I got a 50.. Here are some of my tips

[ajs13]

Firstly, congrats on picking Business Management. Busman is a fairly easy subject relative to some others in that it is really the work you put in that will determine your study score.

Overall, the subject is predominantly based on memorising, however, there are certain parts (i.e. case studies) that will require you to ‘apply’ your knowledge, which is generally where marks are lost. Hence, it is imperative that you have a sound understanding of the course coming into the exam because rote-learned answers won’t work. One of the things that stands out from the past examination reports is the prevalence of rote-learned answers used by students which do not directly answer the question. I’ll later delve into study techniques that I used, which will help you ace your SACs and the exam.

If you’re aiming high such as a 40 plus study score, or even a 50, it is essential that you attain the highest, or a fairly high ranking within your cohort in terms of SAC scores. If you, like me, obtain rank 1, then your peers in busman cannot distort your final study score so I highly recommend that you aim for rank 1. If you’re at a high performing school, you could probably get away with being in the ‘top bracket’ of those doing busman, but aim for rank 1 anyways.

Keep in mind that your sacs will account for 50% of your study score, with the remaining half being attributable to the end of year exam.

How to ace your SACS
One of the key things to acing sacs is to start studying ahead of your peers. By that, I mean, get your notes done early, as early as possible.

Throughout the year, in particular closer towards the SACs, take advantage of resources such as Teaching Bubble, Checkpoints and Edrolo. If your school doesn’t have Edrolo, don’t stress because I hardly used it anyways. That aside, Teaching Bubble and Checkpoints are great resources, both of which I used a lot.

http://teachingbubble.com/

After I had my notes done, I’d read them a few times, spreading it across a few days or even a week, which was about three weeks before the SAC. I’d then highlight the essential parts and read that a few times (about 4-5).
However, reading alone, will not get you far in Business Management. Make sure you understand what you’re reading.

It has been well documented that recalling information is far more effective when it comes to studying. and is how you’ll operate in SACs and the exam anyways. Make sure you create flashcards based on your notes, which I highly recommend. It’s one of the main reasons I could get a 50, as I’d create one for each SAC and use it pretty much every night in the lead up to the SAC.

Make sure you also do any practice SACs available and hand them to your teacher for feedback. Also, do as many practice questions as you can. On the night before the SAC, do some light reading as you should already know the content thoroughly by now.

It is probably the ‘case study’ related questions that will catch most people so feedback from your teacher should help a lot, as it did for me.
For example:
SportsPlus is an Australian sporting company that manufacturers running shoes and sport clothing in Australia. However, in order to decrease their production costs, CEO Joe Wiley has decided to move their operations to China.
Describe one CSR consideration that SportsPlus will need to take into account when redeploying their operations to China (2 Marks)

A decent answer would go along the lines of “One corporate social responsibility consideration that SportsPlus will need to address when transferring their manufacturing sector to China could be the environment which they will need to be weary of and will need to minimise their carbon footprint in order to do so.

A good answer would sound more like this “One corporate social responsibility consideration that SportsPlus will need to address when transferring their manufacturing sector to China could be the environment. Wiley could achieve this by minimising their carbon footprint during the process which could be achieved by diminishing the amount of trips they make between Australia and China.

Essentially, if the question relates to a case-study, make sure you refer back to it. Whilst doing your SAC, take into consideration the amount of marks there are up for grabs and craft your answer in a way that deserves full marks and fills out all, if not most of the lines. If the question asks for three things, give three things, not 2, not 4. I averaged about 98% on my SACs largely due to my study techniques, my commitment to receiving feedback from my teacher, and the fact that I wrote a lot, which allowed me to spill out my knowledge onto the paper. I also structured my answer by sign-posting.

For example:
A crappy answer to the above question that excludes sign-posting would sound like this “they will need to address the environment when transferring their equipment”

Sign-posting basically revolves around structured sentences (e.g. firstly, secondly, one way, another way this could be achieved)
I had my notes for each SAC (or area of study) in one 96-page exercise book that was clearly labelled (e.g. Unit 3 AOS 1) which just made things clearer and more organised.

Also, beware of the task words!

Identify   List words required
Define   Give a full definition (and example where possible)
Outline   Give a brief overview of the term
Describe   Talk about the characteristics or parts of the term with a bit of detail
Explain    Talk about the characteristics or parts of the term with a bit of a detail and how they operate
Justify   Defend your opinion and back it up (use the case study where applicable)
Distinguish   Note the points of difference
Compare    Explain the similarities and differences
Discuss   Cover both sides (e.g. strengths and weaknesses)
Analyse   Identify and illustrate the relationship between parts of the question
Evaluate   Look at both arguments (for and against) and discuss the value of each, giving your justified opinion at the end


How to ace the Exam
As with the SACs, be sure the start early with the exam too. Start organising your notes and flashcards in August. I basically re-wrote and compressed all my notes for the exam up until late September. If, like me, you created flashcards for each of your SACs, trim them to what is necessary and cluster them into each area of study and do them as frequently as you can.

Also do as many practice exams as you can, I did around 5. Be sure to get them to your teacher for feedback as well. And practice them in exam conditions to time.

Focus on ten mark questions in your preparation, again, getting feedback from your teacher. In the exam, you’ll want to spend about 15-20 minutes on it, and no more. Do a few questions at the start of the exam and then get straight into the 10 marker. I think I did like two pages or so and then I went and knocked out the 10 marker. which took ages and actually set me back a bit for the rest of the exam.

Make sure you’re doing other stuff as well (e.g. go for a run) to sustain your mental health which is just as important as anything else.

Good Luck! 

[Glasses]

Firstly, congrats on picking Business Management. Busman is a fairly easy subject relative to some others in that it is really the work you put in that will determine your study score.

Overall, the subject is predominantly based on memorising, however, there are certain parts (i.e. case studies) that will require you to ‘apply’ your knowledge, which is generally where marks are lost. Hence, it is imperative that you have a sound understanding of the course coming into the exam because rote-learned answers won’t work. One of the things that stands out from the past examination reports is the prevalence of rote-learned answers used by students which do not directly answer the question. I’ll later delve into study techniques that I used, which will help you ace your SACs and the exam.

If you’re aiming high such as a 40 plus study score, or even a 50, it is essential that you attain the highest, or a fairly high ranking within your cohort in terms of SAC scores. If you, like me, obtain rank 1, then your peers in busman cannot distort your final study score so I highly recommend that you aim for rank 1. If you’re at a high performing school, you could probably get away with being in the ‘top bracket’ of those doing busman, but aim for rank 1 anyways.

Keep in mind that your sacs will account for 50% of your study score, with the remaining half being attributable to the end of year exam.

How to ace your SACS
One of the key things to acing sacs is to start studying ahead of your peers. By that, I mean, get your notes done early, as early as possible.

Throughout the year, in particular closer towards the SACs, take advantage of resources such as Teaching Bubble, Checkpoints and Edrolo. If your school doesn’t have Edrolo, don’t stress because I hardly used it anyways. That aside, Teaching Bubble and Checkpoints are great resources, both of which I used a lot.

http://teachingbubble.com/

After I had my notes done, I’d read them a few times, spreading it across a few days or even a week, which was about three weeks before the SAC. I’d then highlight the essential parts and read that a few times (about 4-5).
However, reading alone, will not get you far in Business Management. Make sure you understand what you’re reading.

It has been well documented that recalling information is far more effective when it comes to studying. and is how you’ll operate in SACs and the exam anyways. Make sure you create flashcards based on your notes, which I highly recommend. It’s one of the main reasons I could get a 50, as I’d create one for each SAC and use it pretty much every night in the lead up to the SAC.

Make sure you also do any practice SACs available and hand them to your teacher for feedback. Also, do as many practice questions as you can. On the night before the SAC, do some light reading as you should already know the content thoroughly by now.

It is probably the ‘case study’ related questions that will catch most people so feedback from your teacher should help a lot, as it did for me.
For example:
SportsPlus is an Australian sporting company that manufacturers running shoes and sport clothing in Australia. However, in order to decrease their production costs, CEO Joe Wiley has decided to move their operations to China.
Describe one CSR consideration that SportsPlus will need to take into account when redeploying their operations to China (2 Marks)

A decent answer would go along the lines of “One corporate social responsibility consideration that SportsPlus will need to address when transferring their manufacturing sector to China could be the environment which they will need to be weary of and will need to minimise their carbon footprint in order to do so.

A good answer would sound more like this “One corporate social responsibility consideration that SportsPlus will need to address when transferring their manufacturing sector to China could be the environment. Wiley could achieve this by minimising their carbon footprint during the process which could be achieved by diminishing the amount of trips they make between Australia and China.

Essentially, if the question relates to a case-study, make sure you refer back to it. Whilst doing your SAC, take into consideration the amount of marks there are up for grabs and craft your answer in a way that deserves full marks and fills out all, if not most of the lines. If the question asks for three things, give three things, not 2, not 4. I averaged about 98% on my SACs largely due to my study techniques, my commitment to receiving feedback from my teacher, and the fact that I wrote a lot, which allowed me to spill out my knowledge onto the paper. I also structured my answer by sign-posting.

For example:
A crappy answer to the above question that excludes sign-posting would sound like this “they will need to address the environment when transferring their equipment”

Sign-posting basically revolves around structured sentences (e.g. firstly, secondly, one way, another way this could be achieved)
I had my notes for each SAC (or area of study) in one 96-page exercise book that was clearly labelled (e.g. Unit 3 AOS 1) which just made things clearer and more organised.

Also, beware of the task words!

Identify   List words required
Define   Give a full definition (and example where possible)
Outline   Give a brief overview of the term
Describe   Talk about the characteristics or parts of the term with a bit of detail
Explain    Talk about the characteristics or parts of the term with a bit of a detail and how they operate
Justify   Defend your opinion and back it up (use the case study where applicable)
Distinguish   Note the points of difference
Compare    Explain the similarities and differences
Discuss   Cover both sides (e.g. strengths and weaknesses)
Analyse   Identify and illustrate the relationship between parts of the question
Evaluate   Look at both arguments (for and against) and discuss the value of each, giving your justified opinion at the end


How to ace the Exam
As with the SACs, be sure the start early with the exam too. Start organising your notes and flashcards in August. I basically re-wrote and compressed all my notes for the exam up until late September. If, like me, you created flashcards for each of your SACs, trim them to what is necessary and cluster them into each area of study and do them as frequently as you can.

Also do as many practice exams as you can, I did around 5. Be sure to get them to your teacher for feedback as well. And practice them in exam conditions to time.

Focus on ten mark questions in your preparation, again, getting feedback from your teacher. In the exam, you’ll want to spend about 15-20 minutes on it, and no more. Do a few questions at the start of the exam and then get straight into the 10 marker. I think I did like two pages or so and then I went and knocked out the 10 marker. which took ages and actually set me back a bit for the rest of the exam.

Make sure you’re doing other stuff as well (e.g. go for a run) to sustain your mental health which is just as important as anything else.

Good Luck! 

Thanks for this resource ajs13! I've added it to the Business Management Resources Thread