i relate to this so much omg. getting over a not-amazing mark can be so difficult when academic achievement has been hammered into your brain since day 1. i remember doing 3/4 psych last year and i got a pretty average grade. being in yr 11 and thinking my accelerated subject was literally life or death, i let that grade dictate my mood and honestly change my view on the subject all together. i was so fixated on that one mark that it genuinely impeded my ability to study for the subject, despite exams being fast approaching. there was continuous doubt that this grade would absolutely sabotage my final score, when at the end of the day, i did fine. looking back now, you sometimes think, 'damn, i really cried over a number on a piece of paper.'

admittedly, I've still had a few moments this year where I've let average grades get the best of me, and it's definitely normal to have those moments. in all honesty, it sucks to put a fair chunk of effort into an assessment and not have that acknowledged in the mark you receive back.

and i agree! i think the best thing to do is let this frustration fuel your future efforts. you know you are entirely capable; maybe just had an off-day, a question caught you by surprise, or you just mind-farted several times during the sac. so why not give the next task your best efforts to prove to yourself (and perhaps your teacher if you're feeling petty) that you've got what it takes. and hey, if it doesn't work out, just keep trying - progress isn't linear!

i think you've got a great mindset that will really help you get through year 12! best of luck for the rest of your VCE journey!
-bw

    9 days later

    bw304 Ahhhhh academic validation, my greatest enemy. I totally get that, I remember in year 9 and 10 I’d cry if I got anything less than a 90, now here I am happy to pass bahaha. It’s surreal to look back on.

    Mm yeah, it really does suck putting so much effort into something and getting an average grade. I think that’s where I still struggle the most when it comes to my academic achievement. It really does make you feel like nothing you do is good enough, even when you try your hardest. I’ve still got to figure out a formula on how to deal with that haha

    Thank you so much for your support <33

      23 days later

      20/08/22

      Tomorrow, it’s officially one week until my biology exam. It’s both exciting and terrifying. The year 12s graduated earlier this week, and I was on the verge of tears the whole time, it really hit me that that was going to be me next year.

      I remember last year, when I started VCE biology as a bright eyed year 10. We ended up having a pretty horrible year in lockdown, but that biology class really made every dreadful day a little bit better so it’s sad to see them go, but I’m sure they’ll go on to live fulfilling lives.

      I’ve managed to get my practice exam average up to a 76-80% consistently, and I’ve drastically improved in multiple choice which I’m quite proud of honestly. I think that I really underestimated how much of a difference multiple choice can make to your score, and I often made silly errors just from misreading something or not caring enough to finish reading the question.

      I’ll be honest, that’s a big problem of mine. I don’t read the entire question, and it’s definitely showing from the mistakes I’m making. I genuinely don’t know how the exam will go, but I can say that I’ve put my all into this subject pretty consistently throughout this whole year, and yes I’ll be disappointed if I get lower than what was expected, but at least I can be happy in knowing that I made it here today, and that’s more than enough.

      I’m excited for this to be over. There are so many video games I haven’t been able to play in a long time, and books I never got to finish reading left on my shelves, and anime I said I wanted to watch but never got around to. It’ll be nice.

        6 days later

        lxna ’ll be honest, that’s a big problem of mine. I don’t read the entire question, and it’s definitely showing from the mistakes I’m making

        literally same! I'm so scared that I'm going to mess up and not answer the question properly!
        You probably have already gotten the same advice but what I did to try and stop myself from skimming the question is to highlight and underline the keywords and phrases (yes it is time-consuming, but it prevents me from not reading the question properly)
        and also all the teachers tell us to do this, but it's really helpful to go over all of the multiple-choice responses again just to make sure that you've answered everything properly u know.

        anyways i hope this helps! good luck with bio!!!

          Thank you!! Good luck with your exams too!

          I have been underlining, especially with multiple choice but I find that as I get towards the end of the paper, and to the last question or two, I start panicking about time and start skimming again. (Which is horrible bc the last question is usually experimental design 💀) It’s a bit of a bother but I’m at least making an improvement 😅

          27/10/22
          It’s tomorrow, and forgive my language, I’m scared shitless. Getting over bad grades is hard enough, but knowing you’ve been working towards this for over 2 years now and there’s the possibility of not reaching your goal is terrifying.

          I’ve been trying really hard to stop measuring my self worth off some number I got on a test or exam, but when it’s something as big as vce, where everyone seems to put such emphasis on it, it’s quite hard. Regardless though, I’d just like to say that the worst time to lose hope is right before you’re about to do something, because that’s when it matters.

          It doesn’t matter if you believed in yourself a year ago, or an hour ago, if you doubt yourself as you’re doing it, then you’ve destined yourself for failure. Your mindset has so much more influence on your success than you think, and changing a negative mindset is the first step to being able to improve. I think I’ve emphasised this quite a lot in my past entries, but it really is true.

          It’s such a hard thing to change, and that’s why you have to start now. Because a good mindset isn’t just thinking you will succeed, it’s being able to accept that sometimes you won’t, and that doesn’t make you any less worthy.

          Good luck to my fellow biology students <3 whether we get a 20 or a 50, we all made it this far and that’s an achievement in of itself.

            lxna Yes! Good luck for biology! Also a fellow bio student and yes....I'm so nervous and I feel like I really don't know the content nearly well enough to satisfy VCAA! However, we're almost there and we've put in so much hard work (even though it may have sometimes not seemed to pay off)! I'm sure you'll do your absolute best! It'll be over really soon!

                _sophiestudies_ I’m quite confident in my knowledge of the content, but when it comes to answering exam questions I’m a bit worried 😅😅 I think it’s been tough this year since we don’t really have any past papers and official marking schemes to go off.

                Third party papers are a bit questionable 💀 I had one describe a CAM plant and then proceed to say it was a C4 plant 😭

                Good luck to you!! Let’s do our best!!!

                  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

                    lxna But ahhh I did it! And I’m so happy!

                    That's so good! You deserve it!!, you put so much effort and tried your best for bio and I'm sure it's going to pay off

                      lxna yes! I'm also so happy that it's finally over. Honestly, I found it overall not as bad as I thought it would be (I was expecting it to be really awful, being a new study design and all), but I agree, some of the short answer questions were really strange in terms of what they were asking. Like the content part was fine, but some of the questions were odd and very different to anything I've seen. It definitely felt more like english or humanities mixed in with Biology. I mean, it sort of felt like the vcaa sample exam, but also not at the same time. I dunno. It was weird (although I reckon further was worse ngl, which I had after...kinda wish I ended on Biology as a slightly higher note). Anyway, enjoy the freedom! I'm sure you will have done really well!

                      • lxna replied to this.

                          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

                              lxna I absolutely agree. VCAA was real funky with bio this year haha, but it's done and that's all that really matters. Yeah, the further exam kinda sucked, but I mean I feel a bit better knowing that a lot of the state found it really weird and hard this year. Anyway, good luck for your year 11 exams, if you have any coming up soon that is!

                                What study score are you people trying to go for in Biology?
                                Any thoughts or estimations on how you went on the exam for Biology?

                                • lxna replied to this.

                                  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

                                    19 days later

                                    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.

                                    24 days later

                                    12/12/22
                                    I am shaking as I’m writing this. At the start of this journal, I said I wanted a study score of 35 for my accelerated subject biology. Today, VCE results came out.

                                    I got a 39. (A, A+, A+). Holy shit.

                                    I was never aiming for a 40 because I didn’t believe I would be able to achieve anything near that in bio. BUT A 39. I am screeching, and so incredibly proud of myself. I’ve looked around the subreddit, and this forum, and I’m so proud of everyone. If you did worse than you thought, or better, you made it through.

                                    This will be my last entry in this journal, as I’d like to start a new one next year for year 12.

                                    Congratulations everyone on a year well done. Good luck to the class of ‘22 as you continue your journey in a place other than highschool, and good luck to my class of ‘23, as we get into the real stuff. <33

                                    charmingcloud THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I thought I absolutely cooked the exam so this was such a pleasant surprise. Congratulations on your ATAR!!!! <3

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