So, it’s the night before your VCE Maths Methods exam and now you need to make sure you’ll be in the right state of mind?
You’ve come to the right place — we’ll guide through 7 tips on how to efficiently study for your exam and get the best mark possible tomorrow!
So, let’s dive in!
Tip #1: Review the VCE Maths Methods Syllabus
Tip #2: Summarise!
Tip #3: Question and Answer
Tip #4: Tackle Some Past VCE Maths Methods Exams
Tip #5: Improve Your Notes
Tip #6: Plan for your VCE Maths Methods Exam
Tip #7: Get Enough Sleep Before your VCE Maths Methods Exam!
Tip #1: Review the Maths Methods Syllabus
First things first, you want to know where you stand with all areas of the course content.
Excerpt from Units 3 & 4 Mathematical Methods Study Design from VCAA
Go through each point on the syllabus and rate your understanding on a scale of 0 to 5 — 0 meaning you don’t even remember learning the content, 5 meaning that you’re absolutely confident.
This ranking will help provide a guideline for the study you’re going to undertake tonight. Try to complete this activity relatively quickly, within at most 30 minutes.
Tip #2: Summarise!
Now you know where you’re weakest, it’s time to refresh your knowledge of these areas.
Go through each of the weakest dot points (0 – 3) and practice some questions from those points, based on what you can gather from the textbook.
You should be able to get this all finished in 30 minutes. Until then, put all the subjects you understand well in the back of your mind and skip those questions.
Tip #3: Question and Answer
For your weaker areas, you’re going to need some practice before the VCE Maths Methods Exam.
A good way to get this done is to tackle some questions from practice exams — as a brownie point, you’ll likely get questions of that ilk in the exam!
Here’s our handy master list of VCE Maths Methods past papers here!
Don’t answer the entire question, instead:
- Try and look at the question first
- Think about how you would approach it
- Write down some dot points
- Compare your ideas to the answers given on the VCAA website.
Finished all the VCAA past papers? Check out more questions for the VCE Maths Methods Exam here!
If you’re completely off, then note it down for future reference and retry with a similar question.
Pay attention to how accurate your calculations are. If you’re way off, you may need to slow down when answering questions.
Also note any specific information on the format of the answer — units or decimal points! If you don’t give them what you want, you won’t get the marks.
By the end of tackling tip #3, you should:
- Have a good understanding of how the questions on the exam are actually going to be answered
- How the marks are being divvied up
Tip: Try to go through two practice VCE Maths Methods Exams (ideally the last two) like this, completing them in 1 hour total.
Tip #4: Tackle Some Past VCE Maths Methods Exams
Now, you should be ready to attempt some questions!
Once again, focus on only your weakest areas (that you’ve just worked through in the previous steps).
For each questions, make sure all calculations are complete and pay close attention to what they want in the answer. Each answer should be presented logically as a set of steps, where it is clear how each step implies the next.
After completing each question, check the answers to see how right your answers were. Try and be harsh with yourself, as the exam markers will be tomorrow.
You want to make sure that you’re not losing any marks for something simple like forgetting to answer the question in the correct format, or failing to include certain key steps.
Spend a hour or so doing this, as you want to leave some time for the important next step.
Tip #5: Improve Your Notes
Ok, now you’ve got a much better idea of your strengths and weakness, its time to take a look at your summary notes.
Try and look at any of the dot points you completed earlier during Tip #2, and see if key question types you haven’t encountered.
Tip #6: Plan for your VCE Maths Methods Exam
Finally, it’s time to create an attack plan for your VCE Maths Methods Exam. You should answer these three things:
- How and when are you getting to school?
- What areas of the exam are you going to focus on first?
- What areas are you going to leave until later?
It should go without saying that the best use of reading time is to identify which questions are easiest for you, so that you can complete these questions first.
Always go for the easy marks!
Check out our 7 day study plan for the VCE Maths Methods exam here!
Tip #7: Get Enough Sleep Before your VCE Maths Methods Exam!
All the tasks before this can be completed within 5 hours.
That should give you enough time for the most important preparation you can do tonight: getting a full 8 hours sleep.
You probably know how bad it feels to try and focus after staying up late, however you may not be aware that a significant body of research has shown that poor sleep can significantly impact exam performance.
While much of the effect focuses on long term patterns, it’s still important to make sure you’re refreshed and ready on the day.
If you can, try and squeeze in a little more studying the morning before the exam, depending on the time the exam is scheduled for. In this last-minute study, just focus on completing some more exam questions, and checking them against the answers.
The VCAA previous paper resource is extensive, so you should have no problem finding something to try!
Once you complete all these steps, give yourself a pat on the back as — you’ll have much better position to tackle your VCE Mathematical Methods exams!
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Scott McColl is a content writer with Art of Smart and a Civil Engineering student at Monash University. In between working and studying, Scott enjoys playing music and working on programming projects.
