Food tech. The mysterious subject involving intense bake-offs, a kitchen fire or too and mountains of food. Mysteries aside, with only 3000 students in 2018, food tech is one of the most under-resourced subjects for the HSC. So, from a band 6 student, without further ado;
Voila! Some tips to help you make food tech a sweet success!
KNOW YOUR PRELIM:Prelim provides you with some foundational knowledge that will ensure you hit the ground running into HSC land. Some key areas that are beneficial to carry on to HSC are:
- Factors affecting food selection.
- Safe storage of food.
- Sensory characteristics of food and sensory assessments.
- Food nutrients & interrelationships.
- Diets for optimum nutrition.
If you don’t remember the basics from these topics, don’t freak! Go back and revise. They are not likely to pop up into multiple choice questions, but more often, can help in hitting those top marks for short answers and long responses.
WHIPPING UP A STORM:What better way to cement your knowledge then to put it into practice? More than likely, you could have a practical assessment, so it is wise to practice cooking in your own time to prepare for this.
Start by picking a recipe, and after cooking it, try and analyse how the food relates to the syllabus. For example, making jam: reading through the recipe will help you find how the jam will be preserved, and which principles of preservation it uses (FM topic).
Even better, you can use the foods you have cooked as examples in exam responses.
STUDY NOTES:Not too much to say here, just make sure you have made a solid set of notes. I found it helpful to add examples and points of discussion for the long responses to my notes, so that I wouldn’t be going into the exams having to completely start from scratch. Also, for your AFI company case study, notes are imperative, as this section always seems to be pure regurgitation of information in exams.
FLASHCARDS:Who wants to memorise the difference in symptoms between salmonella and listeria? [crickets] For all those obscure bits of information that I really did not want to memorise, flashcards were super helpful. Would definitely recommend these for the legislation topic of AFI, as I always had my state and federal laws mixed up. If you are really invested into flashcards, you might even condense your whole study notes onto flashcards (not for the faint-hearted!).
ACRONYMS:Everyone works differently, but I found these great in recalling those bits of information that just needed to go together. E.g. the steps in FPD, or the macro and micro environments (also FPD). If you can, using acronyms that are related to food can make them more memorable. Here’s some
acronyms that I used last year.
WHAT’S COOKING?Being aware of food innovation and news around you is definitely going to help you in the long run. In our food tech lessons, we watched plenty of documentaries on emerging technologies, nutrition issues such as diabetes, even shark tank and the mentor for FPD. Keeping an eye out for current examples in the media can boost your responses in the exam. But also, it can be a great reminder of how the stuff you have been studying in food tech is actually relevant to your own life.
THINKING HOLISTICALLY:Food tech isn’t a subject where each of the topics are kept in separate boxes. Instead, you will find that there is plenty of overlap between each. For example, you might have to think about the health-conscious consumer as you develop a nutritional food product. Contemplate and explore how each of the topics interrelate. Be prepared for multi-topic long response questions in the exam!
Finally, use your intuition. Eating food is an inevitable task, but through this process, we all subconsciously store up information in ours brain that will be an advantage to food tech. And to prove this: I’m sure you could all tell me what the package of your favourite food looks like. So, when things become sticky in assessments or exams, remember the information that you know already, and go from there.
A wise man once said:
“The only thing I like better than talking about food is eating.”
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