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geek

Hey! There's lots of resources available for psych. If you search up on quizlet, you can usually find free flashcards for all AOS. For questions, VCAA is a great resource but also company exams/ booklets are great. I personally used the ATAR Notes psych topic tests (only questions) which I found were pretty helpful. For notes, ATAR notes also has free resources uploaded online by people which can be good. Otherwise, facebook marketplace always has people selling their past VCE resources. If you have a look there, you might be able to find some great practice sacs/ questions. I hope this helps and good luck with psych

Hey! Former year 12 student here. I did practically the same subjects as you so I might be able to give a bit of information to help you make a decision.
In terms of HHD, unit 3 content does have a bit of overlap from 1/2. Rest assured, if you were to start in 3/4 directly, all of the prior content is reviewed (in a lot of detail if your teacher is good, otherwise textbook questions are great for practice cause it’s simple stuff). The only content you will need to know is health and wellbeing, health status, nutrition, and Australia’s health system.
So, if you’re worried about lack of knowledge for HHD, it’s actually not so bad. You can catch up in no time. Now, is HHD easy though? I would say it’s easier conceptually than other subjects (e.g. specialist) but that means that a lot of people do well in it. To score highly in it, you’ll need to do a lot of practice (esp. Cause it scales lower). Nevertheless, it was my favourite and highest scoring subject in VCE so it’s possible for you to do well without your score scaling down.

English, though, can be a double-edged sword. Because you do literature, practising writing more essays is definitely a plus. While assessments and ways of thinking are quite different in both subjects, you can still benefit by building vocabulary, writing speed (helpful in the exam!) along with the general quality of your written expression. It’s also beneficial because if you do poorly in Literature, you have a back up. English is always in your top four so if scoring high is your priority, english is the safer option. But the workload for both can be challenging to manage. Reading so many texts and writing essays is a huge time sucker.

So overall, viewing both HHD and English from an effort less can be helpful but if you’re aiming for higher scores, it’s better to consider interest. If you’re passionate about a subject, you’ll naturally do more work for it and then score better. Have a good think about where your interests lie. I hope that you can make the best choice for yourself. Good luck for Year 12!

girlmeetsvce
Hey Aish! I hope you don’t mind me answering your question, but I did psych in Year 12 last year and currently tutor psych as well, so I might be able to help you out. (Also not sure how useful this would be considering your question was quite old, but I’ll ramble on anyway)

Your best resource for catching up on research methods is the study design and the great thing is that it’s free. Specifically, pages 12-19 in the study design address the terminology you need to be aware of. After you’ve learnt the definitions (just know the meaning, no need to memorise anything), have a go at textbook/ past VCAA questions related to research methods. MCQ questions are a great starting point because you get options, making it easier to choose the correct one. Later in the year, your teacher will likely give you more questions as well but if you want, you can also get checkpoints and they’ll have a section dedicated to research methods.
I hope this helps you out and good luck with psych

Hi Chris!

I’m totally gonna copy domain education above and promote myself too. I graduated last year with a raw 45 in bio and 92% on the final exam. I am currently a tutor at tutesmart (tutoring side of ATAR Notes) and can definitely help you achieve a high ss in bio.

TuteSmart offers private tutoring sessions customised for each student. You can choose what you want to study in terms of questions/ content/ both and have complete control over how many lessons you wish to have (you can sign up for all year round lessons or even lessons before SACs for extra support). If you sign up to TuteSmart, you also automatically get access to ATAR NOTES + where you have access to flashcards, summary notes, topic tests, mock SACs and exams for VCE Biology (at no extra cost!).

If you’re interested, please feel free to contact me at lavanya@tutesmart.com to set up an intro session or you could even navigate through the tutesmart portal and book via the management. I hope this helps

YXQ
Hello friend! I was in a very similar position like you in Year 11 with the highest scoring in the cohort and aiming for a 45 in psych. If you can maintain these scores, you can definitely get about a 43 realistically (which is what I got with very similar scores to yours in Year 12). If you do want to boost your scores up to 45+ though, I'd recommend doing exceptionally well in your poster SAC (it's more easy to get right than other SACs in psych) and working on your research methods (cause this will always be present in each SAC and exam). Getting over 95% in each of your SACs and an A+ in the exam puts you in a really good spot to get 45+.

Hello friend!
I thought I’d drop in the study routine that I used in Year 12 for you to have a look. Keep in mind that I was preparing for undergrad med and hoping for a very high ATAR so my hours may not seem relatable.

Here’s my study schedule:
Each day, I woke up at 5. Then 5:30-7 am studied for UCAT, proceeded to get ready for school which ended at 3pm. I then had to pick up my brother from his school, travel back home, have food, etc. In terms of after school I studied from 5-7pm, had dinner and called it a night. If I had SACs, I’d also study from 8-9pm (I can’t study late at night so I chose mornings instead). Then I went to sleep around 9:30 pm and repeated the process for each day. On Weekends, I also studied from 10-12am then had lunch and resumed study from 3-4pm, took a break and again from 5-7pm. I didn’t study beyond this time usually.

Please don’t feel any pressure to replicate a study routine as packed as this if you don’t have to. My study timetable meant that I got enough sleep each day and was able to get adequate time for homework, revision, and UCAT. It worked for me but might not work for you.
In terms of your sleep schedule though, I’d recommend working yourself really hard (exercise, work, travelling). Usually when you’re super tired, you go to sleep much faster. Slowly try and get yourself to sleep at an earlier time by lying in bed at 11pm. Doesn’t matter if you can’t sleep just don’t turn on the lights. Eventually your sleep-wake cycle will regulate itself depending on what time you chose. But make sure that you wake up and go to sleep at the same time everyday. If you skip things on the weekend, you’ll have poorer sleep quality. Keep in mind, this will take some time (maybe a week) so be patient. Other than that, have fun at school, I hope you can find a study and sleep schedule that suits you best