Nick McIndoe graduated in 2012 with a 50 raw in HHD.
If you want to save time, check out these complete course notes for HHD.

It’s undeniable: Health & Human Development has a lot of content.

Like, a lot of content.

At times, all of those definitions, dot points and summaries can become a little overwhelming. Trust me – I feel those feels.

With three weeks left until the exam, how should you go about your final stretch of revision?

USE WHAT YOU’VE BEEN GIVEN

This is some of my favourite advice.

VCAA has told us precisely what’s examinable in the Health & Human Development study design. There are very transparent dot points there detailing the entire course.

So if you’re trying to work out what you do and don’t know, don’t go to your textbook. Don’t go to your teacher. Go to the study design. This should be your first and last port of call.

It was about this time of year that I really started using the HHD study design to my advantage. Writing and re-writing notes is all well and good, but it can end up being pretty mindless – and, therefore, not that effective.

Instead, try taking a dot point from the study design. Any dot point will do. And then, simply, write as much as you know about the dot point. Draw diagrams if you like. Make links to other parts of the course. Just keep writing – everything you know and that’s relevant.

This is a great technique, because it usually goes one of two ways:

  1. It turns out you know a lot, and you get some confidence going into the exam. You also solidify knowledge, and links to other parts of the course become more apparent.

  2. It turns out you don’t know that much, and your weaknesses are highlighted. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it’s better three weeks out than realising five minutes before the exam! You still have a lot of time to improve. (Why not start by asking your questions in the HHD Questions Thread?)

In the study design, you’ve been given everything you need to know. Don’t forget about it!

PRACTICE QUESTIONS

My other major revision tool was simply doing practice questions.

I started with textbook questions. Then, when I felt ready, I started practice exams. Initially, these weren’t under exam conditions; I spent as long as I needed constructing a good answer, and did them open book.

After a while, I started doing practice exams with no notes – and then under timed conditions. It was a nice progression, really.

How many practice exams should you do?

I have no answer for you.

I did quite a lot, personally. I even re-did practice exams, which I think is a good idea (although some people don’t seem to). But I can equally think of two ATAR Notes forum members on the Health & Human Development board who, between them, did a total of one full practice exam. That’s an average of 0.5 exams. They both scored 50 raw.

So, there’s clearly no correct answer here – just however many makes you feel comfortable.

Regardless, make sure you treat each practice exam with respect. Do it properly, don’t avoid the difficult questions, and get it marked.

DON’T TRY TO DO TOO MUCH

With all of the above in mind, it’s still important – most important – to take care of yourself.

I studied less but achieved objectively better results than a number of my peers. Why? I put it down to sleeping well, eating breakfast, staying hydrated. The sort of boring stuff you’ve heard a million times, but which actually makes a very big difference.

Try to get to a position where you don’t need to study the day of your Health & Human Development exam. Or the day before that.

Try to be prepared to the point that you’re genuinely looking forward to the exam, just to show the assessors what you can do.

Good luck for the rest of the year!

If you want to save time, check out these complete course notes for HHD.