What you should be doing after mid-year exams

With mid-year exams over and with the easter holidays in mid-swing a lot of people have no idea what they should be doing.

You're dealing with the pleasure of holidays and the guilt of knowing you should probably start doing some work again soon… maybe.

Here is what we think you should be doing:

1. Have a break

Pat yourself on the back! You just finished your first major round of HSC assessments and you survived!

You deserve a break, so take one. Plus with easter mixed into the holiday you should be recovering from a chocolate egg coma!

But at this point, you should have had a decent break and be getting back into gear with school only a couple of weeks away. Whilst you don’t have any assessments right away this is not the time to be getting complacent and stop working altogether. The best kids are doing light revision and slowly pushing ahead of the class to make trials in Term 3 a lot easier to deal with.

2. What do your results actually mean and what should you do with them?

You should’ve received your mid-year results before the break. You probably shoved them in your bad and forgot about them over the last couple of weeks, which is a good move.

But now things are starting to heat back up so we suggest you get those papers out and have a look over them. The mark isn’t particularly necessary, what does matter is your rank in the year group. Because at this stage you’re competing against each other. If you’re happy with your rank than the actual mark isn’t that important.

But the best thing you can do is see where your strengths and weaknesses are. The best students will take their papers and see exactly what they need to improve on before trials next Term. And that’s what we recommend you do. Especially when looking at your longer preprepared responses such as English and History. This is a great time to see what worked well and what needs more attention so you can go back and watch the videos for those topics.

It’s also a good measure of how your study and preparation went. If you didn’t feel confident in Maths for example, maybe that’s an indication that more past papers need to be done before your next assessment or that you need to be watching more HSC Hub videos if you didn't understand some things and forgot some of your content.

So stress less about the actual figure and think about how you’re going to improve for Trials.

3. How to start studying again during holidays

We know that getting back into study is the worst thing you can possibly imagine! We know that it doesn’t seem like it's important right now, but it must be done - trust us!

The time between mid-years and trials is the point that separates the good students from the average ones. Top students get back into the swing of things earlier and start pushing ahead of the class so they are more prepared for the next assessment.

But chill, we aren’t talking about pouring over your textbooks for hours, we are talking about an easier and more effective way to revise and move ahead with topics - that’s video! Using HSC Hub videos to slowly get back into it with short 5-10 minute videos is the perfect way to study without feeling like you’re studying. Especially because it’s still holidays.

Hub videos will give you a better understanding of the content you’ve already learnt and allow you to easily move ahead and get an overview of the topics you’ll be learning when you go back to school.

Imagine starting school again and already knowing the first month of work just from watching a few videos.

4. Consistency is key

Just one last tip: consistency is key. We say this all the time! Those that stay on top of things throughout these holidays and throughout the term are going to be the ones that do better in Trials at the end of the day.

You don’t have to chain yourself to your desk, but just watching a couple of HSC Hub videos each day will go a long way to keeping you ahead of the game. Approx. 30 mins of watching a day will let you cover a whole topic in less than a week… seriously.

So there you go, a few things you should be doing during your holidays now that mid-years are over. If you use any really good strategies let us know!