Year 12 Exams Help and Tips (2013)

[Holz]

Do not buy a PS3 and FIFA just before your exams :P

buy a PS4.

I finsihed my exams and got my friend to watch a few episodes of avartar while he still had a few exams to go (bad mistake by me). Lets just say he didnt do very well.

[elephants]

I didn't study all year then about a month out for exams did not leave my room once and locked myself out of my computer to begin a horror 4 weeks of cramming.

It worked because I got the ATAR I was after but it wasn't healthy. :P

My advice, commit to hard to these exams because they really are the most intense time of your life (for most people). Then you can chill on leavers and all through first year uni ;)

Good luck boys!

[Jormas]

Yeah.

At the moment, i'm on the ATAR that i want, considerably higher than where i want to be to gain entrance into a Business Law/Commerce Degree.

Should i put in 4+ hours a night of study to try and get than extra 1 or 2 ATAR points, or is there really any point, and just do my normal 2.5 Hours of Homework with a bit of TV and some facebook in there. But that's for the last term.

Of course, Exam period, i'll be going 8-10 hours a day for 4 weeks straight.

But these last 8 weeks of school, in the grand scheme of things, with the final Exams being worth 1/2 of your year 12 grade, all the assessments for each subject only add upto about 7-8% of the WHOLE YEAR's Marks total.

So, surely, that extra 10-15% you may get, will only affect your ATAR by 1 point at maximum. And, i have breathing space of about 12-15 points.

[Holz]

Yeah.

At the moment, i'm on the ATAR that i want, considerably higher than where i want to be to gain entrance into a Business Law/Commerce Degree.

Should i put in 4+ hours a night of study to try and get than extra 1 or 2 ATAR points, or is there really any point, and just do my normal 2.5 Hours of Homework with a bit of TV and some facebook in there. But that's for the last term.

Of course, Exam period, i'll be going 8-10 hours a day for 4 weeks straight.

But these last 8 weeks of school, in the grand scheme of things, with the final Exams being worth 1/2 of your year 12 grade, all the assessments for each subject only add upto about 7-8% of the WHOLE YEAR's Marks total.

So, surely, that extra 10-15% you may get, will only affect your ATAR by 1 point at maximum. And, i have breathing space of about 12-15 points.

wow your studying alot more than me. I think I did some cramming before tests and than crammed all my study in the last month. In my opinion there isnt much between a 99 and a 99.95 unless you can get right up the top. But If you want to get into law which is very competitive you want to be easily over the minimum requirement.

what I can tell you is you want to make sure you have plenty of wiggle room, anything can happen. Personally I got food poisoning which made me struggle in my exams. But because I went in with that wiggle room I still got into law. Something could happen like that or an exam question comes up that you didn't think off.

I walked in on course for a 99 and and that dropped by over a point. Better to be safe and get into your course easy. Also you have no idea the effect of scaling will be so thats another reason to make sure you well over what you need.

[Ziplock]

^ at usyd you only really need over 99 for medicine from memory. A 95+ will get you into almost anything anyway :P

If you think you can do the 4+, then do the 4+ (if you don't think you'll burn out). Personally, I didn't do any real study during term, like I did my assignments, and I would study for a couple of days before tests, but that was it. Then I did full days study during the HSC period (as in like 8-12 hour days), albeit I didn't do much work during the stu-vac (#watchedallofmerlin#watchedallofchuck ), and I walked out with a pretty decent atar (although my exam marks were significantly higher than my moderated assessment), and scraped into the course I wanted to.

basically, there's no point in doing more work than you have to. I have a friend who got an atar of 98 point something (can't remember what). He ended up doing a course (his first preference that he knew he wanted to do) that had an atar requirement of 70. But he already had a scholarship that he got in year 11, which gave him a bonus 5 points. Since it was our local uni he got another 5 bonus points.

so in the end he needed only an atar of 60 to get in.... is all the hard work he did to get an atar of 98 really worth it?

I mean, unless you're like me and want to be like- suck it, you're all idiots, look at me, my mark's great :P

but if you're not (aka, want to keep your friends :P ), then just do the amount of work necessary for the mark you need.

[CrowsFan]

^ at usyd you only really need over 99 for medicine from memory. A 95+ will get you into almost anything anyway :P

Considering med at usyd is a postgrad course your score from high school is worthless ;)

I think you mean for law you need 99. My girlfriend at the time applied for law with a score of 98.something and didn't get in...

[Ziplock]

actually, usyd does accept undergrad medicine

http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/future-students/medical-program/combined/index.php

but it only offers 40 places and needs to be done as a double degree- you need an atar of 99.95 to be considered :P

[Jormas]

Thanks guys.

Currently i'm sitting on a 95.2 ATAR, so an average of 76% across my top 4 subjects...

I take:
Business Management - 81%
Economics - 74 %
Geography - 74%
English - 73%
Then... Maths 3AB 64%

I know, if i put my mind to it, i can easily achieve atleast a 78 in Geography and Economics. I would be on track for that if it weren't for 2 tests in each where i flunked it (big weekends before), and ended up getting a measly 55%, bringing my marks down from around an 80%. I had a string of 88%, 85%, 87% in tests, then one ruined all that hard work!..

So, in an exam, with hours and hours of study, i know i can achieve around that mid-80 mark in economics, geography and Business..

English, i dont really care about, 70-75% is where i lay all year..

So, if my targets are expected.. then my final end of year TEA mark (top 4) should be around 315-320. Meaning i get a 97.5 ATAR.

I mean, this term coming up, i have fvcking 11 assessments within the space of 3 weeks. Why would i put so much effort into all that and 'Burn myself out' before the upcoming set(s) of exams which last around 6-7 weeks... It's just stupid how schools cram in the last term. You would think that the ease off the workload giving you time to prepare exam notes and start combining all notes throughout the year.

[Jormas]

Thanks guys.

Currently i'm sitting on a 95.2 ATAR, so an average of 76% across my top 4 subjects...

I take:
Business Management - 81%
Economics - 74 %
Geography - 74%
English - 73%
Then... Maths 3AB 64%

I know, if i put my mind to it, i can easily achieve atleast a 78 in Geography and Economics. I would be on track for that if it weren't for 2 tests in each where i flunked it (big weekends before), and ended up getting a measly 55%, bringing my marks down from around an 80%. I had a string of 88%, 85%, 87% in tests, then one ruined all that hard work!..

So, in an exam, with hours and hours of study, i know i can achieve around that mid-80 mark in economics, geography and Business..

English, i dont really care about, 70-75% is where i lay all year..

So, if my targets are expected.. then my final end of year TEA mark (top 4) should be around 315-320. Meaning i get a 97.5 ATAR.

I mean, this term coming up, i have fvcking 11 assessments within the space of 3 weeks. Why would i put so much effort into all that and 'Burn myself out' before the upcoming set(s) of exams which last around 6-7 weeks... It's just stupid how schools cram in the last term. You would think that the ease off the workload giving you time to prepare exam notes and start combining all notes throughout the year.

and i'm in W.A so i'll be going to UWA and i'm looking at doing 2 courses..

degree of finance - requires an 80 ATAR minimum..
degree of Business Law  - requires an 85 ATAR minimum.

I mean, my parents tell me.. "oh, when you go to a job interview later in life and that extra 3 or 4 ATAR points could be the difference between you and the next guy in getting your dream job.." and "you'll feel satisfied try the hardest and getting a 97 rather than doing the bare minimum (or so) and end up getting a 92 or a 93." does it really fvcking matter?

[Ziplock]

I'm a little confused- like, I don't know what school you go to, or even what state you're in, but I honestly wouldn't see those marks sitting at a 95+ atar.

to me, as raw marks, that looks like something closer along the lines of a 70-80 atar :/

as I said though- I don't know what school/ state you're in though- some schools have harder marked internal assessments, and different states  have different courses/ scalings.

if you were in NSW at my old school though, those marks would have you sitting around the 70s range though :S 

[Ziplock]

btw, I'm sure someone else could say this with more authority than me, but your atar means jack shower once you get your degree. It only makes the difference in getting into uni.

as for personal satisfaction... depends on what type of person you are.

the bare minimum is all you need though.

[Jormas]

btw, I'm sure someone else could say this with more authority than me, but your atar means jack shower once you get your degree. It only makes the difference in getting into uni.

as for personal satisfaction... depends on what type of person you are.

the bare minimum is all you need though.

Have the WACE grading sheet next to me.

"TEA is the sum of your top 4 scores out of a total of 400." so 4x100%..
"A student can divide their total by 4 to calculate the average score they would need to achieve in order to gain that desired ATAR"

It shows a column of what that TEA would be calculated into.

eg. average of 50% = 60 ATAR
average of 60% = 77 ATAR
average of 70% = 91 ATAR
average of 75% = 95 ATAR
average of 80% = 97.5 ATAR
average of 90% = 99.5 ATAR
99.95 ATAR is an average of 96.25% (my god)

The ATAR refers to how you lie in retrespect to the total population of year 12's sitting those exams.

so if you get a 95 ATAR, you are in the top 5% of scores for exam taking, and if you get a 80 ATAR, you are in the top 20% of all exams taken... and so on.

Hope that clears it up Zip

For example:

[CrowsFan]

actually, usyd does accept undergrad medicine

http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/future-students/medical-program/combined/index.php

but it only offers 40 places and needs to be done as a double degree- you need an atar of 99.95 to be considered :P

Ah well there you go then. You'd be crazy to do a combined degree of medicine though, you wouldn't have time to study!

[Ziplock]

haha, they really need to standardise these systems across the states lol. But kk, I get it now.

although, to be fair, that system looks closer to what we do at uni :P

[elephants]

basically, there's no point in doing more work than you have to.

This.

your atar means jack shower once you get your degree.

This.



And I know for a fact that Geography and Business Management got shafted by scaling last year :P