Anyone?
90% of the students who take it don't prepare so you are already miles ahead of them, I looked at the NQE syllabus and I reckon a lot of it overlaps with VCE.
In terms of preparation, I was unable to sit the exam because my teacher screwed up and signed up the wrong student when I applied
. But what I did was
- I would go through the Olympiad syllabus and read up on the topics in depth using campbells biology textbook.
- I would make notes based of this and also do a bit of further reading with Biowiki or Khan academy or in general, any bio websites I could find
- Then I would regularly read up on scientific news to do with the medical field or the biochemical field just to expose myself to more advanced stuff
- This took ages but I had covered the course in around - 2-3 months and I would spend from 1-3 hour a week to 10-15 hours in a week!
- I did end up running out of time for practice exams, but I did a few and realized half the stuff i learned wasn't on the exam.
So at this point I realized they are not testing "how much you know" but "how you use what you know", in that case I switched up my strategy to applying the larger concepts in biology and taking a focus away from knowing all the tiny details. This exam is testing application and understanding.
So i recommend
- looking up case studies that demonstrate the concept you are learning
- surrounding yourself in biology in general and getting a feel for how it works
- I never did this but perhaps teaching others what you have learned as this requires a very strong conceptual understanding