It’s incredibly overwhelming to receive an exam notification two weeks before the day, read through all of the content which is being assessed, and study for the exam effectively. However, by breaking up the task into bitesized pieces and planning the days leading up to the exam, you can smash anything!
The first thing to look at on the exam notification is the syllabus dotpoints being assessed. For example, if it was a chemistry exam and the assessable content was all of Module 7, you would want to open up the NESA website and find all of the syllabus dotpoints in Module 7. Next, go to your calendar and mark out all of the days which you can spend studying for the exam from the next day until two days before the exam. From here, begin distributing the syllabus dotpoints of content which you need to cover amongst the first half of available days (this is important!). For example, there may be 10 syllabus dotpoints to cover on the exam and you may have 10 days to study for it. In this case, you would revise two syllabus dotpoints per day.
Note: revising a topic/dotpoint consists of writing out a one/two sentence definition of the concept, going back through old class notes and rewriting key points, and practicing two HSC past questions which cover the topic.
Once you have thoroughly revised all of the topics, leave yourself one day to go over all of the concepts again! This helps to fill in any gaps you may have had the first time that you were revising the concepts and helps to cement the concepts.
The final four days (or five depending on if you have time on the general revision day!) of study should consist of one past paper each day under timed, test conditions. Once you complete the practice paper, do not mark it immediately! It is important for you to mark your exam only the next day so that you can evaluate the merit of your explanations and calculations as a marker would. Thus, the day before the exam, you will only mark the previous day’s practice paper and read over your notes once more before getting a good night’s sleep!
You’ve got this, good luck on all of your exams!
Shahaf Liraz