good, but never good enough (vce journal)

28/10/22
I did it. Omg it’s over.

Late update because my friends and I went out to celebrate our newfound freedom, and also because I just needed to get my mind off it so I wouldn’t overthink. Overall, I have no idea what to think. MCQ was fairly simple in my opinion, nothing too drastic there.

Short answer on the other hand… I can’t describe it. I feel like I could’ve done as many past papers as physically possible, and I still would’ve been confused when getting there. The questions weren’t hard, the concepts being tested were (in my opinion) the easier topics in the study design. But the questions were so weird.

The best way I can describe is it that it felt more like an English or humanities exam than a biology one.

I’ve done over 40 past and practice papers, I created spreadsheets and documents analysing every possible question and concept, and how to answer them. But I got to the exam and I thought: this doesn’t feel right. I feel like you needed to be able to explain yourself well, which is something that didn’t really come up in past exams. (Other than in ethics questions, etc).

But ahhh I did it! And I’m so happy! Biology is most likely going to be one of my bottom 2 subjects so whatever I get is what I get. I was able to have the experience of a 3&4 subject, and I tried my best in that exam, (and I got some goodies from my teacher), so I’m going to remove it from my memory, and focus on my year 11 exams that are coming up.

Good job to all of my fellow bio students! Proud of you <3

Thank you so much!!! I’m worried to be honest, but there’s nothing I can do now and I just need a break and to relax

_sophiestudies_ the bio questions were a bit funky this year,, I’m still a bit salty but it’s okay. Honestly, the sample exam was so much easier in my opinion, but it did definitely have more science and content based questions rather than reading comprehension (that cancer vaccine question…)

I’ve heard a lot of bad things about the further exam oh no I’m sure you did just fine though!! Good job on getting both bio and further done, it sucks having two exams in a day. Wishing you all the best!! <333

Christ I’d like a 35, but after the exam I think I’m more in the 30-33 range and that’s perfectly fine with me.

I can’t really estimate how I went on the exam because I feel like the marking scheme is going to be really specific this year, and I don’t know if the answers I wrote down were up to VCAA’s standard. Fairly confident on the MCQ’s though, maybe dropped 2-3 marks according to what I’ve seen people talk about

17/11/22
So, I received my year 12 subject confirmations earlier today. Let’s just say that you become really desperate to find friends when none of your friends are in your chem class. (which is quite the feat when you’re friends with half the cohort! They really screwed me over!) but it’s okay, I ended up finding people who I’m friends with, I’ll survive.

Quick life update, I caught covid right before my year 11 exams started. Ugh. Not ideal, I ended up sitting half my exams unwell because I didn’t want to miss too many of them. (Ended up missing Englang, which I’m sitting tomorrow, and then I’m free!)

Overall, the exams weren’t particularly difficult, honestly I thought they were all pretty easy. Do I think I did well? Probably not. I revised well enough I think, but I was just so out of it while sitting the exams I definitely made mistakes I probably wouldn’t make otherwise. But it’s only year 11, that’s okay.

I start kickstart next week… and then I’m done. I finish year 11 on the 25th of November… holy crap. I still can’t process that this is it- 13 years of schooling will be done by this time next year. That’s absolutely terrifying.

ATARs come out in less than a month too, and not gonna lie, I’m really anxious that I did really badly on biology. But it’s done, there’s nothing I can do, if I get a 25 then I get a 25, I can make up for it in year 12. I plan to reevaluate some things for year 12, and get some values and priorities in order, so expect an updated version of my goals for VCE.

On a non-school related note, I’ve succumbed to my stationery addiction (unfortunately for my wallet), and I’ve bought a journal. I’d like to start anime journaling (but not just anime: comics and video games, and books and stuff too) next year as a mindfulness thing, I’m excited for that to come in.