How to deal with the content you learn after Trials

If there’s ever a time to slack off in year 12, it’s scarily easy after Trials finish and before Term 3 ends. Seriously. The biggest challenge to learning new topics and dot points after Trials (let’s be real, it happens in nearly every school), is that it’s hard to take the content super seriously and you don’t have as much experience with it.

Think about it like this: something you learned in Term 4 last year, you have had probably 3 or 4 opportunities to study it, and practice applying that study in an exam. For this content… you’ve had none 😵 . Yep, well, we’re here to work out a way to bring this content up to scratch.

1. Find it in the syllabus

It’s super easy to write off any content you learn after Trials because 1) you don’t have an exam coming up for it and 2) it’s a disrupted time of year when it’s kind of hard to concentrate during class.

But.

If there is any chance it could form a whole question or the key part of a 8-25 mark question, then you need to know that info like the back of your hand. Whether you’re learning a new topic, a new dot point, a case study or even a crucial example, go through the syllabus of your subject and suss out where they might appear in an exam. You basically need to remind yourself that the stuff you’re learning in class now actually is part of the syllabus and needs to be treated with as much TLC as the rest of the subject 👍 .

2. Create smart, connected summaries

Next, time to add this new info into your notes (the ones you hopefully had up-to-date for Trials…). Instead of just copying across your class notes, start making summaries of the information - in your own words - and include any little notes that point out a connection to other topics or dot points in the subject.

Then, rewrite the summaries a few times always trying to cut it down to the most essential information and the best insights. See, the more you engage with that content by making connections and summaries, the more likely that you’ll end up really "getting" the new information and you’ll also have punchy, memorable and useful summary notes to get you through your exam.

3. Study the content in a few different ways

It’s easy to be like ‘Oh, I don’t need to study that, I learned it a few weeks ago so it’s fresh in my mind’. But that isn’t always the case. In fact, the newer information is, the less likely it will be locked deep into your long term memory and you’re more likely to draw a blank in an exam. That means you really need to make sure you understand the content so if you happen to forget little details, you still have the gist of it to show your marker.

Because you haven’t had a few assessments that have forced you to study this content, you’re going to want to play around with note-taking, watching infomation videos, having discussions with your mates, flashcards or just any study methods that force you to completely interpret and memorise the content.

4. Send practice answers to your teacher

Standard advice here but still super crucial 🙌 . Find and tackle a practice question that forces you to use the new content that you’ve just learned. This will really make sure your understanding and memory are up to scratch AND it will give you that crazy important practice of applying the content to an exam question.

Even though you won’t have a formal assessment on the content you’re learning right now, you can still get feedback on whether you ‘get it’ or not by sending your practice answers or past papers to your teacher. They can easily let you know if you’ve totally missed the point or your smack bang on track to a big fat band 6 🔥 .

Remember

We all desperately want to switch off after Trials and just enjoy the last weeks of school in all their messy glory. So it’s all about hitting that balance of making the most of the fun but also finding an effective way to lock those ideas into your brain (without having to spend a tonne of time on them). When it comes down to it, just focus on actually engaging with the content, making sure you understand the ideas and learning how to properly apply them in an answer. You’ll kill it 👊 .