Bound Reference Guide

Bound Reference Rules

• Please make sure you check that your bound reference follows all the official VCAA rules
• Authorised materials and equipment - Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority

Binding The Book

• The main restriction of binding books and notes together is that they are permanently attached and contain only one spine

• Multiple exercise books or booklets can be combined into a single bound reference by simply taping the spines together

  • First hold 2 exercise books together and tape across their spine at the top, middle and bottom to hold them together ad in place
  • Repeat this process with the newly combined books with an additional exercise book or booklet until they are all held together
  • Once they are all held together, use strong and wide tape such as duct tape or cloth tape lengthwise down the spine to securely hold all the books together as one spine
  • For extra support, open the bound reference book to the point between each book and tape along the inside of the spine too

• If you have loose notes you want to combine into a booklet and added into your bound reference

  • You can staple them together
  • Go to office works and have them professionally bound together
  • This booklet can then be added into your bound reference as explained above

General Tips

• Make your bound reference yourself

  • Making it yourself lets you revise topics as you make your bound reference
  • It also means you’re familiar with what’s actually in your bound reference
  • If you just download one from the internet, you don’t actually know what’s in it  or where everything is and it won’t be helpful in a high stress environment such as the exam

• Make you bound reference as easy to navigate as possible

  • There is a constant time pressure in an exam, and you want to make sure that you can find what you need in your bound reference instantly
  • A contents page and labelled page numbers can help a lot

  • Adding coloured pages into your book can act like colour coded dividers between each chapter to make finding each chapter even easier

    • Make sure you do this in a way that still complies with the bound reference rules  (No fold out paper, removeable paper, etc.)

• Have a page or two of common formulas or numbers at the front of the book like a cheat sheet

  • Some parts of maths get used in lots of chapters
  • Having these common math formulas/concepts, etc. in one, easy to find place can help a lot

  • Examples include;

    • Algebra basics
    • Value of pi
    • Geometry/trigonometry formulas
    • Multiplying negative numbers
    • Converting to or from percentages
    • Fraction basics

• Have a glossary for each chapter

  • A glossary is a list of words and their definitions
  • Each chapter usually has specific terminology you need to use or understand and having an organised list will help you if you forget what a word means or if you can’t remember the name of the word that you want

• Clearly title and  label everything

  • You do not have a lot of time in an exam and finding what you need as quickly as possible is important

• Use colours and diagrams/pictures

  • Our attention is naturally drawn to things that stand out
  • Colour coding key words or important notes helps us notice them
  • If everything is black and white, nothing stands out and it is very easy to miss important notes in your work
  • Diagrams also draw our attention and can explain concepts more clearly and efficiently than writing sentences sometimes can

• Make sure your bound reference has both explanations of topics AND example questions

  • Topic explanations act as a quick overview of what a chapter is about and how to answer questions

    • Ideally, this should be enough to quickly explain how to solve a question in an exam or check if the exam question that you’re working on is about this chapter

  • If you have trouble with the chapter or the question is hard, the worked examples can then act as a step-by-step guide on how to solve questions

    • Make sure you clearly label each step, what you’re doing in each step and if possible, why
    • You can also make sure to add extra tricky worked examples that you think they might use in an exam to help guide you

Using templates to create a full bound reference

One way we recommend making a bound reference book if you work on it throughout the year is to use templates like we’ve provided and use them to fill a display book (the ones with the plastic pockets

Please note that at the end of the year, you will need to get all the pages professionally bound together before you can take it into the exam

• Filling in templates this way and filling out the book has a few main advantages over traditionally filling out an exercise book;

  • If you want to change the order of the book or add/remove pages from it, add extra notes or example questions, this can be done easily as the book isn’t bound together yet and you are free to modify or alter it as much as you want
  • The stack of pages can easily be scanned in a school printer to create a digital copy of your entire bound reference book, letting you share it with friends or create backups
  • You can print certain pages (like chapter title pages) on coloured paper to help you navigate through your book faster
  • Use of templates helps keep your notes consistent to make it easier to find the specific information you’re looking for in each chapter