26 Aug 2019

If a high ATAR is what you're aiming for, then it literally all comes down to study. I know this might sound obvious, but hear me out. 

If you’re naturally talented, your teachers really like you, or your mates share all of their notes with ya, you're probably gonna manage to get yourself a decent mark. But we're not talking about getting something 'decent'. If you want to absolutely smash your exams, it's studying that's going to get you over the line. 

It’s not entirely what you study, nor is it just how you study. It’s a delicate balance of the two and to find that perfect mix, it’s best to look at each of them individually.

What to Study

All hail the syllabus!

This tedious, dry, bland, and thoroughly uninspiring piece of non-fiction is your new saviour. And while it won’t tell you exactly what the answers are, what it will tell you is what the questions could be. Which is almost just as good.

The beauty of knowing which questions you could be asked is that you now know exactly what not to study and all the stuff you shouldn't be wasting your precious time on. Don’t stress about some random paragraph in a textbook that you can’t wrap your head around if it's not in the syllabus. Don’t bother revising your Year 11 work just in case they throw a sneaky revision question into your exam.

If it’s not in the syllabus, forget about it. They can’t and won’t use it. Focus your time on the stuff that matters.

How to Study

If you just want a good ATAR, feel free to stop reading after the first part; you can follow that advice all the way to a respectable mark.

But if you’re like I was and want an ATAR that will see uni offers getting thrown at you left, right and centre - I strongly suggest that you read this all the way through. I'll split it into two parts for ya just to make it easier:

Part One – Rote Learning

Rote learning is the use of repetition in order to memorize something. In other words, if you write out the same fact, formula or essay over and over enough times, you will eventually remember it word for word.

It's a bloody monotonous process, but it works. Especially when you combine it with your Year 12 syllabus. The trick is to take every single dot point in the syllabus and turn it into a question. You don’t need to change much – usually just chucking in the word why or how at the start of the sentence.

You now have yourself a basic version of a potential question you might face in your exam. Now answer it as well as you possibly can. Get someone to check it and perfect it. Then you can get cramming. Write it out (don’t type it. Don’t copy and paste it. Write it - it will stick better that way) again and again, and keep going until you can basically write the whole thing from memory.

It’s a lot of work. But if you've got a pre-meditated answer to every dot point in a subject’s syllabus, you’ve probably got enough info crammed into your brain to scrape together a good mark. But if you want to make it a great mark...

Part Two – Synthesis

How many times have you crammed a tonne of info into your head and then a week after the exam’s finished you can’t recall a thing about it? This occurs when you memorise something, but you don’t truly understand it.

While rote learning is still a big ingredient in exam success, if you look at the marking criteria for any exam you’ll notice that top marks in any subject usually require some sort of synthesis or evaluation.

What this means is that rather than just memorising your syllabus points, you actually have to be able to demonstrate that you actually know what it is you’re talking about. Nearly everyone will have some sort of prepared answer. You know it and the markers know it too. The real skill comes in how you change your answer to more directly respond to the question at hand. If you know your stuff, then you're going to be able to do this better than those who simply regurgitate a prepared answer. 

There’s a few ways to ensure that you actually understand what it is you’ve memorised. Firstly, practice writing out your answer in a different way. Get the same message across, but word it differently. This can help you to make sense of what it is you’re trying to say. 

Second, try arguing against your answer. Start a mock debate over a syllabus point and take an opposing stance to the answer you’ve prepared. By trying to find flaws in it, you should gain a deeper understanding of all those words you’ve just spent weeks memorising.

One of the key parts of synthesis is the ability to draw connections between two different points. Try choosing two different syllabus points and think up a way that you could connect one to the other. Markers love it when you show them that you can see every point as a part of the bigger picture, rather than just it’s own standalone fact.

It's Easier Than It Sounds

It’s not as complicated as it sounds, I promise. I kid you not; I used the exact same English essay from Year 9, all the way through to the last Year 12 exam. The same movie, book and poem, and the exact same quotes. No matter what the topic was, no matter the question; I found a way to make them fit.

All I changed was how I adapted my answer to fit the question. By truly understanding what something you’ve memorised means, you should be able to twist what it is you’re saying to fit into a variety of contexts.

By putting in the hours to cram and then spending a bit more time thinking about what your brain has just absorbed, you can turn your brain into an exam machine.

 

Want more study advice like this? Suss out our free Year 12 Survival Guide, packed with study tips that don't suck.