“Learn from your mistakes”
You’ve probably heard this saying time and time again. First from your parents, then teachers and even your friends, yet we always seem to shrug it off like it’s nothing. Do we ever actually try to understand what it means?
We always tend to fear failure. Fear getting things wrong. Fear of asking that “silly” question. And while it’s absolutely fine to want to avoid making mistakes, we have to also realise how important failure is in allowing us to improve.
The HSC is built around improvement. Everyone starts at a different level. Some may be more talented at something like maths, others not so good at math but excel in another subject. But despite this everyone can reach the level of success that they want. It just depends on how far you are willing to go for it.
You may be afraid of the mountain that is the HSC, but with every mountain you can always take certain steps to overcome it. I’m here to tell you that everyone feels this way. My Year 7 self who sat at the back of the class playing games every period never could have imagined getting through this arduous journey. And still, the lessons I learnt from peers, teachers and even on my own, assisted me tremendously in achieving the goal of doing my very best. Now I hope I can pass these lessons on to you, so that you can also achieve your goals.
Consistency Is King!
Have you ever felt completely burnt out while spamming past papers for a test the day before? I definitely have. It’s something that we always tend to do when we think that we “haven’t studied enough”. In reality there will always be more that you can do, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should be doing more. There are two main ways that I went about stopping this.
Firstly, Set a Goal.
For example you want to get top 10 in your next maths exam. Then accompany this goal with micro goals. Like by week 3 ensure you have a good understanding of how Rates of Change work. And then by week 4 understand another topic. Week 6, get started on past papers, so on and so forth. I would also leave a buffer week just in case you get caught up in other commitments. Personally I think micro goals are best accompanied with the traffic light system, which I took on board for Year 12, and especially with my sciences.
The reason why the traffic light system works so well, is that you can identify your weakness and strengths very easily by topic. For Chemistry I would have the syllabus broken down into its dotpoints and the subsections inside of those dotpoints on my iPad, highlighting each subsection based on my familiarity with it, and also leave a small section for notes to further write down what exactly I struggled with.
Green = No shot I’m dropping a mark on this
Yellow = Would lowkey struggle on harder questions for this
Red = Would be cooked if I saw a question based on this
When this is paired with micro goals you are easily able to plan out your preparation week by week for your exams.
Link to Project’s Traffic Light Systems:
Secondly, Start Early.
This doesn’t mean as soon as an assessment block ends you should immediately be doing 5 hours of study every day. Take a week or a few days off. Watch that movie that you missed out on. Play that sport that you took a break from. But make sure you do come back to your studies. Don’t immediately start with a high intensity or else you won’t be able to maintain it, but start a bit low and take 2 weeks to build back to a consistent study schedule. It doesn’t have to be a lot of study, 2-3 hours after school is absolutely perfect if you actually maintain that everyday.
When you get closer to your exams I would increase intensity ever so slightly, maybe 4 hours. And when you get to that period where you have flexible days and no longer have to go to school except for exams, try and get as much study as you would have done at school. Like for me, I would go to school for 6 hours so when the whole day is free I would try to get 6 hours of study in. Which is surely reasonable. This way you don’t have to give up on your extracurriculars and hobbies that you love.
Be Social!
The HSC is not something you should have to be tackling on your own. I don’t mean this in the sense of going to the library every day and “studying” with your friends because we know how that really goes. Occasionally this can work “never did for me”, but what I mean is actively being in the study loop with friends and peers. Be in group chats where you can ask others for help and also help others. Maybe even get a friend who you constantly reach out to for help with a certain topic. Teaching others a certain topic really helps you know whether or not you actually understand that topic yourself.
On top of this, SHARE WITH YOUR COHORT. I can’t stress this enough, but do not be that one cohort that doesn’t exchange resources with one another. You may think it will put you at an advantage over the rest of your peers for your internal exams, but gatekeeping hardly changes whether or not you score better than someone else. How likely is it that you will get a certain question you studied in your exam. It just isn’t. 99% of the time the ones that perform the best are the ones actively sharing and receiving from others. I know some of you will think, “how about I gatekeep until after trials are done.” Once you have passed that trials period and you have a bunch of resources you want to share, most people won’t have time to grind every resource from that point on so in the end you aren’t maximising your internal mark as well as you could have.
Most importantly, reach out to your teachers. Whether that be asking questions during class time, or your own private time shooting an email to your teacher or a dm to your tutor. Don’t be afraid of coming off as annoying, if you truly want to succeed you have to block out the external noise from others. Personally, I would always ask questions to my teachers and tutors even if it meant that I would be absolutely incorrect. In the end there really is nothing to lose from asking a question. I would also recommend having someone review your own work, because a fresh set of eyes can really give a whole new perspective to your answers and really allow you to gain as much as possible from a certain practice question.
Good Mental State = Good Marks
Handling Stress
A great portion of your exam score and study is directly related to your mental wellbeing. As someone who struggled with this so much throughout Year 12, I can tell you that it really is such a game changer. Transitioning from Year 11 to Year 12 I really tried to focus on not being so stressed, and when I actually implemented certain techniques for this, I saw my ranks shoot from 30-40 to top 10. It wasn’t that I studied more but I actually made certain plans to deal with stress.
To be honest, the school wellbeing sessions were not it. But that doesn’t mean to be entirely opposed to reaching out to others. Sometimes it’s so important to take a step back from studying and actually talk to someone. Whether that be your family, friends, a professional or even teachers. They can be there just to listen or even give a new insight to your problems that actually end up having a big impact. But just reach out to someone.
Another thing you can do to help with stress and anxiety is to actually have a plan. Coming back to the idea of micro-goals and the traffic light system, these strategies help you feel as if you are in control of your studies rather than being overwhelmed by them. And simply by being in that state you can significantly reduce your stress. But that also means don’t be too optimistic in your goals. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t dream big, I am all for that. Rather, we underestimate what can be done in a year and overestimate what can be done in a day. Your overall goal should be set at a high bar, but those microgoals should be more grounded.
Sleep Is Not the Enemy
Your stress tends to be at its peak just the night before an exam or the day of the exam. To tackle this heightened moment of stress, I would stick to a specific exam day ritual. Which would start the night before the exam.
I bet you know what I am going to say. Sleep is probably the most influencing factor on your exam performance. Without good sleep your cognitive function is significantly reduced. You may think that you can operate with 5-6 hours of sleep, but you’re not that special. Even research shows that people who feel like they can operate perfectly with less sleep are shown to have a weakened cognitive functioning, and are significantly more prone to making mistakes. So actually try and get that 7-8 hours of sleep every night. I’m saying all of this even though I didn’t really stick to it but at the very least I got 7-8 hours of sleep before every exam.
Your rituals can be something so weird and random that no one else could have the same routine as you. For example a certain number of breaths, or a certain movement to help you feel prepared. For me it was driving to school, which helped me detach from the exam paired with hyping myself up like crazy before an exam and for some reason drinking half a cup of milk. It could never be more than half and had to be the same IKEA cup.
A simple routine like that can really make such a big difference to your exam performance. So experiment and make your own ritual no matter how wacky or unique it is, anything that works for you.
REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW!
Personally for me, reviewing was the best way to study. This doesn’t mean just going through a paper you did and seeing what you got wrong or right, passing off your errors as “silly mistakes” but actually contributing each mistake to a certain issue whether that be ones made in class, in homework and of course in exams. For example, say you made a mistake in a chemistry past paper, specifically in calculations. It could be so easy to pass it off as a silly mistake, however you should first reattempt the question before looking for solutions then actually pinpoint where you got confused, and then link that to a certain subsection of the chemistry syllabus. This way you’re able to find out hidden topics that you may not be as good at as you thought you were.
Be relentless in your reviewing. If there is anything you could improve on, deduct that mark.
Also don’t only look for mistakes. Most of Year 11 I would only check what I got wrong, but by looking at the questions I got correct where I had to spend extra time, I was able to learn more. Why did I get stuck there, was it that I got flustered by the question or did I actually misunderstand a part of it.
You should be spending a good percentage of the time you spent doing an exam as you are reviewing it. Like if you sat a 3 hour physics exam, spend an hour reviewing it even if you got close to full marks because there are always areas to improve.
Don’t just stop there. After you have reviewed it, give it to someone else to review it, your best bet would be a teacher or a tutor, because they can give you extra insight that you wouldn’t have realised on your own.
Always try and find a way to review any practice session even if it seems like there’s nothing you can learn from it.
Conclusion
After that long read you just did, I really hope that you can take at least one of these lessons to heart and implement in your own study strategies.
The HSC may seem daunting at first, but if you shift your focus from avoiding failure to actively trying to improve yourself, I am sure that you will be able to overcome the journey.
And remember: failure isn’t the enemy!
