July 3rd – July 9th: Second week ‘holidays’ for some schools. First week for other schools.
July 10th – July 16th: Last week of ‘holidays’
July 17th – July 23rd: School back. Race to finish content
July 24th – July 30th: Final 7 days before exams begin
July 31st – Trials begin for most students with other schools the following week or week after that.
Last week we broke down the number of hours a student will have in total if they complete 6 hours per day of effective study across 6 days a week which was 108 hours across the 3 week break from school. This will allow for 21 hours of exam preparation per 2 unit subject. If however this last week was not effective (either not studying or working on ineffective tasks such as ‘notes’) we are down to 14 hours per 2 unit subject for the remaining two weeks. I can’t stress enough the importance of getting moving now with the tasks that matter.
In the 15 years of taking students to the top of Mount HSC the biggest and most common excuse for not getting moving with tasks that will actually prepare a student for the exam room at this stage of the HSC is…‘I need to finish my notes before I can do the exam training’.
This is the definition of procrastination. The problem with this strategy is that the student who adopts this excuse will run out of time and the final two weeks will be filled with feelings of being overwhelmed with the amount of exam room readiness work that needs to be done. See more on this in my latest instagram post here or click the image.
What does exam training look like?
English quotes from memory, syllabus mind maps from memory, intro paragraphs to exam style essay questions, full essays, getting feedback on essays written, completing essay building templates (our system for writing essays), parts of practice exams, full practice exams. If notes need to be completed they need to be done in addition and concurrently to the above tasks.
Burpees Challenge Update
Jesse GardinerHead Performance Coach
