Area of Sadness 2015

I might make this a general ask if that’s cool? Just to give a few pointers on creative writing in the hsc :)

Tips for creative writing for Prelim/HSC Advanced English (applies for Standard too, because Adv and Std are marked against each other in the HSC. The more a Std piece resembles an Adv response, the better mark you’ll get. Likewise, the better an Adv response is compared to the pool of Std, the better mark.) (applies for e1 creatives as well!):

1) stick to what you know! If you know what the breeze on the beaches in Vanuatu feels like, explore that. DO NOT WRITE ABOUT THINGS YOU DONT KNOW ABOUT!! Don’t write about a mental disorder if you don’t have experience with it, don’t create a character that lives in space, and harvests stardust for shits and giggles. The most effective things that will get you marks are real-life situations that you can portray accurately, and with your own unique perspective or spin of that situation.

2) don’t write about teenage angst! The hsc markers hate hate hate it, and your teachers will too! Stay away from school settings, teenage breakups, basically try and stay away from teenage characters completely. Write adult characters in adult situations, or create a child character and explore the story through that lens (make sure to research how children speak to portray it accurately, but keeping the perspective limited to the child’s lens will reduce the amount of sophistication you can muster in your piece. Consider omniscient third person!!) - this tip is a contradiction of the former, right? Right. It’s ridiculous, because all we know is school, 12-13 years of it, and we have to write about things we know about, but we can’t have teenage angst. It’s a shocking paradox, but you have to find a middle ground. Find a situation you know, and integrate it into a more sophisticated setting. No teenage angst!

3) Stay Away From The A’s! I need to explain this a bit, but this is incredibly important. Aliens, abuse, angst, ambulances, basically anything similar to this that starts with A. Don’t do it son! They’re all cliched, and would resemble a Standard creative more than an Adv piece (which would get you more marks!!) I can’t think of more A’s because I’m really tired but stay a w a y from cliches!

4) draft draft draft! Draft until you’re crippled with writers block, until you’re out of ideas, until you can’t look at a pen without feeling a little bit of vomit come up. You will probably cry over some of them. You could rip some up. That’s cool bro, totally normal. But your atar (and your teachers!) will love you for consistent work! And get teachers and friends to read your pieces, ask relentlessly, not only your own english teacher but others that you trust. Ask relatives with experience in HSC creatives, friends, ex students, exhaust all your resources, because every critique will help you get that band six yo. Another tip on this tangent: be proud of your work, but don’t get upset with critiques and feedback! They aren’t being mean, they’re helping you improve. Try not to take it personally, and cop it on the chin and swallow your pride enough to change and adapt to accommodate that feedback :)

5) have at least two strong creatives ready for your exams/assessments! Write until you get it right, and keep developing the piece. Start memorising it, know it so well you can replicate it in 40 minutes or less. The choice of two creatives will increase your chances of the assessment prompt fitting at least one!

Hello friends well it’s that time of year for us aussie 12th graders, so I thought I’d give you all some tips on how to effectively prepare for your exams and such; they can be applied to more than just the HSC exams. Best of luck!

General tips:

Give yourself plenty of breaks. Devote some time to yourself each day- I would say at least 10 minutes. Make it a stress-releasing time, and do things that relax you. Have a hot bath, paint a picture, snuggle in blankets, call a friend, read a book, drink tea or hot chocolate, listen to nature sounds, go for a walk in the nature, sing a song or play an instrument. Anything that calms you down and lifts your mood!

Don’t stay up at night cramming for exams. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t help you. Rather, it drains your energy levels, and you’ll wake up the next day and forget most of what you learned. It just won’t stick in if you cram it all into one night and then try to regurgitate it the next day.

If you have run out of time studying by the end of the day or need to cram right before an exam, focus on understanding only one or two syllabus points that you’re uncomfortable with, rather than skimming through all your notes. 

Maintain your mental health. Psychologists and psychiatrists have revealed that the key to optimum mental health lies in proper sleep and diet. So, eat proper meals and sleep enough hours to keep up your energy levels, mood regulation and concentration levels. It’ll take time, but give yourself time to get into a routine, and you’ll really feel the difference. I really did after my hospital admissions.

Exercise adequately during exam period. Studies have shown that the students who achieved the highest marks in the HSC exercised regularly. Exercise is great for clearing the mind and keeping healthy, and it really does help with your mental health too! My eldest sister used to exercise during her HSC, and she ended up with a mark of 99.55!

Have a good support network. Whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed with stress, stop and talk to someone, it really helps! Remember, your cohort are also in the same boat as you for the rest of the year. Even better, speak to a friend or family member who has finished school, and learn more about their story. As you will see, there are many ways to achieve your goals! Your school counselor will also be great help.

Have a life outside of school. This is very important. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to be stuck in your room studying all day every day to get good marks. In fact, the people who achieve the best marks actually have a life outside of school. Hobbies, social outings, family time, and part-time jobs are really important, so keep them going regularly, and give yourself time to relax. This will relieve stress and maintain your mental health, which will therefore allow for higher marks in the long run.

Set goals. Have weekly goals for work you wanna achieve by the end of each week, and try your hardest to work towards them! It really helps to have something to work towards, and a reward to motivate you! Don’t be ashamed to reward yourself when you’ve done something good!

Have a specific ATAR in mind. For example, if you just say, “I wanna get around the 80 mark”, then your brain thinks around 80%, and you’ll work towards that, rather than an 89 for example. You’ll be more likely to achieve an 80 because that’s what your mind is set on. But, if you have the specific ATAR to get into a course you want, you’ll work towards it more. It’s true, I’ve heard from seminars! In fact, my sister used to write little notes to our parents saying little things like “I owe you a 99.5 UAI” and she would stick them everywhere and rewrite it. She ended up surpassing that mark! Same thing happened to my cousin!

Stick up your goals in front of you. If there’s a specific uni you wanna go to, stick pictures of it in your room. If there’s a specific course you wanna aim towards, print out the details, highlight it and stick it above your desk. Be able to visualize your goals, so you’re more motivated to work towards them.

Time management, workload and studying:

Make a schedule. This is essential during exam period too. Make a schedule of each hour of the day that you’re awake, and plot which hours are dedicated to which activities. Give yourself plenty of breaks, but also adequate study time. Place your leisure activities, social activities and any job you may have within your schedule, then schedule your schoolwork around your daily life. Most importantly, stick to your schedule in an outline- don’t become obsessive and try to follow each and every little detail, otherwise you’ll break down when you miss a part of your day.

Keep a diary. Write down all your shizzle ma nizzle in there. Seriously they’re helpful.

Have a weekly planner, and stick it above where you study. Do what I do, and buy a whiteboard! Draw up a table of each day of the week, and plan what work you need to get done and when. Refer to it often. It really helps keep you organized!

Study in one place, and on a desk. Emulate an exam environment and get used to working there (empty desk, quiet room without visual or auditory distractions). This way, when you’re in an exam, your brain will kick into thinking mode, and you’ll find it easier to regurgitate information, because your brain will be thinking, “Hey, I’m used to working in this environment, so I’m able to think!”. Do not study or work on your bed- only associate your bed with sleeping, otherwise when you try to sleep at night, you’ll be wide awake, because your brain will associate your bed with schoolwork, and you’ll be ready to work instead of sleep.

Prioritise homework over assignments. I know this sounds crazy, but homework covers a lot of information in the HSC syllabus. Spend about half an hour on homework each day, then do assignments- if you don’t prioritise the assignments, you know you’re gonna have to do them eventually. But, if you do the assignments first, you’ll be too tired to do the homework, so not everything becomes finished.

Allocate at least three weeks to studying for exams, and stick to a schedule. Week one- Write down notes for each syllabus point that will be tested. Week two- memorise those notes and answer textbook questions. Week three- do practice papers. Practice papers are essential.

I cannot stress enough the importance of working on practice papers. You don’t even have to always do them under exam conditions, just try to answer some of the questions each week. Pretty soon, you’ll be used to what they’re asking you, and you won’t be surprised in the exam. Ask your teachers if they have any exams from previous years with answers separate, or head to the Board of Studies website and look at the past HSC papers.

Practice under exam conditions. For example, if you’re trying to memorise an essay, try to write it within the 40 minute time period. It helps to know how many words you can write in 40 minutes, so try to make your essay that long. Keep trying until you can finish the essay and have it memorized.

Use your teacher for their purpose. They’re supposed to be teaching you, so don’t be ashamed if you don’t understand something. If you’re not getting something, ask about it. If you got questions wrong in an exam, ask them where you went wrong, and try to fix your answer, and return the paper back to them. Constantly get teacher’s feedback until you get it as close to perfect as possible. It will do wonders.

Try to write at least one practice essay per week or two, and hand it into your teacher for feedback (good questions to answer are those in old exam papers, or one in an exam you could’ve improved on). Keep editing it and getting feedback. It’ll really help in exams!

To memorise essays, or just articles or notes in general- don’t have blocks of information in front of you. Reading a big paragraph over and over again is not gonna help you memorise everything, even if you highlight it. What’s really worked for me and gave me good marks, is getting a separate piece of paper and writing dot points about each sentence of your essay. Reduce each sentence into as few words as possible, and use trigger words to help you remember the sentence. Each dot point is about a new sentence. Then, memorise those dot points instead of the whole thing. Keep it next to you the first couple of times when you practice writing the essay.

Find new ways of studying, and see what works best for you. Reading textbooks isn’t gonna make you memorise the information. Studies show that reading information only allows you to retain 10% of the information, and listening to it only 5%. Writing notes and answering questions is a lot better, and teaching others is most effective, with a 90% retainment rate!

Studying with friends can be great, and teaching others really is the most effective learning tool statistically, but if it’s gonna distract you then don’t do it. Either study with very studious people, or study on your own. 

Turn off your phone. If you’re using it for a timer, then set it to ‘do not disturb mode’. If you don’t trust yourself, get someone else to hide your phone away for you. Also no internet. I see you there scrolling on tumblr yeah stop it.

Time management in exams and assignments:

Separate your time adequately during exams. Let’s say you have multiple choice, short answers, and an extended response in a 2 hour exam. Now, it’s your choice of what you want to do first, but work on getting it all done. In this case, you should leave 40 minutes for the extended response, 40  minutes for the short answers, 20 minutes for the multiple choice, and the remainder to go over your exam. Always try to have time left over in your exam so you can check your answers. (Personally, I like to do multiple choice last- it’s easy and quick, and if I were to be short on time, I could just guess the last few answers).

Stick to the time limits you set in the point I just explained above. So, using the same 2 hour exam example, if you’re three-quarters through an essay but already spent 40 minutes on it, then turn to the other questions, and only finish the essay if you have time. Look at it this way- it’s better to have an incomplete essay and mostly completed questions, than a full essay and incomplete questions. Short answer questions are a really easy way to earn marks, and they’re quick to answer. If you’ve only got your conclusion or something left in an essay, you’ll only get one or two extra marks for finishing it, because you won’t be introducing much else. But, you’ll have a better chance of getting marks if you answer more of the short answer and multiple choice questions.

Don’t think too long on multiple choice questions. If you spend more than about two minutes thinking of the answer, skip it and come back to it when you’re done. It’s not worth stressing over a one-mark question when you’ve got 3 and 5 markers to answer.

Pay attention to how many marks each question is worth. I used to sit there are rant on and on and on when answering a question to make sure that I got a mark- I’d write unnecessarily long answers, and then I wouldn’t have the time to finish the other questions, so I’d have an incomplete exam! You can’t get more than the maximum mark for each question, so bear that in mind. Allocate one minute to each mark- so, if it’s a one mark question, don’t spend more than a minute on it. If it’s a three mark question, don’t spend more than three minutes. Don’t rant on and write an answer that is irrelevant to the question- the markers aren’t looking to be impressed by your knowledge of the topic, they just want you to be direct about the specific question.

For assignments, set yourself a time limit and a goal. For example, let’s say you have a 1000 word essay to write in two weeks. Start it as soon as possible, and give yourself maximum of an hour on day one, with your goal being to write the introduction of the essay. Just tell yourself, “Ok, I’m only gonna spend one hour and write the introduction, then I’ll do whatever I want after”.  The next day, give yourself about two hours, and aim to get body paragraph one done. After about 45 minutes, give yourself a break for 10 minutes, then continue. Day three, give yourself 1-2 hours to work on body paragraph two, etc. This way, you get through it step by step, you don’t cram it in, and you’re not stressed!

If you’re having trouble with managing time for anything, ask your teacher or your school counselor for advice. Don’t feel embarrassed, because any tips would really help you out during this time! You’re not the only one who’s ever had this trouble in school, so it’s nothing they haven’t seen before!

Useful links:

Board of Studies HSC

HSC past papers

Students Online

When should I go to sleep?

Get rid of distracting websites Mac // PC

How to pull an all-nighter and still do well in an exam

Stress relief:

Stress relief games

Rain soundtrack while studying 

Nature sounds

Ocean sounds

Coffee sounds

Progressive muscle relaxation

fataltotheflesh (alternative to self harm) *trigger warning*

Paint with sand

Dealing with panic attacks

Anxiety relief

Stress relievers

Motivators:

Staying motivated while studying 

More motivation while studying

get kittens while you write!

ePIC MUSIC

DRAMATIC MUSIC

SRSLY YOU CAN GET ANY WORK DONE TO THIS MUSIC (AND FOR 10 HOURS OK)