Knowing exactly what you should do do the night before your VCE Biology exam can help put your mind at ease.
But, your final preparations will even help maximise your performance come the proper exam! Naturally, everyone will come into this point at a different level, with some people having extensively prepared already, and others not having had the time to prepare as much.
We’ve split this article up into the above two cases — you can even go through our top tips for both situations!
Let’s dive in!
If You Feel Well Prepared The Night Before VCE Biology Exam
Step #1: Don’t Do Anything Out of the Ordinary
Step #2: Focus on the Areas You Struggle Most With
Step #3: Spend Time Creating Summaries and Reviewing the Study Design
If You Feel Less Prepared The Night Before VCE Biology Exam
Step #1: Identify Areas of Strength and Weakness
Step #2: Use Active Revision Strategies
Step #3: Do Practice Exam Questions
Step #4: Look After Yourself
If You Feel Well Prepared The Night Before VCE Biology Exam
So, you’ve prepared extensively already. How do I best make use of this?
That’s great! You’ve taken control of your learning, and are ready to excel in the exam. It is likely you can remember most, if not all, concepts, and have a strong understanding of what VCAA will be looking for in your exam responses.
But, here are our suggestions to make sure you perform at your best in tomorrow’s exam!
Step #1: Don’t Do Anything Out of the Ordinary
It’ll be wise to go to sleep at your normal time, perhaps avoid eating anything you wouldn’t usually eat.
You won’t have the need to do an excessive amount of exams. Make sure your body is in its best condition for the day of the exam!
Studying for Chemistry too? Read up on how to use the VCE Chemistry data booklet effectively!
Step #2: Focus on the Areas You Struggle Most With
Review your past SACs and practice exams.
Test how much you know and take our practice VCE Biology SAC for Unit 4 AoS 1 here!
Were there particular topics that you answered worse compared to others?
Spend a bit of time reviewing why you answered these questions poorly — for example, did you forget to consider that CRISPR is both a system for gene editing and a mechanism of defence in bacteria?
Once you’ve identified these areas, address how you can make sure to avoid making these mistakes for the exam. You can even explain you answer out loud, so that you really hammer the correct answer into yourself!
If you were struggling with CRISPR, perhaps you’d want to see if you can find the words “technology” or “defence” in the question, and this can be how you can be sure to mention the right example of CRISPR systems.
Want a refresher on Unit 3 Biology? Do our practice SAC for VCE Biology Unit 3 AOS 1 hereand Unit 3 AOS 2 here!
Step #3: Spend Time Creating Summaries and Reviewing the Study Design
In addition to targeted revision, you will benefit from quickly going over the entirety of the course.
This will help remind you of what you have done throughout the year, and might serve as a cue to look at some areas in a bit more detail.
Check out everything you need to know for the VCE Biology Study Design here!
If You Feel Less Prepared The Night Before VCE Biology Exam
That’s ok! You can still turn things around, we’ll go through what to prioritise to maximise your chances of success.
Step #1: Identify Areas of Strength and Weakness
It would be worth going through the study design and colour coding each dot point based on how well you understand each concept.
For example, the “traffic light system” for colour-coding looks like this:
- Green to indicate a strong understanding
- Yellow to indicate some understanding
- Red to indicate very little to no understanding
It is very difficult to relearn an entire concept from scratch. But, it’s likely wise to try do some light reading on anything you highlight in red and see if that brings back any memories.
On the other hand, if you already have foundational knowledge in a particular topic, it will be comparatively easier to build knowledge on this.
If you are still completely stuck, it might make sense to start building from a particular Area of Study or Unit.
Step #2: Use Active Revision Strategies
To consolidate your understanding of concepts, passive memorisation isn’t enough!
Understanding a concept is not as simple as reading passively and hoping the information enters your brain via diffusion! By actively rewriting and creating the content, you will retain the information better compared to passively reading.
So what constitutes active revision? Good options will include:
- Creating mind maps
- Explaining concepts out loud
- Creating summaries
- Find ways to memorise the information
VCE is certainly much more about applying information as opposed to raw memorisation. However, if the concept does not stay in your brain, then it is basically impossible to apply any information!
To memorise information effectively, it is advisable to:
#1: Create Mnemonics and/or Acronyms
Use short abbreviations to remember large lists!
For instance, if you binge TV shows, perhaps considering BINJR for the ethical concepts (Beneficence, Integrity, Non-maleficence, Justice, Respect) might help you remember the names of these concepts
#2: Relate Learnings to Facts You Know
The protein structures are described as primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary. Aside from quaternary, these are similar to levels of education, and this could help you remember the names of these protein structures
#3: Create Stories for Concepts
Perhaps the immature B cell is a baby that grows up into a mature B cell, but upon being inspired by a great teacher (seeing a specific antigen), it becomes activated. Creating a story like this can help make things more meaningful, and helps you remember things more easily!
Step #3: Do Practice Exam Questions
If it’s not too late, try smashing out some practice exam questions!
Use our master list of all the VCE Biology past papers here!
At the very least, it is a good idea to familiarise yourself with the overall structure of the exam.
Your main goal when practicing exam questions is to quickly identify questions that you know you can answer, as well as identify questions that you thought you couldn’t answer, but made sense after seeing the correct response.
Note: The amount of content you will learn by doing past papers is not massive. In addition, VCAA will rarely ask the same question twice. Therefore, you shouldn’t just be focusing on past exams!
Step #4: Look After Yourself
Put things in perspective. In the worst case scenario, where the exam doesn’t go well, you will still have several other exams that you can focus on.
Of course, the end of year exam is important — not more important than your health!
A comparatively “bad” score in one subject isn’t the end of the world. However, if you spend all night preparing for this exam, not only will you end up exhausting yourself for the actual exam, it will also harm your performance and preparation for other exams.
Have a week before your VCE Biology Exam? Check out our 7 day study plan here!
Alternatively, here is a list of all of theVCE past papers and exams to help you study and prepare!
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Kevin Chen recently completed his Bachelor of Biomedicine at the University of Melbourne. He is now undertaking an Honours year, where he is investigating the rise of hospital superbugs. Kevin lives by the motto “smiles go for miles!”
