Smashing VCE: How To Study And Still Have A Life (No Planner)

VCE
How to study
and stil have a life
VCE
Smashing

SMASHING VCE:
HOW TO STUDY AND STILL HAVE A LIFE
Copyright © Ticking Mind 2014
All rights reserved.
Except under the conditions described in the
Copyright Act 1968 of Australia and subsequent
amendments, no part of this publications may
be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
First published in 2014 by:
Ticking Mind Publications, Northcote
ISBN-13: 978-0-9944258-3-6
Real name here:
super ego
name here:
(i.e. - the really awesome name you'd be
known by if you were a Hollywood star)

What’s Inside?
Section 1 ................................................... 1
Study Skills
• What is study?
• Creating good study goals
• Study goal diagram
Section 2 ................................................... 12
Core Study Strategies
• Strategies to help you understand
• Strategies to help you remember
• Strategies to help you do
Section 3 ................................................... 34
Subject Specific Study Strategies
• English
• Content subjects (e.g. Biology, Psychology, Business Management, Legal Studies,
Health and Human Development etc..)
• Maths
• Speciﬁc vocabulary for exam responses
Section 4................................................... 65
Planning your study to fit in with life
section 5 ................................................... 69
How Is Your ATAR Calculated?

SMASHING VCE: HOW TO STUDY AND STILL HAVE A LIFE 2
Section 1
Study
Skills
What is study?
Key point:
You need to understand the difference between homework and study
in order to study effectively
(kinda like you need to work out the difference between when it’s ok to sponge
off your friends or parents and when you need to do things for yourself)
Let’s be clear from the start: homework and study are quite different things.
Homework is any task your teacher gives you.
This might be:
• Holiday homework
• Homework you need to complete to get prepared for your
next class (like reading a chapter from your textbook)
• Tasks you started in class and need to ﬁnish at home
• Practice tasks such as essays or tests
Depending on your school, teacher or subject, you might get more or less homework
each week. But the important point is that homework is work set by the teacher
(this point is so important we put it in a different colour!) in order for you to:
• Get prepared for class or an assessment
• Practise a skill
• Revise or consolidate knowledge about a topic
Study has the same aims as homework.
The difference is that study consists of tasks YOU SET YOURSELF
(it’s in CAPITALS - it’s mega important!) in order to:
• Get prepared for class or an assessment
• Practise a skill
• Revise or consolidate knowledge about a topic
(the same goals as homework, who would have thought?)

3 SMASHING VCE: HOW TO STUDY AND STILL HAVE A LIFE 4
Just like a healthy diet of veggies is good for everyone, so too do teachers need
to serve up regular rounds of basic homework that benefit every student. In an
English class, the teacher might set the whole class a practice essay to complete;
in a Maths class, the teacher could give all the students a set of practice
questions, or in a Psychology class, the homework might be a practice exam
for everyone. But in all of those classes, each individual student has different
strengths and weaknesses.
Since no teacher has infinite time (yes, teachers have lives too - they don’t sleep
at school!), try as they might - they can’t continually create individual homework
tasks for each student targeted at that individual student’s strengths and
weaknesses.
So - wait for it - shock horror - students have to work out for themselves what
they need to do in addition to the homework tasks the teacher sets.
Yes - STUDY IS IN ADDITION TO HOMEWORK
AND YOU HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO
FOR IT YOURSELF.
Study could be getting better at writing introductions for English essays, being
able to complete Maths questions faster or writing more detail in a Psychology
exam. Whatever it is, the important point is that study for each student consists
of them working out: "What is it that I need to do to get better at this subject?"
Creating good study goals
There are two types of study goals:
There is an OUTCOME you want to achieve and then there is a STRATEGY you are
going to use achieve it.
Outcome goals are often big. For example, common outcome goals might be:
• I want to do well in VCE
• I want to get into a particular course
• I want to get a study score of at least 35 for a particular subject
All of these are outcome goals because they are what you want to achieve. But
because they are so big - it makes it difficult to know where or how to get started.
So we need to break down these big goals into smaller, more specific goals.
For example, a large outcome goal for English is:
I want to do better at English this year.
A more specific outcome goal is:
I want to get better at writing essays in English this year.

Work out what you don’t know
& what you can’t do
Effective study starts with having relevant study goals.
Most students waste their time by studying what they already know and are
already good at. This is understandable because it means that studying is easier,
but it makes no sense at all if the goal of study is to improve your knowledge
and abilities. So, having effective and relevant study goals starts with working
out what you don’t know and what you can’t do and what you need to aim to
improve.
At the end of the day, at the end of the year, you are going to be examined.
Therefore you need to get better at performing in an exam. Previous years’
exams (or SACs) are an absolute goldmine for finding out what you need to
know more about or do better. You can download all the exams from previous
for each of your subjects from the VCAA website here: http://www.vcaa.vic.
edu.au/Pages/vce/exams/examsassessreports.aspx
You’ll need to ask your teacher for copies of SACs from previous years. Use
these as a checklist - especially for exam revision (which should start at the
beginning of the year). Go through exams or SACs from at least the past three
years; for each task you are asked to complete, put a tick if you are confident
you could complete the task well, a question mark if you think you could do
part of it, and a cross if you’ve basically got no idea (to see how this method
applies to English, refer to the English checklists in the Subject Specific Study
Skills section).
Now, you have some focus points for your study. You know what you need to
study. The following strategies in this section and the next, will make it clear
how to study.
There are some study skills that are important in any subject - whether you’re
doing Biology, Health and Human Development, Art or History of Revolutions.
In this section, you’ll find a run down of five key study skills you can use in
pretty much every subject you do.
One way to break large OUTCOME goals into more specific ones is to think about
three basic areas you may want to improve in for each of your subjects:
Things I want to better understand:
These are the topics which you have some trouble fully understanding in class.
For instance, you might have trouble understanding the process of cell division in
Biology, different divisions of the nervous system in Psychology, or the structure
of parliament for Legal Studies. You’ll work out what topics you’re struggling with
in each subject as you go through the school year.
Things I want to do better:
These are the skills you need for each of your subjects. For example, you might
need to get better at essay writing for English, writing answers with examples
for Business Management, or being able to answer Maths questions in a certain
amount of time. You can figure out what you need to do better in each subject
by thinking back over the things you found difficult to do in that subject in the
previous year.
Things I want to remember better:
In many of your subjects you’ll need to remember names of things or people,
statistics, facts, examples, formulas or processes because you need to use them
or write about them in your exam or assessments during the year. You’ll work out
what you need to remember for each subject as you go through the school year.
On the following page is some more helpful advice for identifying
study goals.

Having an outcome for all your hard study is important - but more important are the
STRATEGIES you’re going to use to achieve these outcomes. Strategy goals are the
tasks you set yourself to achieve a particular outcome. For example, if you have a goal
of getting a study score of at least 35 in maths methods, then your strategy goal
might be to do at least one hour of study for maths methods each week night.
When students set strategy goals, they often revolve around doing something
‘more’:
• I’m going to do more study
• I’m going to study for three hours every night
• I’m going to be more organised
But these common strategy goals aren’t very effective for two reasons:
• They’re vague - (what does being ‘more’ organised actually mean?)
• They’re hard - (can you seriously go from doing little or no study to doing three
hours of study each night?)
Simply setting yourself the goal of doing ‘more’ of something isn’t going to cut it. We
need to set more specific strategy goals. If only there was a book about study that
gave such handy advice (where could we get one of those?).
Of course - this book is it.
Good goals are:
Specific, Relevant
& Achievable
In the next chapters there’ll be lots of suggestions about specific strategies you can
use to achieve outcomes. But we know you’re burning for some tips now, so here’s an
important one:
Set a STRATEGY goal that you can do in 5-15 minutes.
Think about it like this. If you want to get better at playing a game of football, you
need to get better at a whole lot of individual skills such as marking, kicking, running
and handballing. So you need to have a STRATEGY goal for improving each of these
things, just as you do in the subjects you study in school.
This means that you need to think more specifically about an aspect of a skill or topic
that you can practise or cover in a short period of time.
To return to the English example, we could say, I want to get better at writing essays
in English by:
• Understanding the symbols in the text (so I’ve got more to write about)
• Being able to remember a range of good examples
• Being able to do better introductions
In the next few sections of this book, there are lots of suggestions about
specific strategies you can use in your study. There’s one section on ‘Core
Study Strategies’ you can use in any subject to:
• better understand things
• remember things better
• do things better
There’s also another section for strategies which are specific to particular
subjects.
But for the moment, let’s recap about setting effective goals. So you can visualise
the process in your head, we’ve got a nice diagram which you can see on the next
page. It will help you visualise the process of setting goals and then breaking them
into smaller goals and strategies. Have a go at filling it out now. During the year, some
of your goals will change - so you can download a blank copy of the chart from here
whenever you want to fill it out again: www.tickingmind.com.au/study-goals

2
Then, think about subject outcomes:
What do I want to achieve in each of my subjects
this year?
study goal diagram
Subject 1:
Subject 2:
Subject 3:
Subject 4:
Subject 5:
Start with the big outcome:
What do I want to achieve overall this year?1
Then, think about what specific
things you need to know, remember
or do better in each of your subjects
Finally, what are the strategies
you're going to use to improve?
Subject 1:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Subject 2:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Subject 3:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Subject 4:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Subject 5:
1.
2.
3.
4.
3
4

Section 2:
Core study
strategies

Part 1:
Strategies
to help you
understand
this strategy will help
you before you start
a topic in class
PREVIEW CONTENT
Believe it or not, study to help you understand a topic doesn’t always need to take
place after you’ve started the topic in class. You can stop looking at cat memes and
think about a topic before your class starts to do it. Yes - really, you don’t have to
wait for your teacher! Why? Well there’s one simple reason: the more you already
know about a topic (the technical term for this is prior knowledge), the better you
learn new information about that topic. For example, let’s say in Health and Human
Development the upcoming unit is ‘Promoting Health In Australia’. If you already
knew something about health initiatives in Australia, you would more easily take on
board all the new things you’ll learn about promoting health in the upcoming unit.
Here are two basic things you can do to preview content before your class starts a
new topic:
• Read through the opening part of the chapter on the upcoming unit from your
subject’s textbook
• Do some basic research and get on Youtube or Wikipedia to ﬁnd some
introductory material

These strategies will help
you during and after
covering a topic in class
ASK QUESTIONS
Here’s a newsflash for you: you get answers by asking questions. Seems simple,
doesn’t it? Yet so many students never really understand topics they’re doing in
class because they never bother to turn what they don’t know about a topic into
a question. As a study strategy, asking questions involves previewing content and
writing down questions about it or looking through content you’ve been covering in
class and writing down questions about it.
Here are the benefits from writing down questions:
• You’re more likely to listen to and understand explanations about particular
parts of a topic when you have questions you want answered
• You’re more likely to ask your teacher to explain something you don’t fully
understand
• You’re more likely to figure out answers to your own questions when you’ve
actually zeroed in on things you don’t understand
And here are some very basic words and phrases to help you ask questions:
First Question Word Second Question Words
Who
What
How
Where
Why
When
If
does?
doesn’t?
can’t?
else…?
is it important?
does…work with?
can…when?
then…why?
Summarise and
transform content
Key point:
Revision needs to be more active than simply highlighting key words
(like living needs to be more active than just breathing, eating and sleeping)
HIGHLIGHT, REVIEW, PRIORITISE AND SUMMARISE
Reading information from your textbook and highlighting it is one of the most basic
study methods that students use. However, it’s about as helpful as planning to fly a
unicorn to school.
This is why:
• Simply reading and highlighting information doesn’t necessarily mean you’re
actively processing the information (you have to make your brain work for it)
• Not everything you highlight when you first read through some
information is equally important
The more of a workout you give the old noggin when you study - the better you’ll
remember and understand things - just like the harder you work at the gym, the
bigger your abs get.
The summarisation technique below is simple - but far more effective than just
highlighting information:
1. Read through your textbook and highlight everything you think is important
2. After finishing the reading, review what you highlighted and prioritise what you
think is most important (tip: try circling only 50% of what you highlighted so
you’re really thinking about what is most important)
3. Summarise the information by using one of the methods below
WHAT-HOW-WHY
What, how and why are the three most important questions that need to be
answered about most of the concepts you’ll cover in your classes: What is it? How
does it work? Why is it important? After reading through some information, you can
summarise the topic by answering these questions with dot points or in complete
statements. Depending on the nature of the information you are reading, you might
extend the

What-How-Why questions to: What is it (and what is an example)? How does it work
(and what is an example)? Why is it important?
An alternative way to carry out this study strategy is to read through the information
you’ve set yourself for study, close the book/put the information away and then
brainstorm as many important words as you can about the topic you just read. The
action of remembering or thinking back over what you just read is a much more
powerful study strategy than simply re-reading - because it makes the brain work
harder.
Once you’ve brainstormed a list of words, you can then divide them into three
categories (each word can only go in one category).
Words that answer the question:
• What is this?
• How does this work?
• Why is it important?
CHEAT SHEET
Some of your subjects will let you bring cheat sheets into your SACs, and some even
will let you bring them into your exam - but most won’t. Whatever the rules for the
subjects you do, creating a cheat sheet that you would take into a SAC or exam with
you if you could is a great way of living this dream and studying at the same time.
Here’s one way to create a simple cheat sheet:
1. Take an A4 sheet of paper and fold it in half four times. Unfold the whole page
and you should now have 8 sections on the A4 page.
2. Look through what you’ve highlighted in the information you’ve read and:
• Summarise 8 important things in the 8 different sections on the page;
Or
• Categorise what you’ve read into two subtopics and create a heading for each
subtopic at the top of the two columns formed by folding your page. Then
summarise four important things about each subtopic within the sections.
3. With the written part of the page face up - fold the page in half, so one half of
the blank side of the page is now on the outside facing you. Summarise what
you wrote on the previous whole page into the four boxes on the new half page
- selecting only the most important things.
4. Repeat the process, folding the page in half again, so now you only have two
blank squares. Summarise what was most important from the four squares into
the two blank squares.
The strength of this study strategy is that you need to repeatedly summarise and
prioritise what is most important to remember -two of the key factors in ensuring
that information sets like concrete in your long term memory.
GRAPHICALLY REPRESENT
Visually representing information is an excellent way of actively processing written
information. This works best by picking an appropriate ﬂowchart to summarise your
information. You can see images of different ﬂowcharts on the next pages.
Circular/Loop Flowchart

Sequence Flowchart
Interlinking Flowchart
START
DO STEP A
DO STEP B
DO STEP C
END
Branch Out Flowchart
Fish & Bone Flowchart
cause
PROBLEM
effect
factor 6factor 5
PRIMARY
CAUSE
SECONDARY
CAUSE
factor 4
factor 1 factor 2 factor 3
main
idea

REPRESENT IT IN TABLE FORM
Taking written content and summarising it in tables can be a highly effective way of
improving your understanding of information because it means you need to think
about how to categorise the information into logical parts. It will also really impress
your friends as super cool. You can see below that there are two basic ways to set out
tables (obviously you can change the number of rows or columns to suit your needs).
The ﬁrst way includes a Physical Education example, the second way has a Legal
Studies example.
Table with column headings
Category 1
(i.e. Warm up phase)
Category 2
(i.e. Conditioning phase)
Category 3
(i.e. Cool down phase)
Table with column and row headings
Category 1
(i.e. Laws it can pass)
Category 2
(i.e. People governed
by the laws)
Topic 1
(i.e. Federal Parliament)
Topic 2
(i.e. State Parliament)
Topic 3
(i.e. Local Council)
WORD GRID
The word grid strategy is a simple and effective way of both summarising information
you have revised and practising the use of key vocabulary. This technique is useful for
when you need to practise writing short answer responses.
1. After you have looked at some information, write down a key topic word along
with eight other important and related terms to the topic word
2. Create a three by three grid, placing the key topic word in the middle of the
grid and writing the other words randomly in the other squares such as in this
example below for Health and Human Development (Unit 3):
Australia promotion mental health
obesity NATIONAL HEALTH
PRIORITIES
population
risk factors cost individuals
3. Now, look at the three words in the top row. Put all of these three words into
one statement that is somehow relevant to the key topic word. You don’t need
to use the words in the order they appear and you can use other words.
For example, the three words in the top row of the word grid above are:
Australia, promotion and mental health. We could put these into a statement
that is relevant to National Health Priorities like this: Mental health has received
a huge amount of promotion in Australia in recent years.
4. Repeat this procedure for the second row of the grid, then the third row, each
of the columns and ﬁnally each of the diagonals.

Part 2:
Strategies
to help
you
remember
things
Spacing
Cramming in study is like doing all your exercise for the year in one day: you might do
ten thousand push ups, have a heart attack and die (and then you won’t be any fitter).
The opposite of cramming is ‘spacing’. This isn’t zoning out or traveling to the moon,
but doing small bits of study for a subject at different intervals of time. For example,
you might do 30 minutes of Health and Human Development study on Monday,
15 minutes on Wednesday and another 30 minutes on Saturday. The big benefit of
spacing is that it helps you remember things better. The memory part of your brain
is like a muscle - it will get stronger and fitter at recalling things from your subjects
when you exercise it in remembering those things over different ‘training’ sessions.
By spacing your study for a subject you can study more than one subject in an
evening or study session. One important thing: don’t move too quickly from one
subject to another or you risk multitasking which is spending small amounts of time
on different subjects or activities. Many studies have shown that multitasking leads to
poor student results.

Memorisation
Key Point:
There are many different techniques to help you memorise information
- but all of them require practice
(pretty much like putting on the perfect outfit)
Memory requires practice. This is why we are good at remembering how to tell the
time (we look at watches and clocks all day long), but often not so good at recalling
the names of all of the Russian presidents of the 20th Century. The memory
components of our brains have both a short and a long-term space. The short-term
memory space is good for remembering things for only (you guessed it) a short time,
like a shopping list, or a set of instructions that a teacher might give you. Usually in a
class, students are using their short-term memory so that they can follow instructions
and the conversation. And short term memory is only good for remembering, on
average, about seven different things. That’s not enough for an exam. So students
need to get used to moving information from their short term memory into the long-
term memory, where it will stick (like an annoying nickname). This is not something a
teacher can do for you. Sorry.
It’s fairly common for people to say, ‘I’ve got a terrible memory,’ to explain why
they can’t recall something, but usually people are really good at remembering the
things they are interested in. That’s why students who can’t remember any formulas
for physics can be really good at remembering all of the Kardashians’ names. The
people who know the Kardashians’ names will usually watch and re-watch episodes
(revise) and will discuss this episodes with their friends (more revision). That is, they’re
memorising this information by practising using/recalling it. If only there were a VCE
subject on the Kardashians.
So, what can you do?
PICTURE IT
Most of us are better at thinking of something if we can visualise it in our heads.
So get onto Google images and after you’ve finished looking at funny cat pictures,
create a picture that represents the formula or the concept. Type the formula or
concept underneath the image that you have created, so that you have a record
you can use to practise with. Alternatively, use flowcharts like the ones in the
summarisation section earlier in the book.
CARD IT
There are a huge range of apps and websites that allow you to create flashcards (yes,
there are things other than Temple Run in the App store) which you can print off as
hardcopies or put on any of your digital devices. Putting facts, formulas and key terms
onto flashcards creates a tool that you can use to help memorise the things you need to
remember and which you can use any old time, such as when you’re on a bus, waiting for
a train or simply have five minutes to spare.
CHUNKING IT
Phone numbers are organised into chunks of four (or three) numbers because it’s
difficult to remember a string of 10 numbers in a continuous line (unless you’re one of
those people who end up in the Guinness Book of Records who can remember all the
numbers in Pi). Three groups of numbers helps our brain work more efficiently. So,
when you are revising, group small pieces of information together under bigger ideas
or categories. Put the information into a table, a flow chart, or a mind map to help
you link the ideas together.
SING IT
Put important information to the tune of a memorable song. It sounds stupid - but
it works. This is even better if it’s not your favourite song (because using your fav as
a study tool will ruin it forever for you) make the tune to one of your parents’ most
irritating favourite songs and then they’ll be singing along with you. With any luck,
they will never want to listen to the song again after you’ve finished VCE. Bonus. You’re
welcome.
RAP IT
OK, this is a bit like the ‘Sing It’ technique, but you don’t need any singing skills for this.
Just recite the information you need to remember into an app called ‘autorap’ and
this app will transform the info into a rap for you. And then you can listen to it over
and over again. Joy.
RELATE TO IT
We are all intensely interested in ourselves (you know it’s true!), so it’s easier to
remember information that relates to our own lives. When we try to link the ideas we
are learning about to a previous life experience, we are far more likely to remember
them in the long term. Think of how each idea is like an event in your life,
or reminds you of something important.

Self testing
Key point:
Your brain knows it’s important to remember things when you self test
(like you know a llama hates you when it spits in your face)
One of the most important ways you can check whether your study is working is by
testing yourself. You should ideally test yourself at the end of each study session,
but we all know how easy it is to run out of time or for your brain to fade (the
medical term for this is having ‘brain fart’) by the end of a session. Fortunately, many
psychologists agree that you are better off testing yourself at random points anyway.
They also agree that Darth Vader is not real. So, here are a few suggestions to help
you with your self-testing.
CUT UP EXAMS
Download an old exam from the internet (ask your parents what this is if you don’t
know), and cut it up into individual questions. Whenever you have a spare five minutes
(waiting for the bus, just before dinner, or between dragon hunts) take out a question
from your bundle and answer it. Try to answer the question with as much detail as you
can. If it’s a multiple choice question, try to answer a couple at a time.
WRITTEN RESPONSES
It’s a bit harder to test yourself with exams that require longer written responses, but
you can write as much as possible within a short (5-10 minute) time slot. For an essay-
type response, you might try to test yourself by writing a single well-constructed
paragraph about a character, historical person, event, theme or symbol. You might
also try to respond to this sort of question by planning a possible essay with as much
detail and evidence as possible - see how much detail you can put on a page in five
minutes!
Group study
Key point:
Have a plan for how group study will be more beneficial than individual study
(like you should have plan for how you’re going to band together with others
when the animals inevitably rise up against humans)
Group study can be very effective, but it can also be an enormous waste of time;
successful study groups depend upon several things:
1. A group should be no larger than four to five students (ideally 3-4)
2. Each student must actively participate in the group (there is no room for spongers)
3. Each study session must have clearly defined goals
4. At least one person is responsible for bringing nachos
5. There must be a way of testing these goals at the end of the session
As we’ve already said - and will keep nagging you about - one of the techniques
that can have the biggest impact upon remembering is testing - the more you test
yourself, or the more others test you, the more you are likely to remember.
BASIC GROUP REVISION
When you get together, re-read a chapter (or section) of your textbook, and then
take turns explaining what you think the chapter is about. In order for this to really
work, you must be prepared to listen carefully to each other and ask for clarification
or further explanation when you think you (or the person speaking) doesn’t really
fully understand the concept.
GROUP TESTING
Using instruction words (look in the ‘Subject Specific’ section of this book for a more
comprehensive list) such as ‘Describe, Explain, Identify, Compare’, each member of
the group should write down three questions. As a group, you should pool these
questions and then everyone (including the person who wrote them!) should attempt
to answer the questions. At the end of this activity, you should compare answers,
discussing which answers you think are the best and why you think they are better.
Arm wrestles and paper-scissors-rock can be used to settle any disputes.
COME PREPARED
At the end of each study session, the group should set small homework tasks to be
completed before the next meeting. For example, you might ask individual members
to create a poster that explains a topic, or a quick power-point or Prezi outlining key
concepts. It’s great if you can use a range of different methods to present your
knowledge - for example, in a speech, with interpretative dance (no joke), rap,
visually, or anything else that works to the strengths of your group members.

Part 3:
Strategies
to help
you do
things
Timed tasks
Key point:
There are more efficient ways of developing the skill of completing tasks
under exam conditions than just through finishing whole practice exams
(like there are better ways of showing someone you like them than being all
arrogant and aloof around them)
An important skill to have for exams is to be able to complete tasks/answer questions
in a certain period of time and under pressure. However, since most exams go for two
hours (and the English exam goes for three), it’s difficult to get excited about sitting
down and completing a whole practice exam (although you should certainly do this
close to the end of the year).
But practising completing tasks under exam conditions doesn't mean you need to
put aside all those precious hours from your important social lives to complete an entire
exam in one sitting. In fact, separating out different sections of an exam, or even
different skills you need to complete various sections of the exam, can be a much
more efficient method of honing your exam skills than finishing a whole exam.
These three suggestions below are things that can be completed in 5 minute, 15
minute or 30 minute blocks under exam conditions:
• Practise doing the hard things well under pressure:
The harder tasks on an exam are worth more points and take more time. On
a practice exam, respond to the harder tasks in timed conditions. This might
not be all the hard tasks, it could be doing just one hard task in an appropriate
amount of time.
• Practise doing the easy things quickly:
Don’t get bogged down with the easy tasks that are worth few points.
Time yourself responding to them as quickly as you can.
• Practise doing as much as you can, as well as you can in a certain period of time:
Try completing a quarter or third of the tasks you need to do for an exam in
under a quarter or third of the time you have.
• Practise planning:
Some exams require extended pieces of writing. These need to be planned.
Develop a detailed plan in an appropriate amount of time.
It’s important to vary the amounts of time you spend practising tasks under exam
conditions (i.e don’t just do five minute chunks. If you only practise in short spurts,
you will not be preparing yourself for the extended concentration required in an
exam) You also need to reflect on what you did well and not so well. What you don't
do well should become the focus of future study.

5-10-15 minute
skill practice
When students are practising skills, they tend to waste time practising things they
can already do well (for instance, circling ‘C’ in a multiple choice question). The other
mistake students make is to reinforce bad habits by doing things in a way that is easy
but is not necessarily the best approach. Students often make this second mistake
when they keep rewriting essays the same way and never use their teacher’s feedback
to make their writing better.
Unlike studying content (like memorising facts and formulas), practising skills is
harder to get your head around. Students will say, ‘I need to practice essay writing’ or
‘I need to get better at doing exams’. These are big skills and you should practise them
especially before assessments and exams. But it’s not sustainable to practise these big
skills all of the time. And it’s not useful because it doesn’t allow you to focus on the
particular skills about essay writing that you need to improve.
No one wants to practise writing a whole essay every second day or do a practice
exam a couple of times a week. Elite sporting teams don’t practise playing whole
games between matches, so why should you? What elite sporting teams actually
do is break the whole activity of playing a match into smaller skills subsets they can
practise and spend short periods of time focusing on these. You can do the same.
Instead of writing a whole essay or a whole response to an extended answer question,
you can focus just on brainstorming and choosing the best and most appropriate
words and writing sentences that make sense, are sophisticated or link well. By
breaking big skills like extended writing into smaller skills, you can really zero in on
the specific parts of a bigger skill which you most need to improve. Take a big skill or
activity you need to do in any of your subjects, and try breaking it into small skills you
can practice for different periods of time. Look at the table below, and complete one
for each of your subjects:
Subject name:
Things I can practise in 5 mins
INTERLEAVING
Interleaving is a fancy word for ‘going from-one-thing-to-another-thing-and-then-
back-again’. It’s also a lot shorter than that word. In Maths, we would be interleaving
if we did some trigonometry, then some times tables and then returned to
trigonometry. In English, we would be interleaving if we practised writing sentences,
spent some time brainstorming and honing a vocabulary list and then returned to the
sentence writing drills. Researchers have found that students who rotate between or
interleave practice like this when they study do much better than students who sit
down and practise one skill for a big block of time. Like rotating between skill drills
at a sports training session, interleaving in study makes your brain fitter and more
agile (this means it can apply skills to new situations more easily) and also means you’ll
eventually be able to fly (sorry, not true!).
Here’s some more benefits of interleaving:
• It relieves boredom (yes, some students do get bored during study) because
you rotate between different things
• It means you can practise something that is really hard for just a short while
(see the next bit about Hard-Medium-Easy Tasks), take a break with something
easy from a different subject (or even the same subject) and then go back to
the really hard thing again
• It’s great for strengthening your recall of information (read about this in the
related study strategy of ‘Spacing’ in the previous chapter)
What this means for your study regime is this: put aside a chunk of time for studying a
subject (like an hour or two) but plan for interleaving your skill practice.

33
HARD-MEDIUM-EASY TASKS
Believe it not, students don’t like to practise hard things. Like everyone else, they like
to practise the things they’re good at (so find easy) and avoid things that are more
challenging. This might mean:
• avoiding doing complicated problems in Maths
• not writing about tricky things such as symbols and techniques in English
• ignoring longer writing tasks which ask you to ‘evaluate’ or ‘justify’ in subjects
such as Legal Studies, PE, Geography or Business Management
Since you’ll be asked to do hard things in your exams or assessments, you need to
practise them. But hard things are so hard! Well, one thing you can do to make hard
things not so hard is to only do them for a short period of time - until they become
easier. To help you do this, divide tasks for your subjects into categories - hard,
medium and easy tasks - and rotate between studying or practising them. So you
might spend 15 minutes on a hard task, do something easier for a while, back to
something hard, then finish off with a more medium level activity. Below is a basic list
of things which can be easier through to harder in your subjects. Your task is to make
a specific list of easier, medium and harder things and use this as a checklist to make
sure you’re regularly practising skills at different levels of difficulty.
Tasks
Easy Memorising information
Re-reading / reviewing information
Completing these types of instruction tasks: define,
describe, label, identify, list
Medium Planning responses (but not writing answers)
Processing information in tables and flowcharts
Completing these types of instruction tasks: explain, outline
Hard Writing out longer answers
The tasks worth most marks in your exams
Completing these types of instruction tasks: justify, evaluate
Section 3:
Subject
specific
study
Strategies

Key point:
While there are basic study strategies you need in all subjects, there are
also specific strategies you need to have for each individual subject you do
(like you’d need different strategies to fight a zombie unicorn than you would
to fight a transformer)
The last section looked at study strategies that could be used in any subject. This
section focuses on strategies that are more specific to particular subjects. The
specific strategies outlined in this section should be used in conjunction with the
more general strategies. It is not enough to know the content of each subject, you
also need to know how to explain it and how to use language so that your answers
are clear. That's what this section is about.
English
One of the subjects students find hardest to study for is English. There are two
reasons for this; One of them is that students tend to think that the exam is so long
that it’s impossible to study for (just like it’s hard to get excited about training for a
marathon). Another is that it seems like the only thing you can do in your study for
English is write essays. The simple truth about both these perceptions is that they’re
dumb.
Studying for the English exam can be short, specific and achievable. Over the next
few pages are some checklists for each area of study in English.
To use these checklists:
• Mark where you currently are for each skill
• Set goals to improve in these areas
For each of these, aim to improve your skill level by at least one checkbox each
English study session
THINGS I NEED TO KNOW TO WRITE WELL
Text Response Yes
Sort
of
No
I’m familiar with the text as a whole
I’m familiar with a variety of obvious and less obvious
examples
I can respond to not just easy questions about the
text but harder ones about how an author or director
constructs the text
I know how to respond to each of these types
of topics
I understand all the main techniques and symbols
in the text
I know a range of quotes

THINGS I NEED TO KNOW TO WRITE WELL (CONTINUED)
Compare and contrast Yes
Sort
of
No
I’m familiar with both texts as a whole
I’m familiar with a variety of key examples and ideas in
each text
I know a range of ways the two texts can be
compared and contrasted
I know a range of quotes from both texts
Analysing argument Yes
Sort
of
No
I’m familiar with a range of different persuasive text
types
I know how to break a persuasive text into different
sections and identify the purpose or argument of
each section
I know how to select effective examples of persuasive
language to analyse how an author logically
constructs their argument
I know a variety of different verbs I can use to
describe that the writer does and how the reader
responds
I know a variety of different sentence types I can use
to analyse how a writer is being persuasive
I know different elements of a visual I can focus on to
analyse how it connects to the written arguments of
a text
I know how to structure an analysis to compare how
arguments are presented in two or more texts
EAL Listening Task Yes
Sort
of
No
I’m familiar with a range of audio formats such as
interviews, speeches and presentations
I know a variety of abbreviations I can use to take
notes as I listen to audio
I’m familiar with the types of questions I’ll be asked to
respond to
I know what good responses to tasks asking me to
‘explain’ how someone spoke look like
Skills I need to have to write
well in each area of the exam
Yes
Sort
of
No
I can write a detailed essay of between 700-800
words
I can write an essay by hand within an hour
I can develop effective plans quickly and structure
my essays logically
I can connect sentences with a range of linking words
I can write longer sentences which elaborate upon
ideas in my essay
I can use a variety of sentence structures in my essay
I can insert evidence seamlessly into my essay
I can write analytically all of the time (and not retell
the text or persuasive piece)

Content subjects
Content subjects are subjects in which you need to understand and recall lots of
information - such as science, humanities and health science subjects. Two of the key
study methods you’ll need to use in these subjects are summarising information and
testing yourself on your recall and understanding. One effective way you can do
both of these things is to use instruction words. Instruction words are words like:
explain, describe, list and evaluate and they usually go at the start
of instruction tasks like this one from Legal Studies:
Describe one difference between conciliation and arbitration as dispute
resolution methods.
In subjects which have short answer and longer answer questions in their exam (which
is most of the subjects you do), these instruction words make up a significant number
(if not all) of the tasks you are required to complete. Listed in the following pages
are common instruction words for the most popular VCE subjects. When you’re
studying for one of these subjects by revising a particular topic, you can summarise
information and test your recall of information by picking an instruction word and
creating your own instruction task. For example, if you’re studying cells for biology,
you might create these tasks:
• describe a cell
• list the features of a cell
• explain the process of cell division
• compare different types of cell organelles
Creating your own instruction tasks to complete has the benefit of not only providing
meaningful summarisation and test tasks, but also of creating tasks that could be very
similar to or exactly the same as tasks you will end up getting on your exam (in which
case you’d yell out ‘Booyah!’ loudly in the exam room).
To help you come up with good instruction tasks, you can combine a word from
the ‘instruction word’ column along with a word from ‘other common instruction
task words’. ‘Other common instruction tasks words’ are all words that feature again
and again in exam tasks. For example, ‘features’ and ‘process’ are common words in
science exams, which means the ‘describe’ task above for a cell, might actually read
‘describe the features of a cell’.
Accounting
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Record
Complete
Explain
Show how
Prepare
Justify
Discuss
Select
Outline
Identify
Suggest
The importance of
Assists
General journal
The purpose of
With reference to
The memo
The correct valuation
The accountant’s statement
The profitability
The implications of
Most appropriate
Expense
The trend
Features
Strategies
Benefits
Negatives
Giving two examples

Biology
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Explain
Predict
Name
Describe
Suggest
Justify
Complete
Outline
State
Give
Deﬁne
The difference between
The importance of
The role
One reason
An hypothesis
Characteristics
Features
Events
Results
Function
Factor
Method
Occur
Similar
Evidence
Business Management
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Deﬁne
Explain
Identify
Describe
discuss
Refer to
Outline
Compare
Discuss
Describe
Evaluate
Management process
Management role
Management style
The role off
Effects
Methods
Management skills
Change
Characteristics
Postive
Negative
Consequences
Key aspects
Theory
Driving forces
Describe one/two
Identify one/two
...with reference to...

Chemistry
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Draw
Write
Calculate
Identify
Name
Suggest
Give a reason
Give an example
Outline
Determine
Review
Explain
Justify
Discuss
Systematic names
Percentage
One way
Limit
Formula
Function
Measured
The structure
Structural formula
Safety procedure
The expression
The type
A reason
Percentage
Mass
Ratio
Equation
Experimental design
Improvements
Modiﬁcations
English Language
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Describe
Explain
Write an analytical commentary
Discuss
Identify
Using metalanguage
The register
The function
Using two
Refer to
Discourse feature
Information ﬂow
Lexical choices

Food Studies
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Provide
Deﬁne
Describe
Explain
Outline
Select
Name
Identify
Reasons
The process
The impact
The term
Strategies
Sustainable farming practices
Functional properties
Factors
Producers
Consumers
Difference
Ethical considerations
Hazard
Corrective action
Role
Beneﬁts
Steps
Advantages
Driving forces
Health & Human Development
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Give one example
Outline
Select one example
Identify one trend
Explain one difference
Outline two priorities
Describe
Describe one reason
Describe the progress
List two examples
Identify one type
Identify two principles
State two ways
Discuss
List
Use two examples
Provide one example
Draw a conclusion
Compare
Describe a program
Discuss two factors
Examples
Program
Factors
Principles
Type
Difference
Trend
Determinant
One other
Contribute
Priority
Progress
Improvement
Legislation
Dietary guidelines
Initiative
Sustainability
Objectives
Principles
Program
Cost

History (Revolutions & Australian)
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Identify
Explain
Evaluate
To what extent
Groups
Ways
Features
Accurate depiction
Consequences
Descriptions
Measures
Cause
Examples
Factors
Contribute to
Ideas
Reasons
Signiﬁcance
Languages (Section 3)
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Write
Imagine
Explain
Point of view
A story
An article
A journal entry
A letter
An informal letter
Using at least ﬁve arguments

Legal Studies
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Outline
Describe
Justify
Identify
Explain
Define
Select and outline
Discuss
Evaluate
Compare
Analyse
Difference
Effect
Principle
Factor
Sanction
Method
Term
Significance
The extent
Change
The role
Reason
Types
Reforms
The effectiveness
Features
Elements
Media
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Describe
Analyse
Use one of the texts you have studied
this year to discuss…
Discuss
Define
Describe
Identify
Explain
Compare and contrast
Outline
Specific example of
The function of
Production element of
Use specific examples from
your text
Resolution
Narrative texts
The term
Dominant value
Two texts
Discourse
Communication model
Two arguments
Genre
Social issue
Society’s values
Media form
Story element
Audience

Physical Education
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Outline two advantages
State benefits / negatives
Explain how
Justify your answer
Name one
Explain why
Describe
Outline advantages
Suggest a suitable
Identify one
List
Name
Identify
Provide
Select
Advantage
Benefit
Measurement
Harm
Performance
Cause
Example
Energy system
Guidelines
Strategies
Impact
Differences
Increase
Factors
Changes
Physiological
Training program
Method
Product Design & Technology
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
List
Explain
Define
Describe
Identify
Justify
Use an example
Discuss
Risk management
Questions
One attribute
Aspect
Problem
Concept
Environmental benefit
Standards
Potential client
One form
The difference between
Product design factor
Constraint
Material
Requirements
Benefits
Component
Production
Method
Communication technique
Parameter

Psychology
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Describe
Explain
Give
Suggest
Identify
Discuss
Name
Use an example
Provide
Include
Function
Changes
Beneﬁt
Example
Ethical principle
Factor
Brain plasticity
Response
Limitations
Symptoms
Possible
Reasons
Results
Components
Operant conditioning
Procedure
Experiment
Studio Arts
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Discuss
Explain
Compare
Analyse
Describe
The artist’s use of
Techniques and processes
The different considerations
How the artist has used
Conservation considerations
Aesthetic qualities
How a curator
Exhibition designer
Has employed
Legal obligations
Ethical considerations
The role of
Cultural contexts
Conservations and preservations
methods
Two artists you have studied
Artistic practices

Maths
Most study guides will tell you that the best way to study maths is by doing maths -
practising problems again and again. And this is sensible advice. But since this isn’t
most study guides (have you noticed the hilarious gags?) - we’ll give you three more
good tips you can follow to study for maths.
CREATE TASKS:
Like the content subjects that were discussed earlier, maths exams are made up of a
significant number of instructions. One way you can prepare yourself for the exam
and practise doing problems is by creating your own instruction tasks. On the next
page are instruction words and other common words from both Further Maths and
Math Methods (CAS). Use these to create your own exam style tasks.
DO STRENGTH TRAINING
There will always be questions in maths that you find relatively easy and ones you
find relatively hard. Strength training means that you put more time into practising
the hard questions than you do practising the easy questions. If you’re looking at
problems in your textbook or an old exam, instead of simply starting from the first
question and working all the way through, scan through all the questions, tick the
ones that you know instantly you can do fairly easily/quickly, put a wavy line next
to the ones you might find tricky and put a question mark next to ones you know
you’d find hard. Structure your study session then by putting most of the time into
practising the hard questions. Finish your study session with some time spent on the
easy questions.
EXPLAIN PROCESSES
Working out problems in maths means following a series of steps. This means knowing,
understanding and being able to remember the steps. It makes sense then that an
important maths study strategy isn’t just doing problems but explaining the processes
you use. When you explain a process, it means that you’re more likely to understand it
and remember it. In a maths study session, to explain a series of steps you are taking
to figure out a problem, you could:
• Write dot points explaining the steps
• Create a flow chart/diagram visualising the steps
• Explain the steps out loud to yourself (or record your explanation)
• Verbally explain the steps to someone else (an excellent group study technique)
• Carve out a mural from stone showing how to do the problem (kidding!)
Visual Communication design
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Discuss
Describe
List
Explain
Identify
Discuss
Identify
Evaluate
Characteristics
Features
Design principles
Design process
Resource
Example
Impact
Designer
Effectiveness
Requirements
Consideration

Math Methods (CAS)
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Find
Write
State
Calculate
Express
State
Show
Maximum
Minimum
Period
Amplitude
Expression
Value
Rate
Length
Height
Form
Smallest
Biggest
Coordinates
Probability
Correct
Further Maths
INSTRUCTIONS
OTHER COMMON
WORDS
Write down
Interpret
Calculate
Apply
Determine
Describe
Determine
Show
Find
Explain why
Use the information in the table to
Residual
Percentage
Slope
Regression line
Association
Standard score
Calculation
Area
Number
The least/most
Appropriate calculation
Value
Distance

Analyse: For English and Literature when writing about texts
About
characters
About devices,
symbols or
techniques
About the
author, text or
themes
About the
reader
changes
transforms
exists
struggles
seeks
decides
acts,
lives
feels
believes
commits
achieves
serves
functions
establishes
depicts
emphasizes
captures
reveals
contrasts
juxtaposes
parallels
indicates
creates
suggests
explores
describes
shows
presents
reveals
questions
demonstrates
suggests
We/the reader/
audience/
viewer….
…come to
understand
…see
…realise
…accept
…know
…feel
…judge
Analyse:
For all other subjects as well as the Analysing Argument component of English
accentuates
achieves
causes
cites
creates
combines
connects
contends
demonstrates
denotes
depicts
displays
emphasises
enables
establishes
evinces
explores
functions
highlights
illustrates
indicates
influences
points out
portrays
presents
projects
prompts
provides
refers
reflects
relates
represents
reveals
serve
shows
suggests
supports
tells
Specific vocabulary
for exam responses
Believe it or not, different types of written tasks in your exams require specific styles
of vocabulary. For example, if you are asked to explain (as you might be in Health
and Human Development, Business Management or Biology) you need to use words
such as: first, secondly, finally, because, and, with, through and which. This is because
explain tasks are asking you to describe in some details the individual parts, elements
or processes of a whole thing. However, if you do subjects where you are asked to
analyse something (such as in Art, English Language, Media, History, Literature or
English) you need to use strong, interesting action words (verbs) like: emphasises,
illustrates, depicts or suggests. This is because analysis requires you to focus on how
something occurs. Below are some specific vocabulary words that can be used for a
range of common instruction tasks across different subjects.
Explain
Words to explain parts
of a whole thing
Words to link Words to add detail
stage
type
step
form
factor
mode
method
reason
cause
outcome
result
before
as
next
after
finally
leading to
resulting in
causing
creating
and
also
with
which
through
by
for
because
since
in order to

Discuss:
These words are often used in conjunction with ‘provide an example’ and
‘explain words’
Words to introduce an
alternative point
Words to introduce an
additional point
Words to introduce a
result or outcome
although
while
despite
however
conversely
on the other hand
in contrast
yet
but
furthermore
moreover
additionally
not only…but also
both…and
consequently
ultimately
in the end
therefore
thus
hence
Provide An Example:
Words to introduce an example at the
start of a sentence
Words to introduce an example within
a sentence
One example of…is…
For example…
For instance…
An illustration of this is…
Evidence of this is in…
Proof of this is…
A case in point is…
such as
when
demonstrated by
evident in
shown by
shown through
illustrated by
Evaluate:
Positive words Negative words Words to
highlight
importance
Outcome words
most
best
better
greatest
successful
efficient
effective
least
worst
failure
unsuccessful
inefficient
ineffective
important
essential
critical
valuable
powerful
influential
significant
achieve
develop
influence
produce
provide
cause
create
lead to
improve
result
outcomes
goals
improvements
causes
affects
development
action

Section 4:
Planning
your study
to fit in
with life
There are three pretty basic steps to planning your study effectively:
• Working out what commitments you already have in you ‘life’
• Working out how you will fit in your current homework tasks (remember,
homework is NOT study)
• Working out exactly what you want to achieve in your study time
If you can’t follow these steps, you’re probably one of those people who often
puts their t-shirt on inside out.
STEP 1:
Work out when you can study by going through your school diary or the calendar
app on your device and filling in all the commitments you have outside school (work,
sport, family, friends - The Game of Thrones episodes you absolutely need to watch)
for the next week. All the blank spaces left outside school times AND THE STUDY
PERIODS YOU HAVE INSIDE SCHOOL TIME are now available FOR HOMEWORK
AND STUDY.
Wait - just read the last part of that sentence again: THE STUDY PERIODS YOU HAVE
INSIDE SCHOOL TIME are available FOR HOMEWORK AND STUDY.
STEP 2:
Make a list of all your subjects and the homework you need to do for these subjects.
It’s important to prioritise homework because these are the things your teachers
have worked out are necessary in order for you to be prepared for class. On your
calendar, fill in where you will do your homework for each subject.
STEP 3:
Make a list of all your subjects and a specific study goal for each of them. For
each goal, identify a particular strategy you can use and the time it’s likely to take
(remember, some strategies take 5, 15 or 30 minutes). On your calendar, fill in where
you will do your study for each subject.
See an example of these three steps on the next couple of pages.
Oh - there’s a fourth step:
STEP 4:
Do this every week so you get into the habit of organising your time.

67 SMASHING VCE:
MON TUES WED THUR FRI
Before
school
Study
session 1
Study
session
(Psych H/W)
Study
session
(Legal H/W)
Study
session
(Maths H/W)
Study
session
(Psych
Study)
Study
session 2
Study
session
(Psych H/W)
4:00-
5:00
Work Sport Work
5:00-
6:00
Work Sport
6:00-7:00 Dinner Dinner Dinner Dinner Dinner
7:00-
8:00
Legal Study Maths Study Eng
Study
TV Revs study
8:00-
9:00
TV Eng
Study
TV
9:00-
10:00
Maths Study
SAT SUN
morning Sport Eng. Prac essay.
afternoon Work Family stuff
evening Revs H/W
Weekly Study Time Organiser
example
HOW TO STUDY AND STILL HAVE A LIFE 68
STUDY GOALS
subject what HOW
Eng. Develop written explanations of
ﬁve symbols from Cloudstreet -
What-How-Why
Further M. Revise matricies - using old exam questions.
Psych. Revise neural plasticity and
theories of learning
by writing about them with word
grids.
Revs. Summarise major factors cause
Russian Rev -
Use ‘card it’.
Legal Summarise key roles in the passing
of legislation -
graphic rep.
homework
subject what due
Eng. Complete prac. essay Next Tues.
Further M. Complete questions page 53 This Fri.
Psych. Read ‘intro to vision’ chapter By Wed.
Revs. Complete timeline Russian Rev Next week
Legal Find example of recent legislation Thurs.
Study Planner
example

Section 5:
How Is
Your ATAR
calculated?
Study
Score
1.
/50
english
Study
Score
2.
/50
Study
Score
3.
/50
Study
Score
4.
/50
THE
AGGREGATE
/210
Study
Score
6.
10%
Study
Score
5.
10%
TOP FOUR
UNIT 3&4 STUDY SCORES
Top four
For each subject you do in Units 3&4, you get a study score. This study score is out
of a maximum of 50 points.
Different subjects have different weightings for their SACs or exams, but every
subject is marked out of 50.Every single Unit 3 & 4 subject you complete (even
the ones you did in Year 11) contributes to your study score, but some are more
important. The three subjects you do best in, and whichever English you did best in
(it could be English, Literature, EAL or English Language) are called your ‘top four’.
Any other subjects you do contribute 10% of their study score.
The ‘aggregate’
The ‘aggregate’ is converted into a rank (so you can see how well you did compared
with everyone else). The very highest aggregate score you can possibly get is 210
(because 50+50+50+50+5+5=210). The highest possible ranking is : 99.95
This table shows how aggregate scores
generally turn into rankings
210=99.95
200=99.50
190=98.55
180=96.80
170=93.95
160=90.10
150=85.35
140=79.20
130=72.15
120=64.40
110=56.25
100=47.75
90=38.8
80=30
Anything below this is difficult to score.

71
EXAMPLE SCORES
student a student b
For example, let’s say a student got the
following results:
• English: 29
• Art: 42
• Psychology: 35
• Further Maths: 32
• Biology: 33
This student would have his ‘top four’
calculated from his results in English, Art,
Psychology and Biology (even though he
did better in Further Maths than English, the
English must be counted).
So, he would get:
29+42 +35+33= 139
and then 10% of the Further Maths score
would be added: 139+3.2= 142.2.
Another student may have done an extra
study in Year 11, for instance
• Literature: 25
• English: 26
• Mathematical Methods: 30
• Specialist Mathematics: 29
• Chemistry: 30
• (In Year 11) Physics: 27
This student would have her ‘top four’
calculated from her results in English,
Mathematical Methods, Chemistry and
Specialist Mathematics (even though she
did better in Physics than English, the
English must be counted).
So, she would get:
26+30+30+29=115
and then 10% of the Literature and Physics
scores would be added:
115+2.5+2.7=120.2
The important thing about this ranking (the Australian Tertiary Acceptance Rank), is
that it tells you how many people you beat in Victoria.
So, in the previous examples, the ﬁrst student would receive a ranking of somewhere
higher than 79.20, meaning that he scored higher than 79.20% of students in Victoria.
The second student would received a ranking of approximately 64.40, indicating that
she performed better than 64.40% of students in Victoria.
So even if you beat most of the people in your own school, what’s important is how
well you do compared to everyone else in Victoria (even if they had spent every
waking minute studying).
So, no pressure!
Top ten reasons
I am awesome:

Smashing VCE: How To Study And Still Have A Life (No Planner)

Smashing VCE: How To Study And Still Have A Life (No Planner)

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