Do early assessments matter?

You’ll hear a lot of talk going into your HSC year about what’s important and what you should be focusing on at the start of the year. Most of it you can ignore... except this.

We’re going to shed some light on your early Term 1 assessments and if they’re actually important.

The short answer is ‘yes.’ But maybe not for the reasons you think.

1. Dust off the cobwebs

Let’s be real, this is the first year that actually matters. You may have come from doing your year 11 final exams but this is a whole different league. You’re rusty and aren’t really used to these high stake assessments.

Dominating your early assessments is a great way to dust of the cobwebbs. Just like waking up in the morning and having one of those great stretches, it gets you nimble and ready to take on the rest of the day.

Alternatively, getting off to a slow start feels like those mornings after you’ve been out and you can barely even open your eyes. It’s important get off to a great start.

2. Good habits

You wouldn’t expect to wake up one morning and be awesome at playing the guitar, or riding a horse or doing backflips on a trampoline (or whatever you like doing).

The same goes for HSC study - you don’t just wake up one day and suddenly become awesome at doing exams, memorising content and getting top marks. It takes practice and forming good habits to really get good.

The process you go through leading up to your first assessment is crucial.

• How do you study leading up?
• How much effort do you put in?
• What do you do first?
• Do you focus on content or application study?

All these questions need to be answered for every assessment you attempt, so it’s good to form winning habits early. Don’t wait until trials to figure out how to study.

Obviously, HSC Hub has you covered for the content so it’s a good idea to use HSC Hub as part of your study plan early on and not be shocked by how much it helps you just before your HSC. We find that students who wait until later in the year to jump onboard don’t really get the full value. Don’t be that guy/girl.

3. A percent now is the same as a percent later

People forget that a 15% assessment now is worth just as much as a 15% assessment the day before trials. Just because it’s at the start of the year when everyone is still fresh, doesn’t mean it’s any less important.

It’s like throwing away the first 2-3 games in tennis. Before you know it the score is 5-1 and you’re facing a set point before you’ve even tied your laces.

You don’t want to look back and say ‘I got 89%, god I wish I did a little better in that first assessment.’

Doing well in the HSC is about grabbing as many marks as possible. It doesn’t matter when or how you do it. But you need to be collecting ALL marks on offer, especially early on.

4. They are easier (generally)

Generally speaking, early assessments are easier than later ones. Cheering!

This is true for a number of reasons:

• You’ve learnt less content so there are just fewer questions they can ask
• The course normally builds on itself which means you learn the basic stuff first and the harder stuff later
• You have to memorise less when studying
• There’s less pressure at the start
• You’re workload from other subjects wouldn’t have picked up yet - so you have more time to focus and study

Plus if you’ve signed up early to HSC Hub you’re already ahead of all your classmates ;)

All these things come together giving you an awesome opportunity to smash these early ones out of the park.

5. People tend to do better

We have a fairly high calibre of people working in the HSC Hub offices, so I thought it might be a good experiment to go around the office and see how people approached their earliest assessments - but most importantly how they did in those early assessments.

• 95% of our team got above 90 in their first term assessments.
• 90% of the team got a rank very similar to the one they started the year with.

Whilst this isn’t the most statistically reliable survey (as most of you will learn in Uni) it does serve a good anecdotal point. It shows that early assessments can indicate how you’ll go for the rest of the year. So starting early means you’ll finish stronger.

We all love a Cinderella story, but come-from-behind wins are risky and rare. Don’t bet on it.

6. The biggest challenge is content!

Ok, so we now know that early assessments matter. But the thing is they are all content based. Obviously you’re not going to be getting massive past paper exams having only learnt one or two topics. This means a few things:

• Teachers set more creative assessment tasks early on e.g speeches, presentations
• They are mostly content based
• The people that top the year are the ones that know the content best

Luckily that’s where HSC Hub comes in. With content based videos you can jump ahead much faster than anyone else and really set yourself apart.

Early assessments shouldn’t be thought of as a burden, they should be thought of as an opportunity. An opportunity to get ahead, set up good habits for future assessments and to really nail the beginning of your HSC. All before you head into summer holidays and forget all about it (because let's be real, the tan needs more work than the HSC).

So yes, early assessments do matter - the early you start on them, the better you’ll be.