5 Ways to boost your marks after mid-years

This time of the year is what we like to call ‘HSC limbo.’ That time after your mid-year exams but before Trials.

This is an awkward period and can be dangerous if you don’t handle it properly. So we’re going to go through a few tricks to boost your marks by doing less work (which is obviously the dream!).

1. Know what you don’t know

The best thing you can take from your mid-year exams is that it’s a really good way to highlight the things you DON’T know. Once you stop crying about your marks you’ll actually realise that this is a really important way to improve your marks going forward. The best students know exactly which topics they don’t know, which means they focus only on their weaknesses and not on their strengths. Practising your strengths won’t increase your marks as much.

There are three ways to find out the stuff you don’t know:

1. Where did you lose the marks - go back through your exams papers and see where you lost most marks for each subject. List them by priority. 5 = I’m a boss at this topic. 1 = I’m still so screwed for this topic! Work on the 1’s first.
2. Go over the content - using Hub videos to efficiently go through all the necessary content will quickly highlight the holes in your knowledge. If it’s all about efficiency then 5-10 minute videos are the best way to get through it all.
3. Past papers - HSC past papers quickly highlight the things you need to be focusing on.

Your time is limited. Use it wisely. Find the things you don’t know and focus your time on these things first.

2. Use your teachers

We know stuff like HSC Hub is awesome for getting help but remember that you also have your teachers there to help you out. Use them.

Your teachers are the ones that have marked your mid-year exams so they know (probably more than anyone) where and how you went wrong. A good strategy is to make changes to your responses and hand them to your teachers for marking and feedback. Most teachers are up for giving feedback and this will give you a really good indication of where you’re at.

We work with plenty of state-ranked students and the one thing they have in common is that they swamped their teachers with millions of drafts throughout the year!

3. Do more, think less

Small fast changes win every time! We know what it’s like, you spend weeks and weeks working on essay drafts or practice responses until it’s perfect AND THEN you hand it in. This isn’t the most effective way to go about things.

A better way is to make small, deliberate changes and hand them in as fast as possible. One you get your feedback, plug the holes and do it again. This will make sure you get on the right track faster and avoids ‘analysis paralysis’ when you’re just making useless changes that won’t boost your marks much. Your teachers should be sick of you by the end of the year!

Also, don’t forget about the smaller responses. Yes, everyone gets teachers to look at their English essays but A LOT of the HSC is smaller 5-10mark questions that no one considers. 1 make in an essay and 1 mark on a short answer are worth the same amount, remember that. So submit that Religion 6 marker or that History source analysis or a Chemistry 8 marker. Get these perfect as well!

Deliberate changes. Specific feedback. Quick fixes. Repeat.

4. Learn from the best
   This is one of the best times in the year to compare your responses to those of the best kids. By looking at your exam answers next to a top scorer you’ll very quickly see the areas you need to improve. The Hub is a great way to see how the best do it. By walking you through how the top students would construct sample answers it’ll give you a really good sense of how to do things. That way you can compare your answers and identify the issues asap.

It’s also a really good strategy to get top students to look at your work and identify the issues for you. Resources like the Hub marking centre give you specific feedback from state-ranked graduates, which will highlight all the problems in your answers faster than anything else.

5. Past papers (as usual)

We always say this. Past papers never lie. If you get to a question and you feel like you’re going to pass out from anxiety - you probably need to spend some time on it. If you’re going through other questions like an absolute boss - no need to keep wasting your precious study time.

The point is you should be getting the best bang for your buck in terms of your time and effort. Quickly learn what you don’t know and plug the holes as quickly and as efficiently as possible. That’s how to boost your marks!