Hi! just a year 11 student here and I am starting unit3 headstart in 2 weeks. I was just wondering how many exercise books do you guys use for your subjects? In biology, I had a class notes book, an answer book and a summary book, I was just contemplating on narrowing it down to classnotes and textbook questions being in 1 book but idk how it'll work out how do you organize your school stuff? I just feel like i'm wasting my books and also energy to carry them lol
also! do you think the summary book is necessary? I feel like it helps me a bit as my classnotes are messy with me trying to keep up with the powerpoint slides so after every lesson I would make new notes... should I spend my time more on checkpoint and practice exams?
I think that first a foremost you should be doing something that works for you. I don't think there's one best way to go about note taking and what not - I think your best option is to do what you feel comfortable doing and what you have found to help you work through content sucsessfully.
That being said, I personally used binders for most of my notes. This is becuase I could take class notes on looseleaf paper and then if neccasary re-write the pages, add information from other sources (i.e. edrolo), or add in summary notes at the end of sections. Having one binder per subject was convenient as it allows you to have all your information/notes in one spot rather than having multiple books (something that I liked, but other may dislike becuase obviously its harder having to carry a bunch of binders than excercise books to school everyday).
Interms of moving onto practice questions - I think you should get fairly comfortable with the content first as I personally didn't gain much from throwing myself straight into the deep end (however, some people may find this a good way to learn). after making class notes, I probably read over them - consolted other sources on anything I didn't understand - untill I belived I had a fair gasp of the subject at hand, at which stage I would dive into some checkpoint quesions. Doing these its important to make sure you go through and mark your responses to really fill out your knowledge and identify what you know well/what you need to revise. Exam style questions like these are really the best revision tools in my opinoin, so its important to invest time in them, I just think its important not to neglect the initial learning of the content and note taking.
In terms of a specific summary book - I didn't make one as such. I did make summary diagrams/sheets on topics that I identified as weak areas from doing questions like checkpoints, but I didn't waste time making them for topics that I understood and could answer questions on confidently.
Hopefully this can give you some insight - but I don't think you should take this by any means as what you need to do. Its very important that you do what you work out as a good study method for you so now would be a great time to try out some new things and sort out a method that you can adopt for next year.
Good luck with unit 3 headstart!