Got your marks back from your HSC Trial exams and they aren’t looking spectacular?
Let’s face it — your Trial exams were never meant to be easy. After all this study you’ve been doing throughout the year to prepare, you may feel like giving up. But, you shouldn’t!
You can still have time to transform your HSC results, and bounce back from your Trials, no matter how roughly you’ve gone.
We’ve got 5 key steps to help you get the marks you desire. Keep reading to find out how!
Step 1: Don’t Quit!
Step 2: Identify Changes You Should Make
Step 3: Retake Your Past Papers
Step 4: Build a Plan
Step 5: Get Help While You’ve Still Got Time
Step 1: Don’t Quit!
Even if your results suck, you shouldn’t quit!
To put things into perspective, your internals are worth the other 50% of your final mark. This includes all the assessments you’ve done throughout the year, meaning that your HSC Trials marks are only a portion of that 50%.
You’ve still got 50% of your marks up for grabs with your external HSC exams at the end of the year!
Now, this can sound pretty daunting… But in reality, this means you have a significant amount of marks left available. In other words, if you work hard between now and then, you can do really well and transform your results!
One thing you should also keep in mind is that your internal marks still haven’t been finalised! While your ranks are set in stone, your marks aren’t due to internal moderation — so now’s the time for you and your class to work together to significantly change your results.
Changes your marks together as a team and don’t quit!
Don’t believe us when we say that it’s possible to significantly change your results? Discover how Chloe went from scoring a 67% in her English Trial exam, to achieving an 80% overall!
Step 2: Identify Changes You Should Make
If you haven’t already heard this quote before, we’ll be the first to let you know that:
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
If you do the same thing for your HSC Exams as you’ve done for your HSC Trials, you won’t change your results.
To do well in your HSC exams, you need to change something!
But what should you change?
If you took the time to sit down and reflect on your HSC Trials preparation, you will discover you actually can identify A LOT of things you could change to improve your results for your HSC.
To help you identify what to change, we’ve got an actionable strategy you can implement. It’s called:
The Keep, Start, Stop Protocol.
How does the Keep, Start, Stop protocol work?
Pick the worst subject results in your exams and identify in your study, exam preparation and exam approach:
[K] What did you do well? KEEP doing this.
[S] What could you have done better? Identify specific strategies. START doing this.
[S] What did not work at all? Be specific. STOP doing this.
What this will provide you with is a clear set of actions you can take to create change and improve your results for your HSC.
NOTE: Make sure you write the actions from KSS down!
Why?
If you don’t write it down, you won’t actually make changes. It’ll simply stay in your head and you’ll forget about it. Write it down, and stick the changes up on your wall so it’s there as a daily reminder for you!
This protocol doesn’t need to just apply to your subjects generally. Look at the most recent Trials past papers you’ve completed and evaluate how you’ve gone!
Identify what you’ve done well, what you could’ve done better and what didn’t work. Which leads us to our next step…
Step 3: Retake Your Past Papers
A mistake that students often make when it comes to past papers is they won’t revisit any errors made during Trial exams. They’ll just start fresh with different practice papers and not actually try to understand how they can stop themselves from repeating certain mistakes!
If you actually want to improve your marks from Trials, you should fix those errors!
Rewrite essays and get feedback! Rewrite any short answer questions where you’ve lost marks, and use the feedback you’ve received to tighten your response.
Don’t just move on without trying to learn from your past mistakes. Get as much feedback as you can, so you’ll really see your marks grow by the time your HSC exams come around.
Once you’ve done that, then you can think about trying out other past papers and applying what you’ve learnt!
Step 4: Build a Plan
Not having a plan will lead to you cramming — having a structure to follow is so important!
This doesn’t have to be difficult. You’ll first need to figure out how many weeks you have left until your HSC exams.
List out the different subjects you’re taking and list all the critical things you need to do, including the key focuses for each of your subjects.
If you’re almost a month out, check out our 6-Week HSC Exam Study Plan that we’ve created for you!
The list above is just to give you some inspiration for what you might need to work on — though yours should be much more comprehensive and specific for each of your subjects.
Then, work backwards and allocate what you want to be doing across each of the weeks for revision and identify when you’ll complete past papers.
At this point in time, you don’t have any small assessments to worry about — which means you can solely focus on studying! So, it’s really a matter of reviewing the content you’ve learnt throughout the year and completing past papers under timed conditions.
Step 5: Get Help While You’ve Still Got Time
As we’ve mentioned before, there’s still time for you to boost your internal marks, so make sure you don’t muck around!
Remember that you’re external exams are worth 50%! If you haven’t done so well in Trials, now’s the time to make up for that and get your marks where you need them to be.
If you’re someone who struggles to structure and organise your study effectively, we’ve got just what you need.
Introducing the ‘HSC Bounce Back Program‘
With our HSC Bounce Back Program, we’ve built out a plan for various subjects (so you can focus on actually studying!) including:
- English
- Standard Maths
- Advanced Maths
- Extension 1 Maths
- Biology
- Chemistry
- Physics
- Economics
These programs map out what you need to be covering each week through 6-9 x 1.5 – 2.5 hour detailed revision lessons (varies by subject). These lessons integrate HSC questions to practise with, and walk you through how to answer common questions during your HSC exam, as well as refining your approach to challenging questions.
You’ll stay on track with your HSC exam prep, because you’ll be held accountable for your study. If you find yourself procrastinating or losing motivation, we’ll keep you in check!
Target Your Weak Areas
If you’ve been following our advice from Step 2, you’ll know what changes you need to make and things that you may need some extra help with. Here’s where our Bonus 1-on-1s come in handy!
After enrolling in one of our Bounce Back Programs, you’ll be able to book in up to 2 Bonus 1-on-1 tutoring sessions, where you will receive additional specific targeted support on the areas you find most difficult, as well as HSC exam support (all of this on top of weekly revision lessons!).
All the HSC Resources You Could Need!
On top of being provided with our HSC Course Review Resource Book, which includes summarised revision content, and hundreds of practice questions for you to get exam ready, you’ll get access to our Art of Smart Online app!
Our app gives you access to an ENTIRE YEAR’S worth of HSC resources, as well as extensive new syllabus practice questions, and a library of past papers.
How We Help Our Students
Ensuring that our students are getting what they need out of choosing us as their tutoring company is of utmost importance to us! Check out some of the reviews we’ve received from our customers!
Learn more about our HSC Bounce Back Program and get the support you need to boost your HSC marks!
Looking for a tutor to help you bounce back to ACE your HSC?
We’ll help you nail the HSC content, get a rock-solid study plan, and develop your exam technique so you are ready for your HSC Exams!
With small groups classes, or personalised lessons conducted one-on-one in your home or at one of our state of the art campuses in Hornsby or the Hills, we can help you regardless of where you live!
To find out more and get started with an inspirational tutor and mentor get in touch today!
Give us a ring on 1300 267 888, email us at [email protected] or check us out on TikTok!
Reina Caballero is currently the Digital Marketing Manager at Art of Smart. She completed a Bachelor of Marketing and Media at Macquarie University at the end of 2019 and has written for a variety of magazine publications, such as MANIA, TV Soap, Soap World and Grapeshot. When she isn’t busy working with the Marketing team to create incredible content, she’s working through jigsaw puzzles, posting about jigsaw puzzles and spending money on jigsaw puzzles.
