Which company papers are the best?

[SS1314]

Hi,

I just wanted to know which companies make the best exams (the ones that are the most similar to the VCAA ones). Also which practice exams are utterly rubbish and are not worth my time?

Thank you

[ArtyDreams]

Hi jaysmith1133 

So from what I discovered after doing Methods last year, heres my ideas of some of the good practice exams to do: (these I my own opinions/what teachers reccomended, different things might work for you  )

After we finished VCAA questions, my teacher recommended that we do Heffernam. I also found these with the most similar to VCAA style (sometimes they were slightly on the easier side). MAV was the next one recommended to us, which I found was good, but sometimes a bit harder than VCAA.

Neap/Insight/TSSM were decent, but I found that they sometimes moved away from VCAA standard.

Kilbaha was my least favourite, and I didn't want to waste time doing these after going through an Exam 2.

More than anything, just make sure you work with the VCAA exams thoroughly. They are the closest you'll get to the actual thing 
The other company ones should be tackled after this.

Good luck!! Feel free to ask anymore questions if you have, or if you want a more detailed explanation 

[sk2000]

Hi,

I just wanted to know which companies make the best exams (the ones that are the most similar to the VCAA ones). Also which practice exams are utterly rubbish and are not worth my time?

Thank you

I only got a 37 but I've been through all the company exams back until 2010 and while some do reach the difficulty of VCAA exams (or bypass it), the style can never quite be matched.

In order of difficulty/quality:

Without a doubt, the iTute exams are the absolute hardest out there. The questions are crazy difficult and the VCAA will never ask you something that hard. Don't do it unless you want to challenge yourself, though in saying that I did learn quite a few things from the answers to their exams, that ended up being useful in the actual exam.

Next would be Kilbaha. The questions are pretty difficult and the VCAA exams can and will match this level of difficulty, but their trial exams are the same thing each year. They definitely don't expose you to a wide range of problems, which won't prepare you for curveballs that they will throw you on the actual exam. And they will throw many, many curveballs.

NHT papers get overlooked by some students, however, they match the style and difficulty of VCAA questions and are extremely helpful. They also change it up each year; they are unique. Shame there aren't more of them available.

The MAV and Heffernan exams are pretty much the same style and difficulty of questions. They are pretty close to VCAA and definitely worth doing.

TWM has very few practice papers available, but the questions can be very difficult. The style of questions aren't quite the same; TWM will test your theoretical and conceptual knowledge thus their Methods questions can be a lot more complex, and stuff you don't see quite often. Some of their multiple-choice questions were an incredible help to me on exam 2.

Neap exams are pretty standard, good and complex questions so definitely worth doing for the extra practice.

TSSM was worse than Neap. Their questions are very boring and standard, definitely not matching VCAA by any means. The complexity was alright, but not one of the top papers. Go for it if you really want to get that extra practice in.

Then there are other companies such as Insight, Access and Engage Education. Their exams are very sub-par in my opinion, they just look like no effort was put into them and I found several spelling mistakes in their papers, especially Engage. Insight can be good sometimes, but otherwise don't bother.

My best advice when it comes to practice exams is to work on your weak areas, and don't think that quantity supersedes quality. For example, the last question of Methods exam 2 papers is usually the most difficult on the entire paper. I practised those questions in depth for weeks before the exam, making sure I got it right every time. Those questions were a breeze for me when everyone said they were extremely difficult. On the other hand, I completely ignored mistakes on exam 1 papers and brushed over it, and I really struggled in the methods 1 exam, when everyone said it was fairly easy. Take it from someone who did almost 100 practice papers and got 20/40 on exam 1 (was a very bad day) and 70/80 on exam 2, only getting a 37 an extreme amount of practice papers will not mean you are prepared!

Hope I could help 

[MaiSakurajima]

I honestly thought doing heffernan was a waste of time because it was easy compared to others? I mean its good if you do them early on.
As for MAV, I think they are the best company paper out of all of them.
Kilbaha is a hit or miss with some of them being very hard, I mean I sorta liked them.
Neap is ok and I think there was an error in the theory in one of the probability questions in 2019 paper.
Insight is ok I guess? (ngl I did 2017 paper and absolutely failed)
itute is hot garbage. (formatting isn't even the same)
VCE papers are a must as well as the northern hemisphere ones.
TSSM is bad no offence.

Try to finish the textbook by at least term 3 and do trial exams.

[Sine]

I think Heffernan is quite good for about 90% of students. They replicate VCAA's style really well but that also is the cause of it not being useful for some students. Some years they copy the last year's VCAA exam for so many questions especially the "trick" "separator" questions. However, since that "trick" was in last years exams if students do VCAA exams early the Heffernan exams become easier than VCAA. So if you want to drill down the basics Heffernan is good but for those difficult questions where <5% of the state get correct they aren't that good at being creative.

I thought MAV had really good exams as well. Insight/TSSM/TSFX I think fit together a bit since the exams are not the best - for struggling students they might be ok though since the difficulty is below VCAA. NEAP can be hit or miss, at times they can have quite well thought out seperator questions or the wording in the questions are highly ambiguous. NEAP is probably slightly harder than VCAA level. iTute and Kilbaha is a good challenge if you are already acing VCAA exams but if not they probably just hurt students confidence. Although I think Kilbaha has become a little bit more accessible in recent years.

[colline]

MAV is by far the best! Aside from VCAA exams, theirs should be top priority. Like Sine said above, I also think Heffernan's exams are quite good quality. Definitely not the most difficult, but quite adequate if you want to aim for ~40. I thought iTute, QATS, Insight, and Kilbaha are also quite good. Can't speak for TSFX from experience, but I hear theirs aren't the best.

More than anything, just make sure you work with the VCAA exams thoroughly. They are the closest you'll get to the actual thing 
The other company ones should be tackled after this.

I fully agree that VCAA exams should be your number 1 priority and you should attempt to do ALL VCAA/NHT exams you have access to (not to mention they're free lol). But I think it may be a better idea to do company exams first, before going for VCAA exams. This is because VCAA's past exams are the closest and most accurate reflection to what you could get on the day of your actual exam, while company exams are better for practice. Of course you can do them before company exams, but at least try to save the most recent VCAA/NHT exams until the very end.

[BiggestVCESweat]

It depends what areas you are struggling with.

If you are struggling with knowledge and content and have trouble doing certain kinds of questions, I would recommend NEAP and iTute, and to a lesser extent Kilbaha for exam 1, as they contain questions that require you to think outside of the box.
If you want something that will help you with time management I would recommend Kilbaha (especially exam 2, not to say that exam 1 won't help either), iTute, and to a lesser extent MAV, Insight and Heffernan for exam 2.
If you are good at both of these things and want a challenge, do primarily iTute exams, Kilbaha exam 2s (their exam 1s are relatively easy), and some of the NEAP, MAV, Heffernan (only for exam 2), and Insight exams.