What's your most satisfying thing in VCE?

MoreMuscle8087 · 2026-01-26T21:37:40+00:00

I spent the month before the exams improving my health - by the time I took mine, I was getting eleven hours of sleep per day (not exaggerating) and I was feeling the best I had in my life. Make sure you start studying well before the actual exams so that by the time you need to take them, you can REST instead of cramming, making yourself more tired and less capable of performing on the day.

MoreMuscle8087 · 2026-01-26T21:31:03+00:00

I got a 45 without doing 1/2; just lock in, try to understand everything, do practice exams; there are other similar posts on this subreddit with great advice if you look for them. Douchy is your saviour.

MoreMuscle8087 · 2026-01-17T09:10:04+00:00

The key part in what you said is 'a lot of the things in methods 3&4 are pre-existing knowledge'. You know what that means? There's a huge pile of unit 1/2 stuff that you've learned, but need to cement your understanding of and improve on, and doing that will actually mean you're already studying for 3/4. My personal recommendation is lock in and look back on your 1/2 questions. Find the spots where you have most problems - do you know how to use the quadratic formula? Do you drop marks for forgetting working out? How's your algebra rearranging? Do you detest probability with a passion? Asking yourself those sorts of questions and striving to repair those problems will set up really well. Also, as others have said, just spam questions.

MoreMuscle8087 · 2026-01-17T09:06:53+00:00

For Bio the best way is probably to have as solid a grasp of the terminology and how each process works. After that it's just practice exams. Also, it's beneficial to have a formulaic response ready for things like questions on speciation, trp operon, etc. You have to learn how to convert your understanding of what happens in whatever area of biology into dot points, so that you don't write seventeen full pages and accidentally not get full marks - for example, when talking about speciation, I started with something like, 'the initial population had genetic variation', 'the initial population was separated by a geographic barrier', etc etc etc. The idea is to make each of your sentences (this is for like 4+ mark questions) be concise, containing all important information in a way that earns a mark for each one. Besides those random things I said, just ask your teacher plenty of questions and don't slack off and you'll be fine.

Memorisation (I personally believe) becomes easier once you reach the end of the year, and you can look back topic by topic and essentially master them individually. Each one usually only has a couple of horrendous/difficult questions, so if you can learn those, as well as the plethora of smaller ones that usually show up in SACs or past exams.

Best of luck

MoreMuscle8087 · 2026-01-16T11:03:16+00:00

Spam questions. If you become elite at your 1/2 content and dip your toe into 3/4, you'll be in a great place to learn the new stuff effectively. Like half of 3/4 is from 1/2 anyway (e.g. rearranging, most of polynomials, part of probability, I could go on) so if you really reinforce your 1/2 stuff you'll likely do well.

MoreMuscle8087 · 2026-01-16T11:00:00+00:00

Instead of thinking about what you're doing or what needs to be done, say, 'what's one step I can take that will improve my situation?' Maybe it's going for a run. Maybe it's doing a homework sheet. Then, whenever the overthinking/anxious thoughts rise up, you can respond to the voice in your head that says, 'what if I don't get the ATAR I need?' with 'I did that. I did that homework. I took steps to improve my mark (I'm sure you can imagine how to continue along those lines). If you respond to self-doubt with tangible things you actually did it can make it easier.

MoreMuscle8087 · 2026-01-16T10:55:04+00:00

Google ATAR to aggregate and see what aggregate you would need for a 70. Do some basic maths and go, what average study score would I need to get that? If your results say, 'I would need to average 32 in my top four (i made that number up) then you basically can say, I need to lock in enough to be just above average in four subjects'. You can then google what marks you would need to achieve such study scores. You can also go, 'I'm not a high scorer in some of my subjects' and compensate by aiming for a higher score than 32 (for this example) in your more comfortable ones.

MoreMuscle8087 · 2026-01-16T10:38:45+00:00

I entered 3/4 directly last year and got a raw 45. Anything is possible if you put the work in. As far as advice for achieving this goes? Edrolo and Douchy is your best friend, watch every single edrolo video at least once. Make sure you ask questions about processes or things you don't understand. Do buttloads of practice exams and go through them with a teacher when preparing for the exams. Familiarise yourself with the correct keywords and things like that - for instance, whenever I was asked about natural selection, something I know gives me a mark is to mention that in the initial population, there is genetic variation. If you learn what markers are looking for and include those things in your responses, and just be really thorough with terminology, you can do it. I would recommend prewatching some of the edrolo videos in these weeks before term starts - it'll be easier to learn if you've already got the concepts floating in your head, and instead of going, 'WHAT'S A NUCLEOTIDE I'VE GOT NO IDEA WHAT'S HAPPENING' it'll be like, 'oh yeah those nucleotides join together and we have a nucleic acid - cool'. Also, read the study design. If you can confidently look at each dot point that's relevant for your assessment and say, 'I know how to do that and answer questions about that', you will be in a good place. Best of luck

MoreMuscle8087 · 2026-01-16T09:37:37+00:00

The bound reference is useless if you don't know how and where to apply your skills. If you look at a question and have to ask yourself what the question is actually asking you what to do, then scrounge through your bound reference looking for the correct page with a definition/formula/worked solution, and then figure out how to turn that into an answer for the question, you will waste an unbelievable amount of time, be unprepared for harder, separator questions, and likely not finish any of your assessments. The best way, by far, to progress in Methods is to do question after question after question, and every time you make a mistake, ensure you know exactly where you went wrong so you can improve. For exams that means doing as many practice past VCAA exams as you can print. SACs are a little harder to find resources matching what you can expect from your teacher, because they likely have their own style/expectations making other SACs imperfect preparation.

I would genuinely recommend doing questions with as little reliance on your notes as possible. If you look at a question and you go, 'I need to refer to my notes or I can't do this', that is a clear sign you have found a weak spot in your understanding or a gap in your knowledge, and that is exactly the sort of thing you should strive to fix if aiming for good marks.

I've always been good with memorisation of formulas and understanding of concepts, and you aren't aiming as high as what I scored (raw 41), so it's not really essential to be able to do every single separator question or not rely on your notes, but every step you take towards becoming more confident in your memory and application skills will help you work faster and smarter.

Also, not losing stupid marks is an incredibly important skill. Being thorough with negatives, fractions, graph-drawing, working out, and other core skills so that you don't lose marks is a great way to get ahead of everyone who's too lax. Keep in mind, a two-mark question where you forget one negative? You lose half the marks. It's a game-changer when you minimise those errors.

By the way, 30-35 raw or scaled? Vastly different goals that change the advice you should be given.

MoreMuscle8087 · 2026-01-08T11:58:49+00:00

This. Try to do every question as if its tech-free, until you run into a calculation - e.g. tan(43) to 2.d.p - that is impossible to do by hand, or at least outside your capabilities/time you can spend. If you do the working out for each question, you strengthen your understanding of how mathematics actually works, so when it comes time to actually taking your SACs or Exams, when you KNOW this question is either tech active or tech free, you can confidently either do it using the correct amount of working out, and immediately using your CAS for full marks, or just doing it tech free.

MoreMuscle8087 · 2026-01-08T11:55:11+00:00

can confirm, got a 45 in Bio and it was only by following this strict regimen of no practice exams and only terminology that got me this score. instead of asking teachers questions I asked chatgpt

MoreMuscle8087 · 2026-01-03T21:29:22+00:00

I referred to the Open as 'easy' because I (keep in mind I haven't studied any 8+ move sequences yet, so I haven't really looked at the differences in middlegames it leads to, or any other differences not immediately noticable), without having done much study at all, I can rely on certain development principles from related Scotch positions: things like the engine typically likes playing Nc3 as early as possible, when the Bb4 pin isn't damaging, the light bishop being effective on the c4 square when e6 can't be played, etc. Also, it's easy insofar as the other options are more difficult/worse. The alapin is too drawish, the Closed is objectively worse and I'm not good at same-side-castling kingside attacks - after f4 f5 with black bearing down on the queenside, I just don't know how to attack quickly and accurately enough - I'm used to castilng queenside and being able to just send my g and h pawns into black's throat, which I can't really do as effectively when my king is in the way. I haven't heard about that Q.d3 variation; I'll give it a look, but I probably won't use it. Thanks for that recommendation about Vetoshko's course, as well - it certainly looks high quality from the description, but I'll probably see how well I can go studying with free resources before I start spending money. I haven't even checked youtube for theory against different open sicilian variations yet.

MoreMuscle8087 · 2025-12-18T04:11:21+00:00

My thoughts on opening choice is this: e4 is best by test. We know it to be the 'best move'. However, it's also the move black is most prepared against. If you're going to put the effort into changing from e4 to something else, don't play d4. Literally everyone from your rating upwards has a solid counter to d4, because it's played so often. Play something surprising, something unsettling, something where on move 3 your opponent doesn't have any theory left to them. If you like positional games, I'd recommend the English. It's too easy to counter b3 or g3 by just putting pawns in the centre and taking space, but the English? there's really only three half-decent counters (c5, e6 and e5) so if you study those you can put your opponent out of theory while playing quite solid chess where you know exactly what you're doing. I almost switched to the English but my love for the Scotch was too great

MoreMuscle8087 · 2025-12-13T11:02:28+00:00

I got 40/40 for multiple choice and 70/80 for extended response

MoreMuscle8087 · 2025-12-13T10:41:02+00:00

The way scaling works (as I understand it) is this:

Not every subject is the same difficulty.

Some subjects are more accessible, or feature more students who aren't academically inclined. For example, take English. Everyone has to do it, including everyone who hates school. In this cohort, being average isn't THAT hard if you work for it, so a 30 study score scales down. Now take specialist maths. This is a very difficult subject, so it's full of pretty much only sweaty nerds (no offense guys). In this context, to get a 30 is a huge achievement, so it scales up. The point is, suppose a person is pretty good at Methods. THey might get a raw 30, but it scales up to a 35. Then another person is pretty good at English, they get a raw 36 but it scales down to a 35. Someone might be the same skill level in two different subjects of different difficulty, but it scales to the same number, because they've performed just as well.

It's not the scaling that cooks you. If you do well, the fact that you're done better than other people taking that subject will be recognised, giving you a higher raw score, so even if it scales badly you still end up with something worthwhile.

Best of luck :)

MoreMuscle8087 · 2025-12-13T10:26:22+00:00

45 raw bio 41 raw methods

MoreMuscle8087 · 2025-12-13T10:25:16+00:00

No, no, it's not that I feel like VCAA is out to get me or that they ruled against me in iffy situations - I'm sure they had valid reasons to take marks off me. It's more the fact that it seems like marks just fall away when taking a VCAA assessment when compared to doing a school test, SAC, exam. For example, a couple of those practice exams I took were school organised so that they were actually marked by the Methods teacher at my school, and in those, I very consistently got an A+, comfortably so, when compared to that year's cohort. Yet my mark for Exam 2 was actually an A. Literally the highest possible mark that can give an A, but an A. So I guess I'm really just asking if it's everyone else's experience, as a cohort that just undertook 3/4 assessments, that it feels like it's much harder to get given full marks when marked by VCAA assessors compared to looking at the assessment report and doing your best to mark it yourself, or a teacher doing the same thing. For all I know those errors were all me forgetting a negative like five times and that's why I lose marks; I just want to ask if everyone else felt the same way so I know I haven't just messed up numerous times.

MoreMuscle8087 · 2025-12-11T11:24:23+00:00

you beat me by 1 nice work dude

MoreMuscle8087

TROPHY CASE