What to do if you get good Trials marks

Earlier this week we put up a post on how to come back from bad Trials marks but what happens if you were actually pretty stoked with your marks? I mean, statistically, some people would have had to do well in those exams and while no one is really going to be feeling sorry for you, it’s almost a harder situation when it comes to preparing for HSC. Like… where do you go from here? Well, we have a step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Celebrate

Enough said.

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Step 2: Start thinking about statewide standards

Even if you think you’re pretty much perfect, consider this: you’ve been competing against your school but now you’re about to start competing against the entire state. Let the games begin.

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Seriously though, different schools set their students different standards so if you got top marks/top rank in your school Trials, it’s still worth thinking about how you might be comparing to the rest of the state. Because that’s the deal with HSC exams. Check out some example marked answers from NESA and it's definitely worth looking at showcases from previous years if you take subjects like Drama, Visual Arts, Ext II English or D&T. Don’t forget that there’s always room for improvement, even if you’ve done well in Trials.

Step 3: Test your consistency

No shade here. It’s super likely you would have nailed these exams regardless of the questions thrown at you but you do have to ask yourself if you got a little lucky and the questions on the exam happened to match your strongest areas. Like, Slumdog Millionaire style. Either way, we swear you still 100% deserve to be proud and feel great about yourself.

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But, it's worth testing whether you’re as likely to ace your HSC exams as you did your Trials. Basically, it’s so important that you commit to doing full, exam condition past papers and getting them marked to make sure you can consistently smash your exams, no matter what questions are asked.

Step 4: Get in-person feedback from your teacher

TBH everyone should really be talking to their teachers after Trials but it’s seriously so much more important for the lucky ones who aced their Trials.

See, the better you did, the less constructive feedback you will have written on your exam paper and there will be less mistakes/ wrong answers to give you that crucial info on how and where to improve. Without that super important feedback in your hands, you’re going to need to pin your teacher down for just like 30 mins and ask them to go through the finer details.

As you start to do better and better, it takes a lot more work to push up a few more marks and your teacher should be able to help you work out a strategy for improvement. They can also pinpoint why you did so well - like your strength of argument, structure or your clarity - so you know what to replicate to get that band 6 in the HSC.

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Remember

Responding to good results seems like a no-brainer: feel good about yourself and keep doing what you’re doing. Both of those options are completely solid but it can be a little more complicated than that and once you’re done cheering, take a sec to consider a few points: Challenge yourself against state-wide standards, make sure you can be consistent and get some critical in-person feedback from you teacher. But most importantly, congrats on those great results 😍 😍 😍 .