So I couple of day

ys ago I sta
arted a thre
ead for the 2014ers to
o give advic
ce to us 2015ers and
it got over
o
70 repllies. I was going throu
ugh it myse
elf and deciided to get what I tho
ought were
the bes
st bits of it as well as advice
a
from
m a few oth
her threads by people that smash
hed their
HSC then summarrised it and
d categorise
e it based o
on specific topics.
t
Anyway
ys, here it is
i and hope
e it helps
Notes

use one main resource

e, but also refer
r
to ano
other resou
urce which has other
im
mportant sttuff
fo
or parts you dont und
derstand, use internett, others no
otes, Khan academy etc.
after each to
opic, skim through
t
oth
her textboo
oks/study guide/other
g
r peoples notes
n
to
o check you
u have cove
ered similar things
could use b
base notes then comp
pile own nottes from re
esources an
nd integrate
e into
b
base notes'
w
write
notes in your own words, it helps facilitate underrstanding

Getting
g ahead

trry to keep ahead

a
of yo
our class th
hat way in class
c
you are
a improvin
ng your
k
knowledge
o
of it and ha
aving discus
ssions at a higher leve
el

Past Papers

iff you are un

nsure of a question,
q
c
check
your notes and try
t to work
k out an ans
swer
b
before
looking at the actual
a
answ
wer
dont save' them till right before the HSC ca
ause you wont
w
get tim
me to do th
hem do them on stuff you are
a learning
g throughou
ut the year
tiime yourself
m
make
sure you
y
have ne
eat handwrriting
ta
ake advanttage of your teachers, get them to
t mark your PP's and
d give you
fe
eedback

Extra reading
r
(E
English, Hu
umanities)

to
o get an ex
xtra edge, read
r
widely
y so that yo
ou grasp the
e writing sttyle of
academics
re
ead novels to improve
e your English, but als
so read aca
ademic pape
ers such as
s
frrom academ
mia.edu and jstor.org
re
esearch top
pics could be
b topics su
uch as roma
anticism orr even spec
cific texts or
authors

English
h

Rote it, mak

R
ke sure you
u keep imprroving the practice
p
res
sponse though
G the hang of flexible
Get
e thinking with
w
ideas and snippe
ets of evidence before you
w
walk
in with a prepared
d essay you
u cant even mould to
o the questiion

Dont rote it for Module B as questions can be very very specific

State ranking essays have around 6 examples per paragraph
Memorise around 20-30 quotes per unit (incl related text)
You have to walk into the exam knowing pretty much exactly what you are
going to talk about

Consistently, Study Routines, Time Management

Crucial that you are consistent throughout the year

Consistency is greater then intensity - you need to keep going for the whole
year
general guideline for study - 2-3 hours a weekday incl. homework, 5 hours on
Saturday and Sunday
plan when you are going to study and pre-plan breaks
have an outcomes focus, every time before you study write a to do list of the
things you will do during the study period
REMOVE DISTRACTIONS
Have a focus of revision on the weekend and homework + note taking on
weekdays
Prioritisation is key - if homework is not valuable dont do it
Sleep, exercise, healthy eating key to avoiding burnout
Be disciplined, this is greater then motivation
Make a study schedule or use a daily to-do list
Go hard or go home - what are you doing to Advance your HSC journey today

Using a daily to-do list

If you are using a daily to-do list, on Sunday make a list of all the tasks you
want to achieve on each day of the week and not mandatory tasks but things
like essays, notes, PPs etc.
Aim for 3-4 tasks per day - one for each subject you had during the day
do extra tasks before mandatory ones otherwise you wont end up having time
for the mandatory ones
anything you dont compete finish on the weekend (so dont originally allocate
tasks for Sat and Sun)

Studying Techniques

Teachers others is the best way to study, can do 1 on 1 teaching with someone
at the same level as you, someone who knows barely anything about the
material to force you to know the basics well and be really clear
Practice papers and flash cards work well because you are practicing retrieving
the information
Take advantage of spaced repetition to increase memory retention - e.g. spend
10 minutes review what you learnt in each class per night and review same
content on the weekend
Past papers are everything, but dont save them until the HSC because you
wont get time to do them - do relevant questions as you learn stuff

Walk into your exam room with confidence, and not fake it till you make it
confidence but confidence gathered from familiarising yourself with the styles of
questions they can ask you, the style of answering questions (essential for
sciences), an impregnable knowledge of the syllabus and skeleton responses for
common types of question
It's essential to understand the mechanics of what is considered as a band 6
essay, short answer response and approaches to m/c. Learn from the best in
order to be the best. Especially crucial for English and Humanities

Goals

Set clear goals as to why you want to achieve certain marks and ATAR, and
make sure you know WHY you want to achieve these goals
Dont tell people your goals, its proven to make you less likely to achieve them
You could mess up or misread one question in one exam and that could change
your ATAR, marker could not like your essay, cutoff could increase etc. - set
goals that are decently above the cutoff and what you can achieve, don't aim for
90 if your course requires that when you could get 97 if you pushed yourself
Success builds on success. Confidence builds on confidence. Start conquering
your subjects early and you'll steamroll through the year. Get off to a shaky
start and you put yourself in an uncomfortable position. The key is to push
through until you reach another success. Smash your half yearlies and you'll be
golden.
Never give up, it is completely normal to mess up at least one assessment just
use it as motivation to work harder
You can stick up a goal on your wall, but what have you done to advance your
HSC journey today?

Holidays (in particular the Summer Holidays)

Make as many notes as you can, at least up to the half yearlies

Spending time finding related texts, annotating texts, writing essays for English
Math - in the summer holidays because up to 35% of the content of the HSC
exam can be from prelim make sure you have covered everything from prelim
really well and understand it all and do some more prelim practice papers
because you probably wont have time to do this during the year as you want to
focus more on the HSC content which is harder in saying that definitely do
some HSC maths stuff as well
Even if you spend 3 hours studying first thing in the morning 5 days a week,
then you will still have the rest of the day free and you will have done a lot of
work by the end of the holidays
You are not going to be out partying the whole holidays - in downtimes when
you would just be gaming or on your computer for like 5 hours use this time
wisely
You need to have a break as well so you dont burn out, and relax and reenergise for the year ahead