Over the last week students have been getting results back from their trials, and starting to get back into studying, with an aim of preparing for the final HSC exams.
With that in mind this article will be covering what students should be focusing on as they get back into gear. This last week has also been a week of results for Art of Smart Education. Last Tuesday, at the Suncorp Western Sydney Excellence in Business Awards, Art of Smart was fortunate to win the Excellence in Starting a New Business Award for 2009, which was fantastic. With over 32 finalists in the field, and record number of nominations this year, the competition was tough, so it was great to get recognised and come out as a winner!
Getting back to the purpose of this article, I was working with a student, who I will call Michelle.
Michelle had a problem. She had constructed a comprehensive to-do list for each subject, and had begun working through the items on the list.
Despite spending a number of hours each night however, she was stuck on the 1st item, which was to complete her notes.
She related that due to the time it took her to complete the work she was concerned she would not get through all the items on her list that were necessary for her to excel in her final HSC exams.
She was worried. How should she structure her study? What should she study first? How could she improve the efficiency of her study during this next month?
My initial suggestion based on my research with 98+ UAI students was that she should make it a priority to complete her notes. As the HSC Trials have just passed, you should already have a good foundation for your notes. After evaluating your performance in your exams, go back through your notes, and improve upon them (and in doing so, improve your understanding of areas of weakness). As I have written in the past, creating comprehensive notes are vital to excel academically. Your notes should be your primary reference tool when studying, and hence, gaps in your notes leads to gaps in your knowledge and understanding.
As you improve your notes, sit down with the last five to ten years of past HSC papers, and for each topic in your notes, evaluate the common questions that arise in the papers. Patterns should emerge of common questions that arise frequently, or common variations of a type of question. Integrate these into your notes, with a worked model answer. This is important, as ultimately the HSC will examine not only your knowledge of the examinable content, but also your ability to apply it. Integrating this into your notes will increase your familiarity with these questions, but importantly teach you how to take your notes, and knowledge and adapt it to create a model answer.
Next week, I will cover how to lift your efficiency during this period, and what to focus upon next!
All the best,
Rowan
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