PRACTISE
Practise Exams
- Completing practise exams is probably the most important form of preparation and practise leading up to an exam
They expose you to the various different types of questions you can expect to face in the actual exam
- A lot of the questions you’ve completed throughout the school year have focused on teaching you the fundamentals of each topic
- In the exam, they are starting to test you to see if you are able to take these fundamentals and apply them to new situations you’ve never seen before
- This lets them see your deeper understanding of each topic and your abstract thinking skills
- Completing practise exams will help you build these skills, so you aren’t caught off guard in the actual exam
Practise exams will help develop your time management skills
- It’s not just enough to get the questions right, you have to do it within the time limit
- Using practise exams to simulate an actual exam and comparing how long it takes you compared to the allowed time period will let you know how your pace is
If your pace is slow, you will need more exam question practise
- More practise will mean solving questions faster and will bring your time down
- This can also help you develop and test out strategies for time management to figure out what works for you before the actual exam
Make sure you check when the curriculum of your subject was last updated
- Whenever a curriculum is changed, new topics could be added or old ones removed
- This causes practise exams before the change to sometimes be missing subjects you need to know or have extra added that you won’t have been taught
- You can still use these older exams for practise but please make sure you know which topics to ignore or topics that the older exams will be missing
Interpreting Questions
- When practising exams, make sure you’re practising your ability to interpret questions
The first two things you should identify are
- What is the situation being described and which topics does that relate to?
- What is the actual final answer the question is asking for?
- When you have identified both of these, you’ve essentially identified the questions starting point and the end point
- Now what you have to solve is how to get from one to the other
Having guides like glossaries of important words in each topic or action words in sentences can help you analyse and identify these two things
- Highlighting them as well as key numbers can help you organise your thought process and figure out how to get from the start and end too and avoid missing key information
An example of making sure you identify what the final answer would be is a question that asks you if
- How many apples does Mary have?
- Mark has 2 apples and gets 3 more
- Mary has 4 apples and gets 2 more
- Your calculations would show Mark has 5 apples and Mary has 6
- You still need to actually say that Mary has 6 apples as this is what the question is specifically asking you
- Make sure you don’t do all the calculations but forget to actually give a final answer
Bound reference Book (General Math and Math Methods)
- Your bound reference book is like your trusty side kick in the exam
- If you are having trouble with details on how to do a topic or are making mistakes because you’re panicking, your bound reference book should be the guide to help get you back on track
Make sure you use your bound reference book when you are attempting practise exams
You want to make sure you know where everything in your bound reference book is before the exam
- You don’t want the added stress of struggling to find the specific worked example that you’re looking for while under exam condition and time pressures
- When you go through the practise exams, if you find that your bound reference book is missing topics or if you got stuck on a question and there was nothing in your bound reference book to help. Then you’ve found something you can add to it!
- Make sure you keep updating it as you go through your exam practise
If you want to check if you can find things in your bound reference book fast enough
- Choose random questions from an exam or ask a friend to choose random topics and see how quickly you can find the corresponding topic in your bound reference book
- Remember that you should be averaging around 1 minute per mark on the exam
- How much of this time are you spending searching through your book?
Please look at our bound reference guide for detailed suggestions on making and structuring your bound reference book
Cheat Sheet (Math Methods and Physics)
- Similar to a bound reference, make sure you use your cheat sheet when attempting practise exams to see how useful it is
The difficult part is prioritising what is most important given the limited space available on your cheat sheet
- When you’re going through practise exams, take note of any topic or part of a topic you keep getting and expand upon it with more in-depth details
- If you have a bunch of examples on a topic you rarely need to look at your cheat sheet for, maybe try shortening it so it’s just a small reminder (you’d be surprised what you forget in the stress of an exam)
As you practise, you might find your needs might change
- Keep track of what you think you should add or remove but only update it every now and then
- Making a digital copy and cutting up the digital image can let you quickly remove, add or resize images as you go
- Also check what information is on any handouts that are given out in the exam
- Some
of your notes might already be on this sheet and could save you some space on
your cheat sheet
Make sure you check with the VCAA guidelines or your teacher what the allowed size for your cheat sheet is
Exam Provided Formula Sheets (General Math, Math Methods, Physics, Chemistry)
- These exams will provide some formula sheets of some basic formulas or the values of constants relevant to your subject
- Make sure you have a look at these before the exam because the formulas may sometimes be written in a form you’re not used to and can catch you off guard if you don’t see them until the exam
Calculator
- Some students tend to avoid calculator work throughout the year but you should really make sure you know all the functions you need to use, how they work and where they are on your calculator as well as some useful tips and tricks that can let you use them faster
Make sure you know how to
- Switch between approximate (decimal) and exact (fraction) of answers
- Switch between degrees and radians of angles (math methods and physics)
- How to use the answer button to quickly reuse a previous answer (This helps avoid rounding errors)
- How to press = or enter to repeat calculations (very helpful for general math recurrence relations)
Change the number of decimals shown in your answer
- You shouldn’t need to touch this but I’ve seen some students accidentally change this and haven’t known how to change it back
STRESS MANAGEMENT
Moderation/Self Care
- This probably goes without saying but VCE exam time will likely be one of the most stressful times in your education journey
Becoming excessively stressed and pushing yourself too hard can cause you to lose confidence, overexert yourself, burn out or start neglecting your health
- All of these can potentially hurt your studying and exam performance
- This is why it is important to practise some level of moderation and self-care in the lead up to your exams
Don’t try to do everything all at once!
- Make sure you plan out what you’re going to study and when
- Keep in mind that some exams will occur earlier than others so prioritise studying for those exams first
- Make sure you are still allocating yourself breaks in-between your studies and don’t neglect hygiene or eating
- If you are struggling with this, try asking your family or a friend to make sure you are sticking to a consistent and healthy study routine
Grounding techniques
- During your studying, or even the exam itself, if you find yourself becoming overwhelmed
- When overwhelmed, you’ll start to panic and potentially disrupt your ability to critically think and study/answer questions
- It is very important for both your studies and mental health that you are able to identify when this is happening to you
Grounding techniques will help you to calm yourself down, bring you back to reality and let you refocus on the task at hand
Mentally step away from the issue at hand
- Close your eyes
- Take a deep breath
- Count to 3
- Slowly exhale
- Repeat this 3-5 times
- Slowing your breathing tells your nervous system to calm down and counter your panicked fight or flight response
Something physical you can fidget with in your hands so you can focus on the physical sensation of touch instead of your stress is another way of grounding
- This can be something as simple as a pen with a fuzzy end which you could also bring into the exam (Check exam guidelines to be sure)
Talk to a friend or family member about your stress and your fears
- This will help you work through your feelings and help to ground you
- The person you talk to can often reencourage you and help you regain or boost your self confidence
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help! 😊
- There are plenty of other grounding exercises out there so if these don’t help, try and find one that works for you
IN THE EXAM
Evening Before Preparation
- Set an alarm well before you need to be at your exam (unless that would mean waking up absurdly early, don’t sacrifice sleep)
Make a list of everything you want to bring into exam and have backup pencils/pens
- Pencils
- Erasers
- Pens
- Calculator
- Highlighters
- Rulers
- Bound reference book/cheat sheets
- Drink bottle
- Etc.
- Gather everything together in a bag so you can easily grab it before you leave tomorrow
- Double check what you can bring into exams so you don’t have to worry about getting something confiscated
Make sure your calculator (if you can bring one) has plenty of charge
- For graphics calculators, leave it charging overnight. Better safe than sorry
Go to bed early!
- Don’t exhaust yourself studying all night, your performance tomorrow will only suffer from sleep deprivation
Morning Preparation
- Don’t sleep through your alarm!
Perform your normal routine and make sure you have a healthy breakfast and are hydrated
- You need energy to perform your best!
- Double check that everything on your list is in your bag
- Arrive to the exam early and chat with your friends to calm down before the exam
Don’t Panic
Remember the two most important rules for performing well in exams
- Don’t Panic
- I’m serious, Don’t Panic!
- If you start to feel overwhelmed and panicking, remember the grounding exercises we talked about before and use them to calm back down
Question Prioritisation
- Time is a very previous and limited resource in your exams and you need to make sure you’re spending it wisely
- Make sure you utilise you’re reading time to go read through all the questions quickly so you’re aware of everything you need to get done during your writing time and can help you plan accordingly
When you go to your writing time
Don’t get stuck on a question for a long time at the start
- This will cost you time that would be better spent on other questions you understand better
- I recommend that if you go to a question, write down everything you can answer off the top of your head
If you can’t answer the full thing or can only do part of the question
- Mark the question and move on
- This is not you saying you don’t know the question, this is you acknowledging that this question will take a bit more time to complete and you want to prioritise your time on question you are more confident in
- Don’t feel bad if you end up skipping half the questions this way, that’s completely normal with this method 😊
Once you’ve gone through the entire, go through your marked questions that you have a general idea on how to do and give them a decent shot
- Only skip past the questions you’re completely stuck on in the second time around
- At this stage you should have gotten most of the marks you should be able to confidently get and can now use the remaining time checking answers or attempting questions you’re not really sure how to do and maybe get a few bonus marks that way
Interpreting Questions
Don’t forget about the interpreting questions practise you did during your practise exams; this is when they will pay off
- Go back to the interpreting questions section in the practise chapter for more detailed explanation
- Remember to identify the situation of the question
- Highlight key words and values
- Remember to actually give the final answer that the question is specifically asking for
Good Luck!