Exactly how to prepare for Trials these holidays

With Trials coming up next term, you somehow need to be across all the content, from all your subjects, from Term 4 last year to now.

Yikes. 😰

There are so many struggles going on here: remembering topics you haven’t studied since last year, juggling a lot of different subjects and trying to know how much study you need to do for Trials (because they’re basically a preview for the HSC). Luckily, we’re going to work through this together and we have a simple step-by-step guide for managing all that content.

Let’s get cracking!

1. Use the syllabus

So, as always, the number 1 way to make sure you haven’t missed ANY content from ANY subject is to work through the syllabus and make sure you know and understand every. single. dot point. We’ve got a whole post on why the syllabus is so important so if you don’t believe how important this first step is, check that out here!

2. Write up-to-date notes for each dot point

Although the syllabus dot points tell you what you need to study, you are going to need to do that study by having great notes from each topic in each subject. Hopefully, you’ll have made a decent start on these as you did each topic and had to tackle an assessment but now it’s time to make sure they’re 100% up-to-date.

3. Condense your notes to make them as clear and useful as possible

You know that kid who is always bragging about how they have 100 pages of notes for each subject? Yeah well, jokes on them because that many notes are as useless as not having notes at all. Once your notes are done, it’s time to go through and make them super useful by condensing them down to the bare bones of what you need. This way, they’ll be as clear and useful as possible AND the process of going over the notes is great for helping you understand the ideas and remember the facts. Boom.

4. Bang out planned structures for essays and long answers

So all those notes are pretty helpful in jogging your memory but you also need to know how to use them to tackle the more challenging essays and long-response answers. Start to plan out general structures (with your arguments) for any subjects where you will have to write a long response that draws on several syllabus points. You could base these off questions from past papers or make a really flexible one that you could bring into any answer.

5. Collect and perfect any evidence for the exams

The next step is to start collecting that evidence. This might be in your notes already but it’s so worth going through and making sure you have some really solid evidence anywhere you might need it. Whether it’s case studies for Geography, quotes for English, dates for History, facts for Science or formulas for Maths, you want to make sure your notes include it all. Fun fact: using evidence well in your answer will usually pull your marks up into a band 5 or 6!

6. Try some memory tricks

Now we’re up to the part where we need to lock this information into our minds. If you really understand the topics, this step will be a lot easier so feel free to check out some of our videos to make sure the ideas are clicking in your brain. It’s obviously a lot content either way so we need to be a bit creative and can use flash cards, mnemonics or any other weird memory trick that works.

7. Finish up with practice papers

Feeling confident yet? If you’ve followed all the steps, you should be looking pretty solid which means it’s time to get serious. To cap everything off, to check your understanding AND to make sure you’re 100% prepared for Trials, we’re going to need to start bringing on those past papers and doing them properly. Tackling past papers will let you know if you have any gaps in your knowledge and understanding so you can go back a few steps and plug those holes. Otherwise, it’s just a great ego boost when you can tackle a past paper because you know you’re sitting in a great position for Trials!

Remember

It really is a big call for NESA to ask us to be completely on top of everything we’ve learned in every subject since last year. But hey, we can do it. It’s just a matter of starting with the syllabus and walking through each step to make sure you are locked and loaded for the exams next term. It might seem like a lot but once you get started, you’ll realise that you can get through the steps so quickly. And seriously, once you prepare for Trials, you’ve done most of the leg-work for the HSC study as well. 🔥🔥