lot more time on my 3/4s and chemistry. We’ve got a sac next week on 1984 and blade runner, and I’m not feeling confident at all. As for food, my interest in this subject has dropped quite a lot. The theory is just so dry and I can’t motivate myself to study for it. Content-wise, there’s a slight bit of overlap between food studies and chemistry though, which is helpful. Practically - I’d still say that I cook better tasting food than my classmates!
Global empires has been alright, we just got back our source analysis sac for global, and I was spot on with my prediction of B+, though annoyingly I was quite close to an A. We still have a final essay sac left, so I’ll hopefully redeem myself.
As for my 3/4s, the auslan exam is looming closer and I’m now less than 2 months away from the exam! I’m really annoyed with the date, as I’ll be having a particularly depressing 17th birthday this year. I’ve been forcing my family to sign instead of just to lip read for the past week. Ancient has been improving, I got an A on the last sac, second in the class! (And just behind @Lsjnzy13 lol).But lately we’ve been missing quite a lot of classes and are really behind schedule.
We have trial exams coming up soon and my schedule is absolute hell! Why on earth would the school put english and general on the same day?!?!
Thanks for putting up with my random as rants lol!
-
So school has started again, and I’ve got about two weeks to go before the auslan exam which I’m not prepared for.
Rant - I hate how the exam doesn’t actually test whether you know auslan or not, but rather just whether you can answer the question the same way the assessors asnwer them. I was doing a practice exam on the weekend and the question asked for something along the lines of ‘how is [insert name here] planning to celebrate easter’ and I wrote he’s planning to do an easter egg hunt. I ended up losing a mark because in the video the person signed ‘chocolate egg’, so you HAVE to write ‘chocolate’ even if anyone with common sense knows that the chocolate eggs you eat during easter are called bloody easter eggs.
I’m not feeling overly stressed for it, i think the stress will hit probably a day or so before the actual thing. I’ve done a lot more preparation for ancient. We got our final sac back and I got an A (again, beaten by lsjnzy). My trial exam finished today, as I only have 1 3/4 in school. I think, no wait - I KNOW - I messed up. For the greece essay I had to argue whether ‘pericles was a detriment to athens’ and I had no idea what to write for my final body paragraph, so I just wrote something along the lines of ‘pericles was a detriment to athens because he died’, which I guess kinda contradicts my point. If the most detrimental aspect of some guy was that he wasn’t around for longer, I guess that just proves he wasn’t a detriment.
The yr11s also have our subject selections due on friday. I’m still deciding whether or not I want to continue with chem or food. I have to do eng, and I’m not planning on dropping further, as I’ve finally started understanding the concepts. Global has been pretty dull but apparently 3/4 revs is a lot better, so it’s either chem or food that I’ll have to drop. I think if I do drop food, it’ll mainly be due to the scaling which I know isn’t the best reason.
That’s it for this update. I’ll try and update again after my auslan exam!
-
Good luck with your exam! Auslan sounds like it'd be fun to learn. That eggxam, though... Yikes. :o
I don't know if I agree with you on the Pericles thing. Supposedly after he died, his successors were pretty useless and ended up seriously destabilising Athens by being way too aggressive in war (bye bye golden age of Greece!). And that went on for 20-odd years - seems pretty detrimental to me! If they mark you down I'd be surprised. disclaimer: I don't actually do any history subjects, I just like reading about it
-
So my auslan exam just finished! omg I am actually so relieved. I’ve both dreaded and looked forward to this day if that makes sense, and now I’m just so thankful it’s over
I won’t go into the details, since I doubt anyone reading this actually does auslan, but I think overall I did pretty well. I was really nervous when they were playing the video and missed out on some information but generally it went alright. When I finally stepped outside it felt so liberating. Throughout the entire car ride home I couldn’t stop smiling , i had done my very first VCE exam!
One down, one more to go! now I can focus all of my time and energy onto ancient. (starting tomorrow, tonight I’ll be enjoying life.)
Good luck with your exam! Auslan sounds like it'd be fun to learn. That eggxam, though... Yikes. :o
I don't know if I agree with you on the Pericles thing. Supposedly after he died, his successors were pretty useless and ended up seriously destabilising Athens by being way too aggressive in war (bye bye golden age of Greece!). And that went on for 20-odd years - seems pretty detrimental to me! If they mark you down I'd be surprised. disclaimer: I don't actually do any history subjects, I just like reading about it
thank you! I did get marked down for it but i didn't argue it like you did. thanks for the suggestions!
-
Hey everyone! I'm only about two days late, but EXAMS ARE OVER!!! (for now)
I had my final 3/4 exam this year on Friday, which was for ancient. To be honest, I thought the exam went horribly. Two points which I had spent hours studying the night before did not come up on the exam, so in the end for both of my essays were filled with filler words. However I thought the source analysis questions went alot better. I'm feeling fairly confident about them. Lets not talk about the essays lol.
So now that all my 3/4 subjects are done, I guess it's time to start working on my 3/4s for next year. Ive got an update on my subjects. I've decided to drop revolutions in year 12. funny how before that was one of the subjects I didn't want to drop. But I've decided that doing two essay-heavy subjects are enough. Ancient pretty much killed my hand this year, and no doubt english will be like that next year. So I've decided that revs gotta go.
I'm planning to start working on next year's stuff in december, so i've got the rest of this month of relax. I just hope i don't get too relaxed or it'll be hard for me to get back into study mode.
I've also had a go at study score predictions - if theyre correct (probably not...) then these are the scores i'm looking at:
auslan - 34-37 raw
ancient - 32-35 raw (29-32 scaled)
Although I'm not sure how accurate they are considering the system I used to work out these predictions are only for subjects with over 1000 students, and both have under 500.
That's all from me today. See you all on december 14th!
-
See you all on december 14th!
only about a month late. good job me.
that awkward moment when you haven't posted in so long you get one of those "please start a new topic" warnings.
Happy new year everyone. i know this is a super late update considering its been nearly a month since results came out. i avoided atar notes and any other form of results discussion for weeks because of how utterly disappointed and ashamed i was with mine. I was hoping for something in the high 30s for both subjects. I was nowhere close.
For ancient I got a raw 36. not what i was hoping for but it wasn't bad. Auslan was much, much worse. I didn't even get a 30.
When I had expected a 38 but saw, to my horror and disbelief, a raw 28 instead, I just mentally blanked out. i thought there's no way i'd get below 30. I was unable to digest the fact that these are now my study sores and there's nothing i can do to change that. My hope at an 80 atar evaporated.
Don't ask me how I ended up doing better in ancient than auslan when i've been speaking using auslan my entire life and only ended up in ancient because my first choice of 3/4 didn't run.
after asking around I found that auslan doesn't really scale (remains a 28) however ancient goes back down to a 32. So i got a 29 and a 32. great. thanks a lot vcaa, for taking four crucial. points away from my aggregate.
This is where i end my 2018 results discussion. I guess i still have this year to potentially change everything around.
I dont think i've posted it on here, but it's now in my signature - my goal is an atar of 80 for nutrition at monash. the min atar is actually 75, and I think i qualify for monash guarrantee as i go to an under represented school. But idk, I want to be safe, and also 80 sounds nicer.
My 2019 goals are:
> food - 45
> maths - 37
> chem - 35
> english - above 25 PLEASE otherwise i cant get into anything
> atar - 80 (seems unlikely right now)
Lets hope 2019 goes alot better. Good luck everyone.
-
Happy new year to you too!
I'm sorry that you got results lower than what you were expecting and hoping for; it's always hard when you're disappointed in yourself. As much as I wish you didn't feel ashamed of your results I understand the feeling; please know that the rest of us aren't ashamed of you and remember that your scores in 2018 don't define 2019.
Good luck to you too - I hope that you're able to take this experience and use it to help you excel in your remaining subjects
-
Happy new year to you too!
I'm sorry that you got results lower than what you were expecting and hoping for; it's always hard when you're disappointed in yourself. As much as I wish you didn't feel ashamed of your results I understand the feeling; please know that the rest of us aren't ashamed of you and remember that your scores in 2018 don't define 2019.
Good luck to you too - I hope that you're able to take this experience and use it to help you excel in your remaining subjects
Thank you miniturtle for your very encouraging message. will definitely try to keep everything in mind this year and hopefully my experiences last year will help me do better this time round.
-
hey, so i dont really do this type of thing much but anyways. I'm sorry that your study scores were lower than you were hoping for last year, i did a subject in yr 11 as well last year and my study score wasn't what i had hoped for either. But i just wanted to say to keep your head up !! you seem like you have the right motivation and mindset to really smash out year 12 this year. Anyways best of luck for 2019 :)
-
Well well hello there, it's been a while, hasn't it?
I completely forgot about this journal until a few days ago when I stumbled upon an atar notes article on uni open days. Seeing that we have less than 24 hours until we can register for our uni course preferences, I figured, why not come back and do an update?
In terms of school, it's been a bumpy ride. I failed both my unit 3 chem sacs, though thankfully narrowly passed on the redemption. My socially awkward ass also almost failed the English oral. Further and food are going smoothly though, I'm currently sitting at rank 1 for food and top 5 for further.
Another update-worthy thing is I picked up a new subject at the start of the year to make up for my atrocious score in auslan - I am also doing physical education 3/4 and I'm doing well despite not doing it in yr11.
For open days, I'll be heading to monash, deakin, and acu. I've been to acu open day before, but this will be my first time at monash and deakin.
My vtac preferences:
1 - Nutrition Science - Scholars Program (Dietetics), Monash
2 - Nutritrion Science, Monash
3 - Health Science, Monash
4 - Nutrition Science, Deakin
5 - Nutrition Science, ACU
6 - Nursing + Business, ACU
7 - Nursing, ACU
8 - Exercise + Sport Science, ACU
My first pref requires a min 90 atar which is a bit out of reach. But hopefully those uni open days will give me enough motivation to work my ass off until november.
Less than 100 days to go! Good luck to everyone ;D
-
Hi Joel!
Super excited to see an update on this journal. I would love to do Auslan as a VCE subject, but am making do with community classes at present! Congratulations on how well you are doing in food tech! ;D ;D Do you prefer to cook savoury or sweet? Also, how did you find Monash's open day?
laura :)
-
Hi Joel!
Super excited to see an update on this journal. I would love to do Auslan as a VCE subject, but am making do with community classes at present! Congratulations on how well you are doing in food tech! ;D ;D Do you prefer to cook savoury or sweet? Also, how did you find Monash's open day?
laura :)
Hi Laura, I poked around the auslan threads and was really excited by all the activity you're bringing to it as it's been dead for so long. What interests you about auslan?
I'm definitely a savoury-over-sweet person. And monash open day was a cool experience. I actually went to the caulfield campus first to check out health science, followed by clayton where I got incredibly lost due to the size of the campus.
-
Hi Laura, I poked around the auslan threads and was really excited by all the activity you're bringing to it as it's been dead for so long. What interests you about auslan?
I'm definitely a savoury-over-sweet person. And monash open day was a cool experience. I actually went to the caulfield campus first to check out health science, followed by clayton where I got incredibly lost due to the size of the campus.
I really enjoy Auslan, and I find it a lot easier to learn than any other language. I really want to become an OT or Speechie so that is one reason for learning Auslan. At present, I work with children who use Auslan or key signing which is why I originally learnt. What about you? Is it offered at your school or do you do it through VCD?
I am the complete opposite: sweets all the way. And I got very lost at Open Day too, (though I wasn't at Monash).
-
I really enjoy Auslan, and I find it a lot easier to learn than any other language. I really want to become an OT or Speechie so that is one reason for learning Auslan. At present, I work with children who use Auslan or key signing which is why I originally learnt. What about you? Is it offered at your school or do you do it through VCD?
I am the complete opposite: sweets all the way. And I got very lost at Open Day too, (though I wasn't at Monash).
That's really cool. I don't see alot of people who are interested in auslan. I was kind of born into it as most members of my family are deaf or partially deaf so we all use auslan at home. I did auslan through vcd.
I personally didn't like doing auslan for vce as you were pretty much being tested on how you answer the question most of the time rather than your understanding. I reckon thats with most - if not all - lotes in general. The examiners at vcaa push for rote learning and memorising rather than fully understanding. But thats just my little rant haha.
If you are planning on doing auslan you might have a different experience though. Definitely try it out, it's cool that you're so interested in it.