How to study these holidays

You’ve got mind-maps, revision cards and memory tricks galore. But we’ve got the revision hacks to take you from band 0 to band 6, without a highlighter in site…

Do your assignments first

The first thing you should try and get done these holidays are any assignments you’ve been given. Getting these out of the way nice and early will give you more time to do some general study and catch up in the second week of the holidays.

The best place to start these assignments is by having a look at the marking criteria. Read it thoroughly. Highlight any key points. Make your own list of what the teachers are looking for and how you’re going to get into those top bands. You want to do this before you start working on the actual task, I mean there’s no point in getting halfway through a report only to realise the marking criteria outlines a specific format they want you to use and then you have to start all over again.

Remember, this criteria was written by the people who will be marking your assignments so as long as you can tick off everything in the marking criteria, there’s no reason for you to be losing marks.

Believe it or not, NESA, the people who actually mark your actual HSC also write out a marking guideline for every subject telling you exactly what they’re looking for. So do yourself a favour and have a look at it. Trust me, it’ll help with past papers too.

So be all fancy and print it off and stick it on your wall. Keep it under your pillow. Memorise it, then eat the paper. Whatever. Just make sure you know the criteria and stick to it when doing your assignments.

Don’t re-re-re-learn – practice!

👏Put👏the👏revision👏cards👏down👏

There’s no point going over something a million times once you’ve already learnt it; you need to be able to apply your knowledge, otherwise, what the heck are we all doing here? So a couple of times in the next two weeks, move your focus from mind-maps to past papers. Do each one twice. Trawl through the marking criteria and ensure you understand everything there.

It’s less about instantly knowing how to answer a question and more about learning to work it out when you’re in the exam. You won’t do this by trying to absorb every minute detail of the syllabus. You will have a much better chance learning how to make connections between different areas of the syllabus and using what you know of the marking criteria to make sure you’re ticking all the examiner’s boxes.

Plan by topic, not subject

Write down every single topic in each of your subjects and estimate how many 50 minute revision sessions you will need for each one. Some will probably only need two, and others will need a few more. This is the basis of your revision timetable. Now plug them into your timetable and stick to it. This way, you will A) cover everything you need, nothing more, nothing less B) find the whole study process less daunting because small chunks = less of a chore and C) you won’t waste time just flicking through any book finding something to revise.

Use your friend’s brains

In case you’ve forgotten, you have a class-full of friends out there going through the exact same HSC. If you’re having trouble wrapping your head around something, chances are someone else is going to be able to explain it to you beautifully. Don’t be afraid of revising together. Having someone else explain something to you in a new way is going to make it stick a lot more, and explaining something to someone else is a really great way of testing your understanding. Don’t quiz each other, your mum can do that, sit and intelligently discuss a certain topic, taking in their different perspectives. Or set up a mock debate, with one of you arguing one side and another the other side – a little bit of friendly competition is motivation’s best friend.

Remember

This stuff right here ^ is what separates the #90atar students from the rest. It’s not the hardest stuff, or even the most time-consuming stuff and you certainly don’t have to be a rocket scientist to do it. It’s just about working smarter, rather than harder - so don’t just read it, put it into practice. Happy holidays!