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VCE Stuff => Victorian Education Discussion => The VCE Journey Journal => Topic started by: beansprout on December 27, 2021, 01:47:59 pm

Title: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
Post by: beansprout on December 27, 2021, 01:47:59 pm
Welcome!
Hi, I'm beansprout and after reading all of the enticing journals of the 2021 graduates as a guest for the past year I have finally gained enough courage to make an account and document my very own year 12 journey  :) The subjects that I will be taking in Year 12 are Further, Biology, Chemistry, Psychology and Literature. Yes, I am only doing 5 subjects and I have no idea how that will affect my ATAR but as long as I do well in all of them I should be fine. I'm not deadset on any specific courses at the moment but I know for certain I'm leaning towards the science-y/medical courses, so I'll most likely be taking the UCAT this year as well. Believe me, I am well aware that methods is a prereq for majority of the biomed and science courses but I'm just going to ignore that for the time being since I really don't need any additional stress right now.  :P

Thanks for reading, and hopefully you'll stick around and enjoy :D I also hope you all had a lovely Christmas and I wish you all a Happy New Year!


Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
Post by: vehura on December 27, 2021, 05:30:44 pm
Hey beansprout! Welcome to ATARNotes ;D

We definitely need some more class of 2022 journals so thanks for creating one!  ;)

I know you said you were leaning toward science/medical courses but were there any careers in particular that you had an interest in?
Also, I did literature, psych and chem as VCE subjects too! What texts are you going to be studying in lit this (next) year?

And honestly, methods is way too stressful to deal with, so don't stress that you haven't picked it. There are quite a few courses that don't require it anyway (physio at monash only needs two of chem, bio, spec, or methods!). I think not picking it would have made my life a little easier, but we live and we learn!

Do you have any hobbies/things you like to do in your spare time? How have you been spending your holidays?  :)

I'm excited to read what's in store for your future!
Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
Post by: beansprout on December 28, 2021, 02:15:14 pm
Hi Vehura!

Ahhh the dreaded question about careers. I change my mind so frequently. I was interested in dentistry for a while, and then marine biology. For now I plan to just go with the flow and keep my options open within my fields of interest. My parents also really encourage engineering for some reason  ???

I am very excited to be doing Literature this year which I switched out of EngLang into. The texts I’m studying are Picnic at Hanging Rock (Which I have read and thoroughly enjoyed) by Joan Lindsay and Ariel by Sylvia Plath.

Yeah it’s such a relief that it isn’t absolutely essential to do methods for most courses, however, a few of my friends who also aren’t completing methods (or other common prereqs like Chemistry) are planning to do an Equivalent course via programs like Unilearn. I haven't decided whether I'll do that or not because I feel like it’ll be even more daunting and I've never heard any positive reviews about it. To be fair I haven't heard any reviews. Although, I haven’t done it before and I don’t know anyone who has so maybe I’m wrong.

During these holidays I’ve gone on a LOT of walks and bike rides with my friends to make up for the lack of physical activity that I’ve gotten these past two years. It’s been so nice to have a means to clear my head and my neighbourhood has so many nice paths to walk along. I’ve also gotten a job which has been fun, but a lot of my days are spent avoiding my holiday homework, watching a lot of TV and trying to fix my sleeping patterns, but to no avail.
Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
Post by: lemurbruv on December 30, 2021, 09:42:19 am
During these holidays I’ve gone on a LOT of walks and bike rides with my friends to make up for the lack of physical activity that I’ve gotten these past two years. It’s been so nice to have a means to clear my head and my neighbourhood has so many nice paths to walk along. I’ve also gotten a job which has been fun, but a lot of my days are spent avoiding my holiday homework, watching a lot of TV and trying to fix my sleeping patterns, but to no avail.

Me too! I can't really ever switch off, so I've been trying to go on as many walks as I can to clear my head and free up some space in there. I've had a detox from my phone, trying to only spend 45 minutes on it per day (so far so good as of day 3), and I've found that it's given me so much space in my head to just be, and to process the huge challenge of year 12 that is ahead.

In terms of procrastinating holiday homework, I hear you! I'm exactly the same, although trying to make a start today. Good luck with yours!

Looking forward to reading more of your VCE chronicles :)
Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
Post by: dedformed on January 01, 2022, 05:08:52 pm
lovely to see a new journal appear, and with such a beautiful name hehe (im obsessed with the vocative "bean" if you've read my journal)! happy new year and good luck with year 12!
Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
Post by: little_creative_journals on January 07, 2022, 05:33:14 pm
I'm leaning towards the science-y/medical courses, so I'll most likely be taking the UCAT this year as well. Believe me, I am well aware that methods is a prereq for majority of the biomed and science courses but I'm just going to ignore that for the time being since I really don't need any additional stress right now.  :P

Hi Beansprout! I'm so excited to follow your journey throughout yr 12. I'm also going into to Yr 12 this year so woohoo! Ooo, I'm also interested in science/biomed/health science courses. I'm not doing methods either (just doing further) and honestly, despite it being a prereq for several courses, I couldn't be happier with my choice to do further instead (the idea of doing methods along with my other subjects sounds way too stressful :P). Anyway, hopefully 2022 will be better than the last two years! I don't think I can cope with lots more online learning hahaha! ;D
Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
Post by: beansprout on January 12, 2022, 10:35:52 pm
Me too! I can't really ever switch off, so I've been trying to go on as many walks as I can to clear my head and free up some space in there. I've had a detox from my phone, trying to only spend 45 minutes on it per day (so far so good as of day 3), and I've found that it's given me so much space in my head to just be, and to process the huge challenge of year 12 that is ahead.

In terms of procrastinating holiday homework, I hear you! I'm exactly the same, although trying to make a start today. Good luck with yours!

Looking forward to reading more of your VCE chronicles :)

Wow a phone detox is a great idea, I should give it a go as well. Good luck with your holiday homework too!

lovely to see a new journal appear, and with such a beautiful name hehe (im obsessed with the vocative "bean" if you've read my journal)! happy new year and good luck with year 12!

Thanks and happy new year as well!

    Hi Beansprout! I'm so excited to follow your journey throughout yr 12. I'm also going into to Yr 12 this year so woohoo! Ooo, I'm also interested in science/biomed/health science courses. I'm not doing methods either (just doing further) and honestly, despite it being a prereq for several courses, I couldn't be happier with my choice to do further instead (the idea of doing methods along with my other subjects sounds way too stressful :P). Anyway, hopefully 2022 will be better than the last two years! I don't think I can cope with lots more online learning hahaha! ;D


    It's so cool that we're leaning towards the same courses! I really hope the pandemic gets better this year as well but it doesn't seem very likely. I'm worried about the possibility that schools could be constantly switching between online and onsite whenever someone gets covid.


    new year

    It's nearly been two whole weeks of 2022 so I felt like making a post.  So I started completing my homework on the 5th and have been working pretty consistently for 2 hours maximum everyday, except for today. I went to bed at 4am today, causing me to wake up at 10:30am and have extremely sore and heavy eyes. I had absolutely no motivation to get up so I didn’t bother until around 11:30am and then I just ate breakfast and watched (still watching, just paused to write this) the last season of When They Cry.  As I said in my last comment I have attempted to fix my sleep schedule but I’m still failing. To be honest, the time I go to bed rarely even affects how I feel or when I wake up. The entire holidays up until last night I had gone to bed at around 1-2 am and I usually woke up at 8 out of habit. I brag about this but it really isn’t a good thing. I do tend to have a good schedule once school starts since I know I have to sleep so I can concentrate in school and all which motivates me to put down my phone and actually SLEEP, but I know how important it is to get good sleep now to be energised and refreshed for when year 12 starts so hopefully I can actually get 8 hours of sleep or more if I’m lucky.. Anyways, on to the academic stuff

    In year 11, Further and Psych were my favourite subjects by far since they were just so easy to do well in and also quite fun. These were the subjects I always averaged 90s in so they were the only results I would show my parents :D

    BIO
    Bio was okay, I like most of the content but I always averaged 80-85% which really humbled me because I never dropped a mark when I did Year 10 Bio (except for the prac report where I got 87%. I remember the exact percentage since it still haunts me that I would’ve gotten the bio award that year if it wasn’t for that score). Something I’ve noticed from all of my Bio sacs are that for those 3 or 4 mark questions I would always lose maybe 1 or 2 marks and I think that this stems from me not understanding what the question is asking from me (Explain, Discuss etc) and I also didn’t really understand how to apply the content in the scenarios provided in the questions or at least couldn’t articulate a well worded response which I hear is vital for doing well in the exam. I also had a sick obsession with Anki during the start of the year and I had about 200 cards for each topic and each answer was 4-5 sentences long. I realise now how extreme that was and I would just sit there for hours memorising these paragraphs. It didn’t pay off at all since all I had memorised were hundreds of definitions when the sacs only had about 3 ‘define’ questions. I relied on my common sense for multiple choice and application questions but without a solid understanding I couldn’t answer those as well as I wanted to. I still believe that Anki is a helpful tool but I definitely wasn’t using it properly and I know a lot of people who are in the same place I was. If anyone reading this is using Anki or just flashcards and doesn’t already know this, make sure you only start using them once you have a good grasp of the content already. And don’t just write your notes onto the cards like I did, make them as condensed as possible and definitely do not make 200+ cards per topic. I think this goes for normal notes as well, don’t worry about anything not on the study design even if it's in the textbooks.

    CHEM
    Onto Chemistry which was the bane of my existence for the entirety of Yr 11. I didn’t do Chemistry in Year 10 and barely paid attention during Year 9 so I was basically starting from scratch. I also only chose this subject for Unit 2 so all of the balancing equations, inter/intramolecular forces and organic chem they did in Unit 1 were completely new to me. This meant a lot of Edrolo during those term 2 holidays. So for my Unit 2 results, I only got scores between 60 and 70 percent. I was really happy with this because I was passing, which really shocked me considering the fact that I had no prior knowledge of this subject at all and a lot of Unit 1 was continued into Unit 2. I’m going to be getting tutoring for Chem this year and I’ll definitely be relying on that to increase my scores a little bit.

    PSYCH
    Like I previously mentioned, Psychology was seriously so easy for me last year. Like bio, I heavily relied on Anki for it in semester 1 but I was still able to do really well in it. As easy as it was, there was nothing productive about how I studied and I can't even say that I learnt anything. One of my worst moments is when I sat down for hours and transcribed a 90 page powerpoint into my exercise book and then proceeded to write all of this into flashcards. I never even looked at my notes after that so it was a complete waste of time. Anki and I inevitably broke up two days before my unit 1 psych exam when I hadn’t studied at all so I just crammed the flashcards for a couple of hours. By the way, I had more than double the amount of flashcards I had in bio for psych. I was so exhausted by the end of this that I only ended up doing half of the flashcards and just accepted that I would fail. I somehow scraped a 90% on that exam. I still hated Anki after that and didn’t touch it for the rest of the year. On a positive note, the topics I’m most looking forward to covering in Psych this year are sleep and phobias. I used to be in love with the nervous system but that ship has sailed and the content so far is basically a repeat of unit 1 and isn’t stimulating at all for me.

    So far this year the only subjects I have begun doing holiday homework/studying for are psych, further and lit. My goals for all of my subjects are to prepare for the first sacs of term 1 and to have all of my AOS 1 notes prepared.

    My progress:

    For Psychology I’ve started watching the edrolos and reading the textbook pdf and have taken some notes and answered textbook questions. I don’t bother with the powerpoints we are given since I know my teacher will recite them like a script once we come back to school anyway.

    For Further I have completed Chapter 1 and 2 and the chapter reviews for both. I still have a separate booklet of Holiday Homework questions that I need to finish       
         
    For Literature I’ve only read the picnic at hanging rock so far but it doesn’t count because technically I read it last year. I’ve tried to read The Winter’s Tale which is also a text I’m studying. I had to use sparknotes’ translation to read it and summarise for the assigned homework. I also watched a stage play I found on youtube but I was absolutely drained by the end of it. Overall, I do think that it’s a really interesting and tragic story which I like so I look forward to studying it further during the year.

    Hope everyone is having a good year so far :)

    Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
    Post by: lemurbruv on January 13, 2022, 05:05:04 pm
    My goals for all of my subjects are to prepare for the first sacs of term 1 and to have all of my AOS 1 notes prepared.

    Goals! Having all your AoS1 notes prepped is a great idea! Have your teachers given you a timeline of your early sacs yet? Mine haven't >:( I just know I have the English creative in the first week back  :'(

    I really hope the pandemic gets better this year as well but it doesn't seem very likely. I'm worried about the possibility that schools could be constantly switching between online and onsite whenever someone gets covid.
    Yes I am the same. I really hope that schools and the government can find solutions for what happens with covid cases without jeopardising everyone else's health. I guess we'll just have to deal with what we get at this point.
    Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
    Post by: beansprout on January 14, 2022, 12:17:48 pm
    Goals! Having all your AoS1 notes prepped is a great idea! Have your teachers given you a timeline of your early sacs yet? Mine haven't >:( I just know I have the English creative in the first week back  :'(
    Yes I am the same. I really hope that schools and the government can find solutions for what happens with covid cases without jeopardising everyone else's health. I guess we'll just have to deal with what we get at this point.

    Yeah, my school provided us with a course timeline that outlined all the semester 1 & 2 SACs and SAC dates for each subject at the end of last year. It's really unfortunate that you don't have that since it's quite useful! :-\ Pretty sure it's the bare minimum. In regards to COVID, I agree there's not much we can do but anticipate.
    Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
    Post by: beansprout on February 06, 2022, 09:35:25 pm
    Week 1 update

    This weekend has been absolute bliss for me. I’ve been able to go at my own pace and honestly I’ve been able to complete a ton of work. I made an entire list of everything I need to do on Friday evening and I managed to finish ALMOST everything except some practice questions for chem because I lost track of time during my break.  In my last post I wrote that I would have all my AOS 1 notes completed.. yeah I meant to say outcome 1 lmao. I would never subject myself to that kind of torture voluntarily. Psych is amazing, it’s basically identical to unit 1 atm so I’m not having any issues with it. Also, surprisingly biology has been really interesting to me. The process of Protein Synthesis is pretty cool. My only problem with it is that it’s taking me ages to get through everything. I’m currently up to Gene regulation which we will probably learn in my next class. Further is okay. Chapter 2 is really tedious but it’s so easy I can just listen to music whilst I do the exercises and not lose concentration so I can't complain. I don’t have a lot to say about Lit since I have no idea what we have been doing during class. It’s just a lot of random tasks I guess. My teacher is so chill and easy to talk to though, so the class itself is great. I'm depressed about the oral though since that was the exact reason I avoided mainstream english in the first place :'(. Chem is actually kind of… easy? Only certain aspects though like complete/incomplete combustions, exothermic/endothermic reactions and energy profiles. All the concepts are just so hard for me to learn and understand. I was getting flashbacks of that calcium carbonate water stuff from unit 2. To have any chance of doing decently I have no choice but to put loads of time into this stupidly dense subject. I don’t have any SACs to worry about for at least another month (thank god) but I have already begun checkpoints for Psych as I have chapter 1 down and I will definitely attempt the others within the week. Overall I think I did pretty well this week, it would be great if I could carry on like this for the entire year but I’m not entirely sure that I’ll be able to maintain this level of motivation and drive for such a long time. I think that wanting to make posts here and make myself feel really productive and such does help a bit too though.
    Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
    Post by: beansprout on February 16, 2022, 09:01:16 pm
    Hi everyone  :)

    First and foremost the most important thing that I have discovered this week is the existence of tuna and rice. Yes, I had no idea that this was a food combo before. And it is so delicious. I’ve been in a bad habit of never bringing any food to school since year 6 and now I have been consistently bringing my tuna rice in a thermos and fruit. I’ve already noticed an improvement in my mood and concentration.

    Honestly I’ve already lost track of what week it is and sac dates are starting to creep closer and I’m feeling the pressure. My chem and psych SACs are in two weeks and my chem SAC is on my mum’s birthday so she thinks I’ll do well lmao. I’m really tired today for some reason and I can’t focus on any work even though I WANT to.. it sucks. I wonder if anyone else relates to this but I feel like my head has been so foggy. I can’t think of another word to describe it. I just don’t feel fully present. I can tell it’s affecting the quality of my work at school and at home.  Some days I feel absolutely fine but days like today my attention span is so short and it’s almost like I’m astral projecting.

    I’ve just finished my summary poster for Nervous System and Stress in time for my class tmrw. This our last class on Stress, which is a great topic. G.A.S particularly sticks out to me, I was so shocked when I found out the sympathetic nervous system has to do with stress even though it is literally a part of the definition. In terms of revision, I’ve done 2 practice SACS and all of the checkpoints for nervous system and nearly all of the ones for stress. This is kind of unrelated and I don’t know if this is just my school but psychology teachers are just so nice!! I’ve had four since I started VCE and they were all some of the kindest and most helpful teachers I have ever had. They genuinely make me want to stay in class and I don’t even rush to leave for lunch. Psych is just my happy place.

    Bio is officially my least favourite subject. There is nothing more boring to me than the trp operon. It’s making it so much harder for me to concentrate in class and I just end up zoning out. Just last week I was doing practice questions and making mind maps. Tbh I’m kind of exaggerating since I’m not behind in edrolos, notes or anything like that but nonetheless I’m never excited to come home and revise like I am with the other subjects.

    Chemistry is going smoothly. I love anything formula based in chemistry which is what we have been focusing on recently. This is quite bad as whenever I do practice questions that are require a worded answer I struggle and tend to pull out my notes to answer them. Combustion reaction calculations are still great though! I’m really enjoying the class. We haven’t done a practical yet but I know that our SAC is going to be based on the prac we do this Friday. I definitely will be focusing more on the concepts and not just the maths whilst I prepare for the upcoming sac.


    Thanks for reading!


    Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
    Post by: lemurbruv on February 16, 2022, 09:41:59 pm
    Chemistry is going smoothly. I love anything formula based in chemistry which is what we have been focusing on recently. This is quite bad as whenever I do practice questions that are require a worded answer I struggle and tend to pull out my notes to answer them. Combustion reaction calculations are still great though! I’m really enjoying the class. We haven’t done a practical yet but I know that our SAC is going to be based on the prac we do this Friday. I definitely will be focusing more on the concepts and not just the maths whilst I prepare for the upcoming sac.

    Yes omg I'm the same, formula stuff just makes sense. I definitely also struggle answering with a worded response as opposed to numerical stuff, but the stuff in AoS1 isn't actually tripping me up too bad. I never used to like pracs but now I just love them so much because you get to see your theory get put into practice and it is SO. SATISFYING. Good luck with your prac and subsequent SAC!

    - Lemur
    Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
    Post by: beansprout on February 17, 2022, 06:32:00 pm
    Yes omg I'm the same, formula stuff just makes sense. I definitely also struggle answering with a worded response as opposed to numerical stuff, but the stuff in AoS1 isn't actually tripping me up too bad. I never used to like pracs but now I just love them so much because you get to see your theory get put into practice and it is SO. SATISFYING. Good luck with your prac and subsequent SAC!

    - Lemur

    Thank you!! Whoa, I've never paid attention in pracs before which is probably why I struggle so much. I think I'll be taking a page out of your book from now on. ;D
    Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
    Post by: beansprout on February 25, 2022, 08:03:31 pm
    Happy friday everyone  ;D

     My sac dates are now confirmed with my psych sac in the coming week on Thursday and my chem sac is the week after on Monday which is no longer my mum’s birthday, sadly. Psych is amazing as usual and I’m very confident with multiple choice and rarely make any mistakes but I tend to lose really easy marks during short answer like writing the wrong stage of GAS. Today I’ve put a lot of effort into analysing the key differences and have realised the questions are pretty indicative of whether it is resistance or exhaustion. I made 10 physical flashcards just with the stuff I constantly forget like the strengths and limitations of GAS and the transactional model and the roles of all the structures of a neuron. Everything else is pretty easy to remember or just common sense since I’ve done so much practice already. I watched the edrolos for chem  AOS 1 just to hear the content again. I’m slightly more confident than I was last week with more than just the maths!

    My revision plans for the weekend include:
    - Lots more psych sacs and past questions
    - further homework which is ch4 b and c and updating my reference book
    - Start writing up my adaptations/transformations comparative
    - bio homework if I have any and also some bio practice q’s
    - A ton of questions for chem, a lot of focus on key science skills and I’ll be asking my lovely teacher for feedback :)


    Hopefully everyone’s week went well!
    Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
    Post by: beansprout on March 04, 2022, 10:45:12 pm
    Week 5 or 6?? update

    This week in almost all of my subjects we are now starting new topics! I’m looking forward to a fresh start and implementing new habits just to improve my yr 12 experience. For starters, I’d like to improve my time management by doing a few more hours on weekdays doing my homework and general study so that I can spend less time doing so on weekends. I study for 2hrs on weekdays from 6-8pm and 7-8hrs on weekends from 9am-5pm and it’s becoming a little daunting. To avoid missing out on social events and potentially burning out I’d like to split my time up a little bit more evenly so 3-4hrs on weekdays from 4-7 or 8ish and 5-6hrs on weekends at anytime that works for me and this could be a few hours in the morning and a few in the evening.

    One exciting school-related event that has happened this week is that I had my first psych sac of the year :) !! I had my psychology sac yesterday which covered aos 1. I felt quite confident going in but I walked out of class knowing that I hadn’t done as well as I was capable of because I neglected revisiting some topics that I thought I already knew really well. There was a question on Parkinson’s disease that completely stumped me and I attempted to answer it but I know it wasn’t a perfect response. Instead of worrying I’m going to use an avoidance coping strategy and forget about it lmao. We’ve started aos 2 which is learning and memory. ‘Learning’ so far is already 10x more fascinating than stress and I’m having sooo much fun learning all the content.

    I presented my lit oral on Monday… it wasn’t terrible. I’m always a lot more nervous right before than when I actually present (due to my parasympathetic nervous system becoming dominant hehe). My class is fairly small so it was definitely a less intimidating environment and nobody really cared to be honest. I was very happy with what I wrote and I’m moderately confident that I’ll do well. I have a great literature teacher who lets us eat in class and lets us have discussions whenever we want. I’m not sure how harsh she’ll be with our actual sacs but she was very generous when marking my practice comparative (42/50) even though I rushed the conclusion the night before I handed it in and I didn’t understand the structure I was supposed to follow. If she does mark anything like that I’ll definitely be fine now since my final copy is much better than my practice.

    My chemistry SAC is on Monday so this weekend I’ll need to brush up a bit more on fuels. Fuels is just the hardest part for me because I hate memorising and the practice questions that I’ve done make no sense at all no matter how many times my teacher goes through them with me and I feel so bad for bothering them all the time. To be completely honest I'm not that confident with anything else anymore. I was talking to my mum about this and she thinks it's because I find it boring and once I've decided something is boring I never give it the time of day and it is so true. I told myself I would practice everyday at the start of the year but every time I start I get tired within minutes.  It's just not enjoyable for me unless it's calculations. She also motivated me a lot by telling me that even though chances are I won't do well this time I can just try again and one bad score won't amount to much in the end.

    So Bio is back in my good books. We went through a bit of a rough patch, but after covering DNA manipulation I’m falling in love again. It isn’t as compelling as psychology but once unit 4 comes around I’ll probably be head over heels since I’m looking forward to immunity and evolution.


    So my weekend to-do list is as follows:
    - Reviewing Fuels for Chem
    - Chem summary poster and practice sac
    - Starting chapter 5 for further
    - Further Math practice questions
    - Psychology revision of aos 2
    - Reviewing nucleic acids for biology and getting ahead in terms of edrolo and notes

    I’ll probably do more but this is what I’d like to prioritise for now! Also I noticed last weekend because I had written my to-do list in my previous post I felt obligated to do everything so I'd like to do it more often to stay on track.

    I hope everyone enjoys their weekend :)


    Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
    Post by: beansprout on March 10, 2022, 01:18:46 am
    I was laying in bed a minute ago and I couldn’t sleep because I was worrying about what I’m gonna do when I graduate, will I get an offer for my first preference yada yada regular year 12 stressors… it’s still term 1. I need to relax, honestly. Other than that, I had my chemistry sac and wow was it an event. When I first opened that paper I was so grateful to God and my chemistry teacher for how EASY it seemed. The sac was almost entirely focused on a ton of stoichiometry which was a breeze. I answered every question but I know that some of it was just fluff especially for questions about structure..cloud point or  hygroscopity and just anything in that realm. Even my teacher was like, “just memorise it” and I couldn’t even do that  :-\. Nonetheless I walked out feeling relieved. I thought that I could definitely scrape a decent score. For me though, ‘decent’ in chemistry is significantly lower than what I would consider decent in my other subjects. Then I went home and facetimed my friend who also had the sac and we discussed how we thought we went. We both initially had high hopes and thought it was an easy sac until we started to compare answers. Turns out we got completely different answers for a few questions and we have no idea whether one of us got them right or neither of us did. My friend was frantically searching up the answer for a multiple choice (I forgot the question) and it turned out we both got that one wrong. After that we sat in silence feeling sheepish. Then we hung up. Then we went to school on Tuesday and sulked about it some more. I’ve already gotten over it though and I’m just going to focus on the next topic. Now onto some good news. I received my psychology results back and I was extremely happy and surprised. I got 49/50 (98%)!!! I was GOBSMACKED. The fact that I only lost one mark when I was convinced that I had lost 3 or 4. All of the revision that I did really paid off and I did a LOT. I was already enjoying psych but being able to enjoy it and do well? It’s just the perfect combo. Just when I thought this endless cycle of SACs had come to an end I was  reminded that I still have my biology and further sacs this term. No relaxation for me, how fun. But seriously I’m not stressed for further at all. We did a practice sac and I got 96% so no worries there. I’ll definitely revise though because I don’t want to get cocky and make silly mistakes. The biology sac is also not a big deal as it isn’t a test apparently. Not sure what the exact structure is though but I do really well on written tasks for bio and they have always been where I got those 90s. I hope I get my literature results soon.. even if I don’t I’m sure that my psych result will keep a smile on my face for the rest of the week lmao.

    Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
    Post by: beansprout on March 12, 2022, 07:32:59 pm
    The one teacher I wouldn't bother about taking their time with marking decided to mark within three days and therefore I received my chemistry results and I'm so ashamed I don't even want to reveal it.
    Spoiler
    So....... I got 60% which isn't entirely terrible but is also so revolting and I nearly burst into tears when I first saw it. However, it is definitely within the range of what I had predicted but seeing it on paper made it hurt so much more.

    Today I completely immersed myself in redox and galvanic cells questions in order to avoid any other disappointing sac performances. So far, so good. Redox is very straight forward in comparison to fuels and nowhere near as tiring, the questions are more difficult but all it requires is a lot of practice. I want to get deep into further revision soon as the SAC covers chapters 1 to 6 so it’s quite hefty. We just finished chapter 5 and at first I couldn’t decide whether or not I should finish all of the exercises before I start doing revision but I’ve decided to start revising 1-5 whilst also doing exercises for ch 6. Turns out my biology sac is a bioethical issue analysis. Whatever that is, it sounds easy peasy but of course I’ll study for it (it’s on DNA manipulation). I feel bad for nucleic acids because the second I found out we aren’t assessed on it I kinda ignored it. I know it’ll be on the exam so I have to work on it to some extent, but I can’t find it in me to prioritise it right now. Maybe over the holidays. It’s not like I don’t know it at all, I wrote my notes weeks ago and have performed well with the practice questions my teacher gave us but the chances of me forgetting all of it is very high. In terms of literature, I think we’ll be starting learning our next area of study next week which is a creative response. We’re studying the Emily dickinson poems. I’m terrible with poetry so it takes multiple rereads for me to pick up what’s actually being said, but once I do understand it I don’t dislike it. I will update when I actually read one of Dickinson’s poems though. Psych is lovely of course. Before I begin wrapping my head around operant conditioning I’m going to finish practice questions on classical conditioning first. I’m starting to get the knack for wording answers for psych questions and it is so rewarding. I’ve basically instilled so many templates into my head and so long as I carefully read the scenario and know exactly what’s being asked of me it’s great. At this point knowing all of the content comes naturally. From AOS1, I can already recall all the steps I had for an unconscious response, regardless of the stimuli. I’m very grateful for the day off on Monday as I’m in dire need of a day to just relax and watch some tv. It has been WEEKS since I’ve watched anything besides one episode of Euphoria on Monday night which is finally over (I loved the mess though).

    To whoever’s reading this, enjoy your long weekend :)
    Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
    Post by: sodacat_ on March 14, 2022, 06:34:55 pm
    The one teacher I wouldn't bother about taking their time with marking decided to mark within three days and therefore I received my chemistry results and I'm so ashamed I don't even want to reveal it.
    Spoiler
    So....... I got 60% which isn't entirely terrible but is also so revolting and I nearly burst into tears when I first saw it. However, it is definitely within the range of what I had predicted but seeing it on paper made it hurt so much more.

    60% isn't bad! As long as you tried your best on it and as long as you work really hard on your other SACs/Tests/Things, I'm sure you'll be just fine! Be proud of yourself, try not to stress too much.
    Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
    Post by: beansprout on March 21, 2022, 07:48:42 pm
     ~sodacat~
    Spoiler
    60% isn't bad! As long as you tried your best on it and as long as you work really hard on your other SACs/Tests/Things, I'm sure you'll be just fine! Be proud of yourself, try not to stress too much.
    Hi Sodacat, thank you for the kind words  :)

    Hi AN,

    I can already feel how hectic and stressful these next two weeks will be for me as I have FOUR upcoming SACS. I spent the majority of the weekend playing Roblox and procrastinating because I went to bed at 2 every night and then I woke up in the afternoon and only started studying at around 6. Luckily for me I’m not behind in anything, but all that revision time is just wasted (I’m so embarrassed).

    The sacs that I have are:
    - Further on Monday (Data Analysis)
    - Chem on Tuesday (Redox/Galvanic Cells/Fuel Cells)
    - Bio on thursday (DNA Manipulation Bioethical)
    - Psych on Tuesday in the week after (Learning)

    All of them are after school  :'(

    In terms of excitement in descending order I feel most excited for Psych, followed by Further, Chem and Bio. I never in a million years thought I’d be more excited for Chemistry than Biology but here we are. Redox is just amazing and I actually do the work and put in the extra effort at home without losing interest. I feel very prepared already for Psychology and Further Maths just because I was consistently practicing after learning the content in class. I think for the rest of the week we’ll just be doing revision in all my classes except for Literature now. Speaking of Lit we have started the creative response and studying Emily Dickinson’s complete poems and they just - make - no - sense. I’ve never done a creative before so I’m not sure what I’ll do but my teacher suggested a new poem which is absolutely not my forte but we will see. I also have more than a month for trial and error so all is well. I have not received my adaptations and transformations results yet because my teacher is apparently very busy.

    I cannot wait to get these sacs over and done with and I'm so looking forward to the holidays. Mainly to go to the city for food. But also for the freedom to work through everything i've learnt at my own pace... the pure bliss i'm going to experience. I already know exactly what I need to do for chemistry (everything on my first sac  ::)) not sure about everything else yet but I plan to solidify my understanding of everything I've have been taught this term and then I'll be able to get ahead for term 2. I cannot believe this term is nearly over though! It's practically flown by.

    until next time :)
    Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
    Post by: beansprout on May 02, 2022, 09:15:20 pm
    Term 2

    It’s been so long since I’ve written on here. A few days after my last post I suddenly became really “ill” as in I was extremely weak and dizzy. In retrospect, it was most likely because I hadn’t eaten properly and had gone to school without food on multiple days. Although I didn’t really feel that I could perform at my best I still went ahead and sat all of my SACs anyways. Obviously I came out of all of my sacs feeling like I performed horribly and failed all of them. Turns out, I actually did really well in biology and psychology and not terribly in chemistry. Idk if they are reflective of what I would’ve gotten if I was in good health but I’m really relieved because I genuinely thought I bombed all of them. I also got my literature result and I did slightly better than on my practice but it wasn’t the huge improvement I was hoping for and I’m kind of disappointed with it. I considered lit to be among my best subjects but I’m starting to question it- especially with the creative sac coming up which I’m barely prepared for.

    During the holidays my friend and I went to the library on a few days and got ahead in all of our subjects. Oh my god it has been such a confidence boost to sit in a chemistry class and already know everything that’s being taught. So far, after school I just go through my success criterias and make flashcards (I succumbed to flashcards again) and complete some practice questions. I have loads of questions now since I have study clix and checkpoints, however the only subject I’ve successfully managed to complete every single question for before a sac was psychology. Everything else is like a work out and when you get several questions wrong you can feel your motivation gradually decreasing, at least that’s how it is for me. I have a ton of sacs this term but I feel really excited to tackle all (excluding chem) of them. My next chem sac is worth 8%  and I am NERVOUS. It’s worth more than my previous two sacs and it’s also assessing the hardest topics I’ve learnt so far; electrolysis, rates of reaction (to be fair rates is pretty easy)  and extent of reaction. I started practising during the holidays and my sac isn’t until the twenty somethingth of may … hoping for the best.


    On another note I heard that exams are in 6 months! I did not realise they were that soon… I don’t know where in hell I’m gonna find the time to revisit term 1 content. I ended up prioritising getting ahead and only had time to briefly revise chemistry and psychology.. can you imagine. I’ve already forgotten a lot. Anything that I was told wouldn’t be on a sac was automatically removed from my memory and I have to relearn it :(. I went on a rampage trying to find videos on how to revise a year’s worth of content to no avail, so I guess I’ll be relying on flashcards… again. I don’t think I ever truly learn from my mistakes, this is like a repeat of last year even with me listening to the same music on my way to school as I did last year. However, I’ve been sure to make a really small deck of cards with only the most important information so I’ve learnt something!

    see ya :) :) :)
    Title: Re: Beansprout's Year 12 (VCE) chronicles
    Post by: beansprout on June 11, 2022, 08:12:56 pm
    hello atar notes it’s me beansprout againnn

    i think it’s been well over a month since my last post. i haven’t been busy but i attempted to go full study mode (no  electronics 💀) but that was a mistake. this term has been EXHAUSTING it felt like i had a sac every single week and my stress levels were just sky high throughout. luckily for me there are only two weeks left of school and i officially have no more sacs! i’m well into unit 4 in all of my subjects which doesn’t feel real, unit 3 went by so quickly. overall i’m enjoying unit 4 a lot better than unit 3. in terms of revising unit 3, i’ve only done flashcards so far which i’m trying so hard to do daily but it’s so tedious. i do them three times a week max. a lot of my teachers have given me unit 3 resources though which i’ll also use during the holidays. my first exam, biology, is 138 days away… 138. i made countdowns for all of them thinking they would give me motivation to study but i kind of just stare at them silently screaming.. idk. 138 days is so close as well.

    as an update for how my sacs went
    - haven’t gotten back chemistry
    - haven’t gotten back biology
    - psychology 96%
    - literature 86% :( (i hated that creative)
    - just did my further sac so no results yet

    i won’t get my hopes up for chemistry because there are two questions i know i stuffed up. when i walked out i immediately checked my data booklet to see if water, was in fact a stronger reductant than ag like i wrote on my sac and i was WRONG. it was right in front of me and i got it wrong?? yeah i was so upset with that, and it’s only one mark but it also means i got the voltage wrong too so that’s like.. 3 marks. anyways i’m not expecting perfection in chemistry.. theres no chance.

    i’m gonna go have smoked salmon and cream cheese on some cruskits goodnight:)