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March 29, 2024, 12:46:48 pm

Author Topic: Bad marks but I’m so confused.  (Read 2589 times)  Share 

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tigerclouds

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Bad marks but I’m so confused.
« on: March 28, 2020, 08:40:28 pm »
+4
Hey guys.
I really need help. I just got a horrible mark for my second SAC (68%) on redox, galvanic cells and fuel cells but I just don’t understand why. The thing is I love chem so much, I always have and I really enjoyed and understood the topic but I don’t understand why that’s not reflecting in my marks. I am preparing well, doing checkpoints, writing notes, doing Edrolo. I prepare just as much for Chem as my other subjects but my Chem marks are nowhere near them. I never thought I’d be complaining about Chem because I’ve always performed really well in this subject and it’s always been my strongest one and I’m so passionate about so it really hurts when I receive such a low mark in such an important year. I think I know what the issue is but I don’t know how to handle it. Last year, we basically just had tests for 1/2 Chem, as in question and answer SACs (and the occasional SDI poster) but this year, our teacher decided to trial these new forms of testing which we have had no exposure to before and aren’t being prepared for. We did an evaluation of research for the first SAC and this SAC was a report on a practical investigation. Now I understand that these are VCAA-approved forms of testing but the thing is our class is so unfamiliar with this structure because we’ve received absolutely no relevant prep by our teacher. All we’ve been given is some VCAA and textbook questions to do which means that we’re not practicing the skills we need, to do well on the SACs. And I’m not the only one who feels this way, my class has been doing horrendously. I’m pretty sure I’m rank 2 right now. And I’m so mad because it’s not fair that we’re putting in so much work for this subject and it’s not paying off. I was aiming for high 40s in Chem if not a 50 and I just feel like a 40 may not be achievable anymore. Still, I’m determined to do what it takes to redeem myself. So is there anyway I can improve my responses on these SACs? Do these specific SACs call for a particular skill I need to practice and improve on? I’m just so used to doing calculations and answering theory based questions. I would give you more context to help you answer this but I just genuinely don’t know what I’m doing wrong because I’m not even getting adequate feedback from my teacher. I know that what really threw me off with the last SAC was the mark allocation in the rubric. I didn’t understand how a conclusion alone would be worth 5 marks or how I’m meant to “explain” my procedure and how I’m meant to draw 6 galvanic cells in the time frame I had with all the other components I had to answer. It wasn’t a hard SAC but I had to spend like half the time trying to decipher what I was being asked to do because we weren’t given any practice SACs to give us exposure to these tasks and still I didn’t expect to get such a low mark so I don’t know where I’m losing all these marks. Also, I’ve always done really well on my SDI posters which seem to have a similar structure to prac reports so why is there such a huge disparity between my results for each? Sorry for the long post and rant, I’m just so confused as to what I’m supposed to do to improve my chem marks when it feels like I’m doing everything and genuinely understanding the content and I’m so sick of feeling so low and discouraged by my results.

tigerclouds

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Re: Bad marks but I’m so confused.
« Reply #1 on: April 05, 2020, 07:52:43 pm »
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I really hate to be a pest, but I really need some guidance on how I can approach my chem SACs. Any piece of advice would be very very appreciated.

J_Rho

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Re: Bad marks but I’m so confused.
« Reply #2 on: April 05, 2020, 08:24:00 pm »
+5
Hey! I don't do chem so I can't offer much advice but hopefully what I can is helpful.
Have you spoken to your teacher about your goals and how you really want to do we;;? I know many teachers can be pretty unhelpful but if you feel comfortable enough you could try talking to them.
Also if not your teacher, is there another teacher that has knowledge of chem/teaches chem that you could talk to about this?? I had a similar issue last year with Bio and it wasn't until too late (term 3) that i reached out to the other teacher that can teach Yr 12 Bio and they really helped me but it was way too late to drastically improve, if there are other teachers you can reach out to I would recommend it so much.
I love my current English teacher but my Year 7/8 English teacher (i was in an accelerated class, so year 8 work in year 7 and year 9 work in year 8 ) and she knows me really well, compared to my current teacher that's never taught me and my old teacher knows where I'm at but also how shes can extend me and really push me, and she reached out to me and was like "hey, long time no talk! How are you going with English?: and i was like "i have above hate relationship I love the subject but I'm terrible at it" and she was like "i wanna help you do well cause i know you can, even though you have felt like you haven't been smart you were one of the smartest kids in the class (alongside my friend who is now at JMSS), you are one of the brightest in this cohort and I know you can so so well if you really put your head down and I'm MORE than happy to help you." And she also gave me some other tips like with work and stuff but point is it can defs be easier to talk to and get support from a teacher you know. Idk if you have the same teacher for 3/4 as you had for 1/2 but if its a different teacher defs talk to your 1/2 teacher.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2020, 08:29:43 pm by J_Rho »
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angrybiscuit

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Re: Bad marks but I’m so confused.
« Reply #3 on: April 05, 2020, 08:25:12 pm »
+7
Hi!
Sorry about what you're going through, low SAC marks is very discouraging especially when you're putting so much effort. Here are some thoughts that come to mind.

Don't get too caught up with the percentage, especially if everyone else is in the same boat. I know this will be difficult but it's the rank that matters and it seems like your rank is pretty good. Every single school gives out different SACs and each one will vary in structure and in difficulty so of course, VCAA is not going to look at percentages as the playing field is not equal.

In terms of the SACs itself, I recommend having a good look at the practical you did. Think about the limitations, the errors. Write up a conclusion, a hypothesis, some discussion. Treat it like you would write up a practical. So prior to these SACs you should brush up on your experimental design work. I also highly doubt that every single SAC will be a report on a practical investigation.

Secondly, it seems like the SACs you're given aren't going to be like the final exam. If you look at VCAA exams it's much more theory, calculation and application-based. DON'T stop doing what you're doing in terms of notes, checkpoints, edrolo... that will set you up for the final exam. VCAA has a distinct style of testing students and many schools do not emulate that style in their SACs, doing checkpoints will expose you to them from this early on. At the end of the day, the exam will NOT be an entire evaluation of a practical report.

I've had a similar experience last year. Half the sacs we were given weren't your standard tests, they were based on practicals and we basically had to evaluate practicals with a little bit of explanations and we were never given prior exposure or practice sacs. I did BADLY on them. Badly enough that I'd given up hope on a 40+ but I just continued to do what I needed to do. It hurts not getting the results you want, but you don't need 90-100%s to get those results in the end. You have great study habits so don't get discouraged and don't get unmotivated by the %s.
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futuredoc

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Re: Bad marks but I’m so confused.
« Reply #4 on: April 05, 2020, 10:19:36 pm »
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Hey there!

Please don't be too disheartened about 1 or 2 sacs you're not happy with! Just remember that if the rest of your classmates also found the SAC hard, then that's okay -- VCAA doesn't look at individual sac marks anyway, but more at your performance in relation to others in your cohort -- and rank 2 is amazing! Plus -- the exam is way more important than SACs at the end of the day.
Although VCAA doesn't explicitly give out prac reports on the final exam, the skills used in doing them are super important. VCAA is moving towards more experimental design questions in recent years. For example, you may have to evaluate an experiment related to theory you've learned (eg reaction rate) and identify limitations/errors, improvements, conclusion, IV, DV, hypothesis and how to evaluate validity/reliability/accuracy etc.
So keep brushing up on your experimental design skills and ask your teacher for help! Other general study tips for chem -- make sure you keep an error log with ALL the chem mistakes you make (eg from past papers, homework, checkpoints) and review it regularly (mine ended up being 100 pages by exam time!). Don't let any mistake go by without understanding what went wrong.

Another similar thing you can do is keep a chem 'key words list'. For chem (and bio for that matter), VCAA is pretty nit picky with key terms you need to include in your response to get full marks. E.g.  'partially oppose' for LCP and 'successful/fruitful' collisions for reaction rate. I like to review this list a few times before SACs and it's saved me so many marks.

Happy studying! Chem is such an enjoyable subject, so keep working at it :))
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tigerclouds

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Re: Bad marks but I’m so confused.
« Reply #5 on: April 06, 2020, 03:32:27 pm »
+2
Hey! I don't do chem so I can't offer much advice but hopefully what I can is helpful.
Have you spoken to your teacher about your goals and how you really want to do we;;? I know many teachers can be pretty unhelpful but if you feel comfortable enough you could try talking to them.
I've implied what my goals are but I haven't like sat down and asked my teacher how exactly I can achieve them. The thing is, my school hasn't gotten a 40+ in Chem in like a decade, so as bad as it sounds, I sometimes question whether my teacher can be of much help. Unfortunately, they are also the only Chemistry teacher at my school. I'm comfortable with them but I feel like they just assume that I'll do really well and for that reason, they usually tell me to just keep doing what I'm currently doing without giving me realistic or specific goals on how I can get there.

Hi!
Sorry about what you're going through, low SAC marks is very discouraging especially when you're putting so much effort. Here are some thoughts that come to mind.

Don't get too caught up with the percentage, especially if everyone else is in the same boat. I know this will be difficult but it's the rank that matters and it seems like your rank is pretty good. Every single school gives out different SACs and each one will vary in structure and in difficulty so of course, VCAA is not going to look at percentages as the playing field is not equal.

In terms of the SACs itself, I recommend having a good look at the practical you did. Think about the limitations, the errors. Write up a conclusion, a hypothesis, some discussion. Treat it like you would write up a practical. So prior to these SACs you should brush up on your experimental design work. I also highly doubt that every single SAC will be a report on a practical investigation.

Secondly, it seems like the SACs you're given aren't going to be like the final exam. If you look at VCAA exams it's much more theory, calculation and application-based. DON'T stop doing what you're doing in terms of notes, checkpoints, edrolo... that will set you up for the final exam. VCAA has a distinct style of testing students and many schools do not emulate that style in their SACs, doing checkpoints will expose you to them from this early on. At the end of the day, the exam will NOT be an entire evaluation of a practical report.

I've had a similar experience last year. Half the sacs we were given weren't your standard tests, they were based on practicals and we basically had to evaluate practicals with a little bit of explanations and we were never given prior exposure or practice sacs. I did BADLY on them. Badly enough that I'd given up hope on a 40+ but I just continued to do what I needed to do. It hurts not getting the results you want, but you don't need 90-100%s to get those results in the end. You have great study habits so don't get discouraged and don't get unmotivated by the %s.
I cannot thank you enough for this. You've really put things into perspective and encouraged me to keep at it. Do you have any advice on how to get better at prac write-ups and experimental design work?


Hey there!

Please don't be too disheartened about 1 or 2 sacs you're not happy with! Just remember that if the rest of your classmates also found the SAC hard, then that's okay -- VCAA doesn't look at individual sac marks anyway, but more at your performance in relation to others in your cohort -- and rank 2 is amazing! Plus -- the exam is way more important than SACs at the end of the day.
Although VCAA doesn't explicitly give out prac reports on the final exam, the skills used in doing them are super important. VCAA is moving towards more experimental design questions in recent years. For example, you may have to evaluate an experiment related to theory you've learned (eg reaction rate) and identify limitations/errors, improvements, conclusion, IV, DV, hypothesis and how to evaluate validity/reliability/accuracy etc.
So keep brushing up on your experimental design skills and ask your teacher for help! Other general study tips for chem -- make sure you keep an error log with ALL the chem mistakes you make (eg from past papers, homework, checkpoints) and review it regularly (mine ended up being 100 pages by exam time!). Don't let any mistake go by without understanding what went wrong.

Another similar thing you can do is keep a chem 'key words list'. For chem (and bio for that matter), VCAA is pretty nit picky with key terms you need to include in your response to get full marks. E.g.  'partially oppose' for LCP and 'successful/fruitful' collisions for reaction rate. I like to review this list a few times before SACs and it's saved me so many marks.

Happy studying! Chem is such an enjoyable subject, so keep working at it :))
Thank you so much for your advice futuredoc! I've been wanting to start an error log so I definitely will now. For the key words list, where were you able to find the specific terms and phrases that we need to include in our answers? I would really like to start compiling a list of them. Also, do you have any suggestions on how I can improve my experimental design skills and application of material? Research methods in Psych has forced me to become familiar with experimental design but I really want to perfect my responses to these questions and make them more sophisticated.

Thank you again for your replies guys, I really appreciate it and you've really helped :-)
« Last Edit: April 06, 2020, 03:34:47 pm by tigerclouds »

J_Rho

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Re: Bad marks but I’m so confused.
« Reply #6 on: April 06, 2020, 05:40:50 pm »
+3
I've implied what my goals are but I haven't like sat down and asked my teacher how exactly I can achieve them. The thing is, my school hasn't gotten a 40+ in Chem in like a decade, so as bad as it sounds, I sometimes question whether my teacher can be of much help. Unfortunately, they are also the only Chemistry teacher at my school. I'm comfortable with them but I feel like they just assume that I'll do really well and for that reason, they usually tell me to just keep doing what I'm currently doing without giving me realistic or specific goals on how I can get there.
That must be so tough, But I would definitely encourage asking if you can sit down with them and discuss where you went wrong in the SAC and how you can improve on that???? Obvs that would be hard if we don't go back to school soon but, stay strong and do your best the fact you are willing and looking to improve is already half the battle.
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futuredoc

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Re: Bad marks but I’m so confused.
« Reply #7 on: April 07, 2020, 08:48:57 pm »
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Quote
Thank you so much for your advice futuredoc! I've been wanting to start an error log so I definitely will now. For the key words list, where were you able to find the specific terms and phrases that we need to include in our answers? I would really like to start compiling a list of them. Also, do you have any suggestions on how I can improve my experimental design skills and application of material? Research methods in Psych has forced me to become familiar with experimental design but I really want to perfect my responses to these questions and make them more sophisticated.

I usually trawled through past VCAA/commercial exam questions for the relevant AOS and noted down points VCAA said students often missed or that were bolded/italicised in the model response (pm me if you need more help finding them). As for experimental design skills, I would recommend looking through the VCAA website (titled 'measurement terms' in the chem section). In it, they define key terms (e.g. reliability, precision), give examples of them, as well as how to overcome systematic/random errors (you can use these in your SACs/exam).
In responses, make sure you are specific and precise (e.g. rather than saying 'amount' of O2, say 'volume' of O2 in mL), and use a template for your response (e.g. errors, theory, improvements etc in a discussion). Ultimately, it comes down to practising those skills of writing conclusions and hypotheses  (perhaps you can ask your teacher to proofread practise ones if they're willing, or look at model VCAA ones).  :D
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Bri MT

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Re: Bad marks but I’m so confused.
« Reply #8 on: April 08, 2020, 06:17:20 pm »
+4
Hey,

I really wouldn't recommend basing whether or not your teachers can help on your school's study sore history for those subjects. For example, I'm pretty sure in the year before me no one had a 40+ in any science subject but my teachers were still really good and I then went on to get 40+s in those.

With prac write ups and experimental design I recommend practice, making sure you really understand the components and why they are there,  and reading examples of others' work. I don't run the psych research methods thread anymore since I don't have time, but for example you could read through past responses to the questions I'd put there and the feedback on them to help you sharpen those skills.

Good luck!

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Re: Bad marks but I’m so confused.
« Reply #9 on: April 08, 2020, 08:13:10 pm »
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You now understand what you have to improve on and that's the most important thing! Now get stuck in!

We're rooting for you!!

 Just in case if you haven't already, here's a useful link: https://atarnotes.com/forum/index.php?topic=164492.0

tigerclouds

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Re: Bad marks but I’m so confused.
« Reply #10 on: April 08, 2020, 09:18:18 pm »
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I will definitely be taking all this advice on board. Thank you so much for your help and support guys, means a lot!

tigerclouds

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Re: Bad marks but I’m so confused.
« Reply #11 on: April 08, 2020, 10:55:13 pm »
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For example, I'm pretty sure in the year before me no one had a 40+ in any science subject but my teachers were still really good and I then went on to get 40+s in those.
I just wanted to ask, how did you go about being in that environment and not letting the school's previous achievements deter you from getting such great scores? How did you motivate yourself in that sense and convince yourself that you are capable of doing that well and if you will, to defy the odds? Essentially, I'm wondering what differentiated you from the rest of your peers.

making sure you really understand the components and why they are there
Also, could you please elaborate on this?  By components, are you referring to the method, limitations etc.? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 'why' they're there.

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Re: Bad marks but I’m so confused.
« Reply #12 on: April 09, 2020, 01:43:52 pm »
+2
I just wanted to ask, how did you go about being in that environment and not letting the school's previous achievements deter you from getting such great scores? How did you motivate yourself in that sense and convince yourself that you are capable of doing that well and if you will, to defy the odds? Essentially, I'm wondering what differentiated you from the rest of your peers.

Quick note: There's a few different ways I could answer this question so if you look around elsewhere on the forums you might see a different perspective from me at some stage.

One of the really major factors for me was having done bio 34 in year 11. At that point in time I'd been trying to pull myself out of a period where I'd found it really hard to complete hw etc. and I was pretty strict with myself about this. I used that some of my classmates struggled with the content as a resource - I'd explain things to them and help out my peers and by doing so was more aware of what I needed to learn and remembered things more clearly. At one point my teacher said that she thought I might be able to get an A on the exam (no one at my school had done this since it was 1 end of year exam) and that became a goal for me. Did lots of practice and from my results saw I was consistently getting in the A range for scores. In the end I scored 47 for bio which at the time was the highest score someone had gotten at the school. This was a big confidence boost and really helped me believe I could get a high ATAR in year 12.

Then in year 12 I carried on the habits from year 11 - lots of practice questions, teaching others (in year 12 this including on AN), focusing on understanding rather than memorising - and on the whole that worked pretty well for me.


Also, could you please elaborate on this?  By components, are you referring to the method, limitations etc.? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 'why' they're there.

By components I was thinking in a few respects: method, discussion etc. and also validity, accuracy, precision etc.

For example: with the introduction why is that something that has stuck around? What is the point of having an intro in a scientific report? 

Thinking about why it's there helps you include the relevant things and leave out irrelevant points that will distract from what you should focus on and waste your word count. For example since the introduction justifies the experiment and explains context it's important to structure it in way that helps it achieve those things.

Hope this helps :)

tigerclouds

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Re: Bad marks but I’m so confused.
« Reply #13 on: April 09, 2020, 03:48:40 pm »
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By components I was thinking in a few respects: method, discussion etc. and also validity, accuracy, precision etc.

For example: with the introduction why is that something that has stuck around? What is the point of having an intro in a scientific report? 

Thinking about why it's there helps you include the relevant things and leave out irrelevant points that will distract from what you should focus on and waste your word count. For example since the introduction justifies the experiment and explains context it's important to structure it in way that helps it achieve those things.

Hope this helps :)
Oh ok, I get what you mean now. And thank you for sharing your experience, your story is very inspiring :)
« Last Edit: April 09, 2020, 03:50:21 pm by tigerclouds »