lxna

  • May 23, 2024
  • Joined Sep 4, 2022
  • bunny077 firstly, i would discourage you from studying too much during the holidays, while it can seem like a good idea initially, it’s just a one way ticket to burning out halfway through the year. and while year 12 goes by quickly, the chore of studying and revising really takes its toll and can make each day feel like a chore. so just relax, enjoy your free time without the looming threat of exams and atars, and have fun!

    as for overall advice, the best way to revise for exams is to do past exams, and it is never too early to start them, even if it means skipping questions here and there. i personally didn’t do that in year 12 (but i did when i accelerated biology and found it really helpful), but i would say by the end of term 3 you should have started doing past exams. learning how to answer exam style questions is just as important as understanding the content. for biology, for example, there is such a specific marking scheme that you need to adhere to in order to get full marks and the only way to figure out how they want questions to be answered is by doing past exams and marking them. and by marking them, don’t just give yourself a mark or no mark and call it a day. you really gotta understand WHY you didn’t get the mark, and what you need to include in the future to get it.

    for subject specific advice:
    english: i did englang, but the principle is basically the same. i personally hate writing essays, and i have a short attention span and i am a procrastinator. so rather than attempting full practice essays, I would write practice paragraphs instead. i’ll admit that i should’ve done this more frequently as a form of revision, but i am incredibly lazy and left it way too late. you might find that writing one practice paragraph a week is much more achievable than trying to do full essays.

    general: for sacs, do the textbook questions and ask for practice sacs. unfortunately exam style questions and sac style questions are very different in general, so i personally focused only on sac practices up until my last sac, which is when i switched to doing practice exams. my teacher told me to do 10 practice exams for each exam (so 20 in total), and this definitely helped me achieve my 40ss. also make your bound reference as you go and ask your teacher if it’s valid. i saw many students who had their references confiscated during trial exams (thank god not real exams) because they did not fit the guidelines. i’m a chronic procrastinator, so after i completed each chapter in the textbook, i would add the information to my reference straight away so that i didn’t have a build up of information to put in, which would seem too daunting and make me avoid doing it.

    methods: on the contrary, i did no practice exams for methods and i wrote up my bound reference like a couple days before my exam. i hated methods. the only advice i can give you is don’t be me. i didn’t pay attention in class, i “studied” for sacs the night before, and i took a nap in the middle of my methods exam 1. don’t do that 👍

    chemistry: similarly to biology, chemistry is a content subject with a very specific marking scheme, so practice exams are a must. in terms of general revision, MINDMAPS! MINDMAPS! MINDMAPS! they’re pretty, and effective, and a good way to get all of the information out. i personally made one A4 mindmap for each topic in chemistry, (this limits your space so that you’re forced to only include the important information and not the useless stuff), and while doing my first practice questions i would refer to these mindmaps if i didn’t know the answer. eventually i was able to memorise most of the information and stopped referring to them while doing past exams.

    i know that everyone always says “your ATAR doesn’t matter, there’s always another way to get to where you wanna go” and that is absolutely true, VCE is only a small part of your life and is definitely not something to kick yourself over if it doesn’t go well. however, coming from someone who thrives off academic validation, wanting to do well is just as valid. you say you have little motivation, but the fact that you are seeking advice to do better just proves that there is some motivation in there. all you gotta do is picture your end goal, and do your best to get as close to it as you can. good luck! i have no doubt that you’ll be perfectly fine <3 remember to work hard, but also have fun. 🙂

    • this’ll be my last update and then i’ll be off for good

      uni offers came out and i was accepted into my first preference! nursing (scholars program) at monash university!

      the current plan is to finish nursing, and hopefully try for med school in the future 🙂 but that’s a problem for future me. good luck to all the future vce students who happen to stumble upon this forum like i did, remember to try your best and have no regrets, but also remember that vce is only a small part of your life, and there are so many ways to get to where you wanna go.

      adios!

      • i completely gave up on this, (and VCE too ngl)

        but i know people enjoy seeing other’s results so 🙂)

        VCE RESULTS 2023
        Chemistry - 35 (scaled 39)
        English language - 33 (scaled 35)
        Japanese - 33 (scaled 41)
        General maths - 40 (scaled 38)
        Methods - 29 (scaled 33)
        Biology - 39 (scaled 40)

        ATAR: 92.80 (!!!! WTF!!!!)

        to those who read my year 11 journal and knew that my goal this entire time was to get a 90 and be the 6th person good enough,, i did it <3

        • 16/06/23
          Uhm, yeah. So last time I posted at the end of term 1, and now it’s the end of term 2. That’s terrifying. One more term left (term 4 barely counts) and that’s it… I’m done.

          Had my year 12 formal, lovely night, a lot of fun. Did the GAT, hilarious as always. (I was team BBQ, if you supported the benches then who even are you wtf.)

          Anyways, subject time and updates on goals and stuff??

          General Maths:
          Only had one SAC this term, which was financial maths. Ngl, I thought it was kinda fucked like a lot of us genuinely thought we were gonna fail and it was not a good time. Terrible SAC, so very confusingly worded and yeah.

          Somehow got 18/20 by some miracle that I won’t dare to question, so it all worked out but the tears shed over that SAC was not worth it.

          Japanese:
          Again, only had one SAC which was a speaking SAC this time. Went pretty smoothly, didn’t have any major complaints.

          Got 13.5/15, which y’know for a language I’m not complaining.

          English Language:
          Had one SAC (again? What is it with the singular SACs…) and it was an AC + Short Answer SAC. Short answer was hella easy ngl, got full marks for that section. The AC was okay, I could’ve chosen better examples (I kinda rambled on about pronouns for too long and got marked down for that, which fair enough. I read through it when I got my feedback and I was like: yeah, uh, never doing that again)

          Got 44/50.

          Chemistry:
          Once again, one SAC which was on equilibrium. I found it to be a pretty easy SAC, so I’ll admit I was hoping for a higher score, and I was a bit disappointed, but hey it’s still a decent score so yk.

          44/50.

          Methods:
          The big one… the one that terrified me. We had one SAC, and it was a calculus application one. And when I tell you I cried so much over this, I mean I was ugly crying. I felt so bad after this SAC that I was convinced I was gonna fail.

          I’ve never failed anything in my life before, so the idea of this being my first time just absolutely devastated me. My goal for methods is a 25 study score, so I really only need a pass or a bit more in order to get that. And I thought I wouldn’t.

          So today we got our SAC marks AND our rankings for that SAC. I got a 42/50, and am somehow ranked in the top 5. What the fuck. I am absolutely ecstatic and it’s so much more than I deserve. 💀 Safe to say, just try your damn best y’all. I knew methods was gonna drag me down, so I did my best to compensate for it, and sometimes you’ll feel like shit but who knows, it might work out for you. You never know unless you try.

          Anyways, in terms of goals (study scores and ATAR). Still aiming for an 80+ ATAR, and still aiming for a 30 study score at least in all my subjects… and I think maybe?? Just maybe?? I can get above a 25 in methods??? We’ll see how I feel next term.

          Semester 1 is over. Here’s to hopefully a decent semester 2 🤙

        • TERM 1 IS OVER! Wow… that’s really scary… a lot of stuff happened between the last update and now so let’s speedrun.

          Chem
          I got the score for the chem test I did when I sick… AND I DIDN’T FAIL! Me and this other dude in my class tied for rank 2, which is kinda insane considering I literally ran out of time and had to speed run like 3 pages without double checking my answers. Maybe the batteries were a good thing??? Either way, very proud of myself for not failing that.

          I also sat my chemistry U3 AOS 1 SAC, it went as smoothly as I could hope for. Ended up with a 48/50, which is not too shabby. I was very happy with that. Redox is my favourite topic in chem. (Not a popular opinion in my class)

          Our next SAC is week 2 of term 2, which is terrifying so I gotta get myself together to prepare for that.

          English Language
          I got my English language SAQ SAC back, and, once again, not too bad. The upper beings must’ve blessed me because I managed to pull an 18/20, which is fantastic considering I literally cried over it after I finished the SAC… yeah it was not a good day.

          I also sat a second SAC, which was an analytical commentary. I haven’t received the marks for that one yet, I’m not feeling confident about my paragraphs but it is what it is. Will update on how that turns out 😀

          01/05/23: Got the SAC back, was kinda mid. 23/30, but I’m not complaining. This means that for the total outcome I achieved a 41/50 which is pretty solid and is considered a pretty high score on the VCAA rubric that my teacher bases his marking on so you know what, I’m very happy with that. Can only work harder from here!

          Japanese
          Sat a writing SAC for Japanese, in which I got a 13.5/15. It was one of the best essays I’ve ever written so I’m very happy about that.

          General
          We had our data analysis SAC and it was probably one of the worst SACs I’ve ever sat in my life. Nobody in the cohort felt good about it. It wasn’t that the content is hard, like it was really easy but the questions were so confusing and there was no marking scheme so we didn’t really know what was expected of us?

          It was split into 3 parts, and I cried after part 2 so yeah. Not excited to get my marks back for that one.

          It does really upset me though, because I do quite well in the practice exams I’ve done for general so far. I’m very comfortable with test and exam-style questions. But it was an application task and I just don’t do well with those, and I feel like I screwed myself over because I know I know the content, and I know I can do well.

          But, at least the exam is worth 60% of the study score. As long as I try my best in the SACs, (whether that means getting a high grade or not), I can still pull through with a decent score if I can do decently on the exam… hopefully.

          UPDATE: I got a 36/40! I am very pleasantly surprised, I was not expecting to get that. I’m so happy that I didn’t fail haha, there’s still hope for me.

          The plan for these holidays is to get my copious amounts of holiday homework done, do some pre-study for the next AOS, and enjoy my birthday!!

          Well, have a lovely holidays everyone! Take a break and relax.

        • Billzene Oh, I didn’t know that! That’s good to know thank you! This was just a test covering chapter 1-6 of the Heinemann chemistry textbook though, our actual aos1 SAC is specifically on galvanic cells as far as I’m aware

        • 11/03/23
          Real quick recap.

          Got my practice SAC marks for English Language back, did incredibly well and was in high spirits. Then immediately sat a chemistry AOS test straight after, and had all my hopes and dreams crushed in front of me in the form of rechargeable batteries. What cruel, cruel teacher blesses me with thermochemical equations and gas laws, and then watches me crumble as she puts in BATTERIES.

          Needless to say, not very excited to get my marks back for that one.

          It did not help that the apocalypse caught up to me, infecting me with the dreaded influenza virus. Oh how my immune system has failed me numerous times these past two years, I’ve been sick constantly and I’m kinda done with it. Will I turn into a zombie, a slave of the VCAA, or will I miraculously recover?

          Essentially, I’ve been trudging through school this week with only a headache, sore throat and sniffles to accompany me on my journey.

          I had my English Language short answer SAC on Wednesday, and I kind of messed it up. I don’t think I failed, but I definitely underperformed and I think I have to kiss my chances at a 40+ goodbye. It really frustrates me because I knew I did a question wrong but I didn’t have enough time to fix it. I’m not necessarily giving up, though, I’m gonna try my damn best in the upcoming SACs to make up for it, but I’m definitely lowering my expectations. It’s okay 😮‍💨 some things just don’t go our way and the best thing we can do is just try our best to do better.

          I’ve got SAC after SAC until the end of the term now, so I can’t really pity myself any longer. I got this. 😖

          Status update:
          Methods - not feeling too bad at the moment, currently doing polynomials which I enjoy so I’m getting there.

          General - been doing practice SACs and getting through the textbook a bit more, a bit stressed for the data analysis SAC since it’s not really like anything I’ve ever done before, and I know I’m gonna lose marks from stupid shit

          Japanese - got a writing SAC soon, writing is my strong suit so I hope to practice that for a bit. I also need to start working on my speaking stuff for orals at the end of the year

          • 22/02/23
            I had my first SAC of the year… and I absolutely flopped it. It was for Japanese, so it’s understandable that it’s difficult. I’m not expecting a high score for it anyway, I’m aiming for a 30ish so that scaling can save me.

            But it does sting a bit. </3 I’ve always been that kid in the Japanese class that was expected to do well, and I’ve been dux of my class from every school I’ve been in for as long as I’ve been studying Japanese. So I don’t wanna disappoint my teachers and friends who expected me to do well, but I don’t think I’m gonna reach their expectations. :/

            Which sucks but it is still the first SAC, if things go really badly I can always turn things around. But currently praying to all the gods out there to give me strength in this. ❤️

            Status update on my other subjects:
            General - no longer behind! In fact I kinda went overboard and finished the first AOS so I’m chilling in that for now.

            Chem - slightly ahead, I’m absolutely loving the topics right now so I have motivation to continue working. I definitely need to practice more questions though as I’m fine with the theory, but not really the application.

            Englang - I need to cover more metalanguage, and I need to practice short answer questions badly. I have a SAQ SAC coming up soon, so this is gonna be my priority for the next little bit.

            Methods - … we’re getting there. I’m not behind anymore which is great, but methods and I are just not vibing. I’ve accepted that I won’t get a good score in it so I’m not too stressed and have decided to put my focus onto subjects I’m better at so I can get a better score in them.

            Current mood: missing biology 3&4 badly </3

            28/03/23
            Update: Got the Japanese SAC back! DID NOT FLOP IT!!!

            Definitely did not do as well as I usually do with my other subjects, but I’m very pleased considering I was expecting the worse case scenario. Last year, I flopped my first Japanese SAC and I’m happy to see that I made major improvements.

            Specifically, I got pretty decent marks on the listening section, which I absolutely abhor. I’ve been working hard on that, so I’m glad my effort paid off. I’d like to continue improving though, since I’m still not doing as well as I could, and I also need to work on my speaking skills.

          • Yolk15 I assume you’re in year 11?

            If you’re able to transfer into a 3&4 in year 11, then definitely go for an extra subject and do 6. However, if you plan to do 6 subjects in year 12, I would personally say it’s not worth it unless you absolutely need a high atar.

            It’s perfectly possible to get 95+ with 5 subjects, but a 99.95 would be unlikely.

            I say not to do it because as a year 12 right now, my free periods are absolute godsend and I can’t imagine not having that extra time to get work done. I think 6 subjects is a bit too much work and you might have to sacrifice some stuff in order to keep up.

            It’s entirely up to you, obviously. If you feel like you can keep up with the workload without sacrificing too much, then go for it. I just personally wouldn’t be able to <3

            • For (1), the best thing to do is to complete practice questions. For instance, search up a phylogenetic tree worksheet online or ask a teacher for one, and complete that. These are skills based tasks and the best way to get better is just practice. If you don’t understand how to do something, search up a tutorial on YouTube/google or ask someone to help.

              For (2), the only thing I can really say is to do as many practice exams as possible, but make sure you spend just as much time reviewing them. Quality > quantity. For example, when I was doing practice exams for biology, I would do a past exam in test conditions, and then the next day I would mark them. Every time I got a question wrong, I would add it to my word document along with the suggested answer. Afterwards, I compiled all of my questions by topic and noted what points I needed in general in order to get the most marks. In the last 3 days before my exam, I only did questions from that wrong answer document and made a note of things to remember in the real thing.

              Unfortunately I’ve never done any subjects involving data and information so I can’t help much with (3).

              Good luck!! Try your best but try to relax as well <3

            • Hello! My name is Luna, and I am a year 12 student studying VCE. I had a VCE journal that I started towards the end of 2022, which recounted the last couple of months of my year 11 journey, but I decided we needed to start afresh as I’m sure there are plenty of things coming up this year that I would like to keep a memento of.

              This year I will be doing English language, chemistry, general maths (finally dropped psych!), maths methods, and Japanese second language. I finished biology last year with a raw 39.

              My goals for this year are simple, and definitely less ambitious than last years:

              1. I’m aiming for an 80 ATAR. I’d like to do a bachelor of nursing at Monash which requires a 77, and the same course from other unis requires much lower. Hence, an 80 will give me the freedom of having options. 🙂
              2. I’d like all of my study scores to be in the 30s… which means I need to work on methods a lot… (crying rn)
              3. I want to have fun and work on my mental health. It’s year 12, there are going to be so much fun and exciting stuff happening, I don’t want to be studying 25/8 or let my mental illnesses prevent me from doing the things I love.

              This is honestly a scary year, I can’t believe I’m nearly done with highschool but I am also excited to get into the next chapter of my life. To the class of ‘23, good luck and have fun!

              Holiday Recap
              Gonna be honest, I‘ve taken the holidays really chill. I finished school in late November so I got a bit of my holiday homework done before I got bored and decided to chill out for most of December. In January I procrastinated my holiday homework, but I’m going interstate really soon so I’m on a countdown now and hope to get at least 95% of my holiday homework done before I leave. (We’ll find out…)

              Do I regret my decisions? Always! But it’s too late now! <3

              Week 1 Over
              I don’t plan on doing weekly updates since nothing much comes up per week anyways, but since it’s the first week of school I reckon that’s enough of an event.

              First week wasn’t that bad, actually. Quite uneventful but really chill. God bless free periods ❤️

              General: since I switched to General halfway through the holidays, I hadn’t done any of the work so I was really behind. Fortunately, I’ve been able to catch up enough that I should be on track by next week. I’m really enjoying General actually, it’s been so long since I’ve done maths that I understand pretty easily and have fun doing. Such a change of pace compared to methods, and it’s a very welcome one.

              Methods: I don’t hate methods, but it’s not my favourite. I’m not necessarily behind, but every chapter is just a bore and I’m finding that I’m not putting as much effort into it as I should. I am expecting it to be in my bottom 2, but I also don’t want to slack off and not put my best into it because I know I’ll regret it. Also, I was one of the top students in methods last year and my ego would hurt badly if I get knocked down. 💀 Please, god of motivation, help me. 🙏

              Chemistry: I love chemistry. It’s my favourite subject and I will happily do chapter questions any day. This week has been fun for chem, I have a wonderful teacher and I’m so excited for the upcoming year because she loves chem as much as I do and it’s nice to have someone with the same passion. I’m trying to get a few chapters ahead now, since I found that I don’t like writing up my notes as the teacher explains the content. I much prefer using class time as a way to revise.

              Japanese: I also enjoy Japanese a lot, but it is a roller coaster of emotions. I think that people are expecting me to do well in Japanese, which is nice that they believe in me, but I’m not really aiming for top marks. I study Japanese because I love Japanese culture and history and media. Unfortunately I can’t really talk about how much I love anime in a VCAA exam. :/

              English language: I have a new teacher and he’s also wonderful. I was scared he wouldn’t be but he clearly knows the content well. I forgot to mention it in my introduction, but I am trying for a high-ish score in English language. For no reason other than my old teacher believed that I could do well, and I just wanna show her that I can. I very much enjoy englang. I’ve always been decent at English but it was never a subject I ever thought was, or could be, ‘fun’. Englang proved me wrong.

              Well, some basic goals I wanna get done:

              • work on methods, even if I get questions wrong and want to give up, I refuse to be defeated by some stupid numbers
              • catch up on general, I don’t think I’ll have trouble with this one but you never know
              • get ahead in chem

              Well, I hope everyone’s had a wonderful week/couple of days at school. Good luck in 2023!

            • krystal heyy i’m down to join if you could send an invite link 🙂

              • m1lky I did 3&4 biology this year as a year 11 and it really is such a fascinating subject I hope you have a lot of fun!! Chemistry is also great, I’m the same as you haha, I sit in class being confused and yet somehow pull some good marks?? Who knows the logic on that one.

                Good luck on your VCE journey and your accelerated subject!! Excited to see how things go for you 🙂)

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

              • 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

              • It might not be a 90, but an 88 is so close and such a good score that rlly shows the work you’ve put in!! So proud of you for making it, and good luck in uni!! <3

              • 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.