Students from Selective High School always gain remarkable grades in VCE. This school, praised as “a factory for high achievers”, bears much beneficial experience for students to learn. We have summarised 9 learning approaches.
▶️ Comprehensive Preparation
Be prepared with an error log, an example record, preview before a new class, review before doing homework, and several timed exercises.
▶️ Regular Plan
When you set a long term goal, it is necessary to set a short term one as well, which is suitable for your current situation and realisable through efforts. At the same time, the key point is to be self-disciplined to fight against all sorts of disturbances in learning. Leaning is like a long journey which begins with the first step. The above approach can make your long term plan more accessible. You also should establish an overall and reasonable time schedule which makes full use of your spare time, and then obey it strictly to make yourself used to it.
▶️ Active Preview
For every subject, spend 10 minutes in previewing textbooks and recording your problems which you should focus on in your next class. The purpose of preview is to find those problems and solve them in class. If you are puzzled by a problem, you will pay more attention to the relevant knowledge in subsequent class. The preview calls for not only reading but also recording. You should write down your puzzles, difficulties and problems. Since exercise is the reflection and the highest standard of preview, you should solve one or two textbook problems which test your basic knowledge and skill. If you can solve them, it is clear that you have master the relevant knowledge; if you can’t, it is necessary for you to learn more from the following class.
▶️ Effective class learning
In class, it is necessary for you to follow your teacher, focus on the key points and master them immediately. Preview in time, so you can keep pace with your teacher in class to master the key points. Some are common points, such as principles, equations, words and sentence patterns. And the more important points are student-specific ones which confused you in your preview. According to solid evidence, without preview, students can master only 50-60% class knowledge; through preview, they can improve this rate to 80-90%.
▶️ Skillful review
There are 5 keys to an effective review: thinking, checking, reading, writing and speaking. Thinking means to close your eyes, reflecting what you have learned like playing movies. It is the first thing you need to do after class. Checking is the best method to find and fill your knowledge loopholes. Some knowledge can be reflected easily and clearly; others may be obscure or even blank in your memory. An effective review means you can remember all of them. Reading means to read your textbooks and take notes. Writing means to fully record the difficulties and knowledge loopholes with marks to help your subsequent review. Speaking means to retell what you have learned at the end of the day every school day, and retell the knowledge leant for the week on Sunday.
▶️ Self-discipline in doing homework
There are 5 key points: 1. Do homework with time limit. 2. Preview before doing homework. 3. Skip the puzzling difficulties temporarily and tackle them after completing other questions. 4. Check your homework. 5. Do homework independently, avoid any plagiarism.
▶️ Repeated review of your mistakes
There is no doubt that learning from mistakes is an indispensable part of the whole study process. Such a review will benefit your subsequent learning. The mistakes and difficult questions often reflect the combination of knowledge points. Therefore, the mastery of them equals to the familiarity with key knowledge, leading to a high VCE score. You need to divide your error log into 4 sections:
1. The question.
2. The cause of error.
3. The rectification and the list of similar questions (to apprehend through analogy).
4. The summary and note of relevant knowledge points. After recording a mistake, it is imperative for you to review repeatedly to consolidate your knowledge bank.
▶️ Thorough solution of difficult questions
Generally speaking, the difficulty of those questions tends to be the various knowledge points which bear complex and subtle logic links with each other. You can classify those questions according to their related knowledge points. First, figure out all the relevant knowledge and analyze their inner links. Second, reflect your previous train of thought to determine the root of your mistake. Finally, eliminate your knowledge loopholes and weak links with the help of suggested answers, and constantly review and check your knowledge bank in your subsequent learning.
▶️ Targeted review before VCE. You can establish a form to arrange the key points. For every subject, summarise the relevant questions including multiple-choice, completion, calculation and reading, etc. Record all your mistakes and losing scores clearly on your form, so you can find the roots of your mistakes such as a misunderstanding of questions or an error in calculation. Then move those questions to your error log. Before tests, review them according to the relevant knowledge points. This method will help you efficiently review all the key points.
That’s all about the nine study approaches from Selective High School. We hope those methods can help you improve your VCE competence. Carry on!
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