How many do you do?

Author: Chris Ebbs

Year 12 is a pretty big year with many life-changing events all occurring at the same time.

One thing you can guarantee in year 12 is that you’ll probably receive more than your fair share of 18th birthday party invitations, and maybe host your own. Everyone seems to decide that this year they are going to have a big party and invite everyone they know.

Sometimes it feels like there’s one every weekend, or two if you’re really popular. 18th birthdays are really important to the person whose birthday it is – it’s the most fun they’re going to have all year! And though it is important to make time for your friends and have the chance to unwind, realistically it’s nearly impossible to attend every party and still achieve your study goals in year 12.

Let’s face it, there’s always pressure to attend every single party. You might feel FOMO if you didn’t go to one party and it turned out to be the most awesome party of the year. But if you want to succeed at school this year, you’re going to need to do two very important things you won’t do at any party: study and sleep.

Someone I know made a pact with their mum that they would go to one 18th a month. If you don’t have as much self-control as you’d like, perhaps ask your family to help remind you. If your friends won’t take too much study as an excuse, you can also enlist your parents for this: “I’m so sorry, but my mum won’t let me go.”

You most likely have all your SAC and exam dates for the rest of the year. It’s important to plan your year sensibly. It may help if you remind your close friends a few months out of the important times of the school year as well. This way if they are as conscientious as you are then they will consider this when setting the big date.

Taking care of yourself during year 12 means you should definitely attend some parties, but you probably can’t attend all of them. Finding the balance between different parts of your life is tricky, so try to remember that good friends are important, but study is important too.

Top tips to mix up your study session

Author: LWD Team

Feel like you are in a bit of a rut? Are things not sinking in? Do those words on the page look like a worm pizza gone wrong? Give these three tips a go to help beat the study brain drain.

1. Flash cards. I find that flash cards are a great way to study. They work best for content-heavy subjects where you need to remember facts, like history or biology. But you can also use them to help remember quotes or formulae. The process of making them is a great way to revise content – writing things down helps you remember them more easily.

Using small cards instead of writing notes onto A4 pieces of paper is a good way to split the information into bite-size chunks. You'll remember information more easily if you single it out.

Double-sided flash cards can be used on your own or with someone else. Ask you family to get involved in your study if they have time. Teaching content to someone else is one of the best ways to learn or revise it. Involving your family can also demonstrate to them that your study is important and confirm their place as part of your support team.

2. Sticky notes. You can also make single-sided flash cards like small posters to stick up in your study space. Short and sharp facts are important here. This can be very useful for maths formulae or reminders of things you have to do.

You can put them anywhere: around your desk, inside your books, on your windows, on the fridge... You could even stick them to the outside of the shower – just remember not to stand there for too long and waste all the water!

Using multicolour sticky notes is a great way to add a splash of colour and fun to your study. There are studies that suggest our brains retain more information when it is presented to us in colour. Read more here. 

But before you go sticky mad, make sure you have somewhere at home where there are no study notes. It's important that you have a place where your mind can take a break.

3. Don't waste time practicing things you already know. When you're studying, it can be tempting to go over the same thing multiple times. You can convince yourself that it's really important to practice the same thing over and over. And it feels good to know that you're really on top of a particular part of the course. But you are actually doubling your workload by wasting precious time on something you already know.

I know that there are things you're not so good at or just don't get. So take a deep breath, get some sticky notes, choose one of the tougher topics and launch into it.

Read the chapter in the textbook. Do the textbook questions. Do a related exam question. Ask your teacher or tutor for help. Practice something you know you're not good at and you will ensure you study time is not wasted. And you'll definitely get a rush afterwards of learning something new.

Make time for your friends in year 12

Author: Chris Ebbs

During some of the more stressful times at school, it can seem like a good idea to shut yourself up at home. However, it’s really important to stay connected to your friends. Year 12 can be stressful, and it’s a good idea to have a broad support network. Your friends are an integral part of this!

It’s likely that if your friends are in year 12 too, they’re also stressed. It’s a good idea to have friends with whom you can completely unwind. Try not to talk about study too much. Find another activity that will bring you together, something like going to see a movie, playing a sport together, going out for a meal, baking something, going for a walk or just hanging out.

The results of a recent study into the role of friendships in adolescent health conducted by a PhD student from Murdoch University showed that teenagers were less likely to become as emotionally affected by life stressors if they had a friend with them after they became upset. By monitoring their mood in real-time, it was observed that those with strong, healthy friendships were more resilient to the daily stressors of life.

When I was in year 12, two of my closest friends went to different schools. Although it’s sad that I didn’t get to see them every day, having friends at other schools was actually really great. It was a nice way to escape some of the day-to-day drama that was going on at my own school. So, if you have a friend you haven’t seen in a while, make a date!

While it feels like we can stay connected with our friends all the time by messaging and snapping and following them online, it can be really nice to catch up with them face to face when you can. It’s also a good way to separate your study time from your relaxation time.

So remember, when you’re studying, do it 100% – put your phone in a different room and really focus on what you’re doing. And then when you’re relaxing, do that 100% – try not to think about your studies.

Enjoying time with your friends is a great way to do just that.

What are you really doing when you’re studying?

Author: LWD Team

“Leave me alone Mum, I’m studying!”

But what are you really doing?

Firstly, we need to make a distinction between homework and studying.

Homework includes completing tasks set by your classroom teachers, such as chapter questions and assignments. The purpose is to provide extra practice in order to reinforce what you have learned at school.

In contrast, studying is the time you set aside independently to review the content and concepts you have learned. It includes reading, writing notes, and drawing up visual aids to help you understand the key knowledge in your subject/s, so that you don’t procrastinate come exam time.

Yet, It’s easy to spend three hours staring at your books and still feel like you haven’t achieved much.

You might have noticed that it is easier to stay engaged and motivated when you’re doing a set homework task than when you’re studying.

This is because there is a clear final destination: you know when you’ve completed your homework. However, when you’re revising content and practising your writing, there’s not always a clear end goal.

The best way to overcome this is to turn study into what feels like homework. Set clear tasks and objectives for yourself.

This might involve doing some of the harder questions in the textbook, doing a practice exam, or setting out the number of paragraphs you’re going to write. Making a list can be a good way to assist in this process.

Here are some additional tips that you may find effective:

1.    Choose a suitable study space – Find a quiet place, away from noisy brothers and sisters, and ensure you switch off all electronic devices or notifications on your phones and laptops.

2.    Create a study planner – Its’ really important that you set aside regular times in your routine for study. Block out certain days and/or times, so that it becomes habitual.

3.    Take short breaks and be sure to reward your efforts – there is no point trying to out stare your books because you will never win. So from time to time, get up, have a stretch and reward yourself with a quick walk around the block or a treat or two from the biscuit tin!

4.    Sleep!!! Though you can’t study when you sleep, it makes a world of difference to your performance when you are well rested and alert. Studying at 2am, or worse still, playing Warcraft at 2am will not help keep you at a peak study performance level.

Add some structure to your study, take regular breaks and sleep well at night and you’ll notice that you achieve a lot more when it comes to your 'study time.' 

The Essay-A-Week Challenge

Author: Chris Ebbs

Writing one essay per week sounds scary. But it doesn’t have to be. The whole point of this challenge is to take the scary factor out of essay-writing.

In year 12, everyone is doing at least one subject that involves writing an essay in the exam. This is tricky – how do you remember everything you wanted to remember, think of a really great argument and write coherently under a time limit? The best way to get better at something is to practice, and this is no exception.

By the time you’ve reached year 12, you’ve probably learnt all the ‘rules’ about essay-writing. But knowing these rules doesn’t automatically equate with producing good essays.

Find out the expected style of the exam essay for each subject. Write an essay on whatever you’re studying in class that week. You’ll practice your essay style, but you’ll also be developing and revising the ideas you learnt at school.

It’s never too early to start. Try not to be embarrassed or disheartened if it feels like you produced some ‘bad’ work – this is all part of the learning process. Set aside an hour or two every week for the essay challenge. Try to make it a regular part of your schedule. Make sure you set yourself time limits – you won’t have four hours and a laptop for research in the exam.

Your teacher or tutor will be happy to mark your essays and discuss them with you. They want you to improve, and this is a great way to do it. You could also check out the exam reports on the VCAA website for advice.

Let us know how the challenge goes for you!

Top 4 tips for approaching practice exams

Author: Chris Ebbs

Practice exams are, in my opinion, the best way to study for an exam. It’s (obviously) really important to know and understand all the content of the course, but understanding the ways in which the questions will be asked is also vital. You can revise the content as much as you want, but you need to make sure you can apply your knowledge. Here are my top tips for doing practice exams.

1.     Do as many as you can get your hands on. The VCAA ones are all on the website (along with exam reports that explain the answers). Your teacher will also have some non-VCAA exams, so ask for those. Non-VCAA exams might not be the most accurate representation of what’s going to be on the exam, but they will apply knowledge in slightly different ways and help you expand your understanding of the content.

2.     Actually go through the answers. I’ve encountered so many people who ‘do’ practice exams, but never go through the answers. Practice exams are a great learning tool, so make sure you look up what you got wrong and why you got it wrong. Find the content in your textbook and practice the skill.

3.     Do exams under timed conditions. There’s no use in understanding the content 100% back to front if you can’t answer the questions in the allotted time.

4.     It’s never too early to do a practice exam. In year 12 I had a teacher who asked us to track the different practice exams we did. I kept a record of the date I did an exam and the percentage I got. Over time I actually saw improvement! If you think this might help you or inspire you to keep going, give it a shot.

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