ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => VCE Science => VCE Mathematics/Science/Technology => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE Biology => Topic started by: Gmfarah1 on August 21, 2019, 06:33:58 pm
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I've been doing checkpoints here and there throughout the year but for bio it's extremely content heavy, i keep up to date with my notes/content for my sacs and ultimately for my exam but is doing check points even necessary for exam prep? i have less than 2 months away till my exam should i just smash out as many past papers as possible till exam and consolidate what i'm constantly getting incorrect in?
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I've been doing checkpoints here and there throughout the year but for bio it's extremely content-heavy, i keep up to date with my notes/content for my sacs and ultimately for my exam but is doing checkpoints even necessary for exam prep? i have less than 2 months away till my exam should i just smash out as many past papers as possible till exam and consolidate what I'm constantly getting incorrect in?
checkpoints are exam-style questions mixed with some actual exam questions soi think they're pretty good for exam preparation. There may be some irrelevant questions on there, but as long as you know your study design, you should just be able to skip those.
Obviously, doing exams are the best exam preparation, but there are only so many practice exams out there, so depending on the speed at which you go through exams you may find that you run out of them. In this case, checkpoints would indeed be a good resource to help you space them out. However, if you plan on going through exams slowly, you may not need to do any checkpoints. Maybe start doing some practice exams and see how you end up going.
As a bit of advice on the side, I would highly recommend not rushing through practice exams too quickly. It is really important to go through and mark yourself honestly and really analyse your mistakes. I would recommend re-writing any incorrect responses or any responses that were a bit borderline/weak and trying to determine why you answered it wrong (i.e. is it something you don't know? did you rush and leave details out? did you not read the question?)
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As a bit of advice on the side, I would highly recommend not rushing through practice exams too quickly. It is really important to go through and mark yourself honestly and really analyse your mistakes. I would recommend re-writing any incorrect responses or any responses that were a bit borderline/weak and trying to determine why you answered it wrong (i.e. is it something you don't know? did you rush and leave details out? did you not read the question?)
While I don’t have much about checkpoints, I would like to extend Erutepa’s advice and say that this is a really worthwhile thing to do, especially for maths. I would go so far as to suggest that you should compile a document where you record all of the questions you got wrong. It’s also good for revising stuff the night before and has the potential to become so useful. I would go so far as to say it literally saved my maths mark. The key is to review the questions periodically and find out whether you can do them or not. This will remind you of the mistake you did before, and reinforce stuff in your brain that brings that exam mark up by a few marks. This applies to science stuff as well, although it can be useful to humanities subjects. Can’t stress how gold this piece of advice is!!!
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One of the great things about checkpoints is that it's divided into topics. This makes it great for use throughout the year so you can only do questions on topics you've covered so far. At this point in the year you should be getting close to finishing the course. I wouldn't bother using it as revision for the whole years content initially - exams are better for that, however what it can be good for is doing lots of questions on specific areas. As you're doing exams you should keep track of what you're getting wrong - I'd print out a copy of the study design and make a mark next to each dot point that corresponds to a questions answered incorrectly. If you notice that you're getting lots of questions about the same topics wrong then this is when checkpoints can be beneficial again because you can just go through and do the questions on those topics.