Jordan Berman is a genius who graduated in 2016 with a 99.95 and I - Noah Abelman, his lovable sidekick - graduated with a 99.90. We were just like every other student in the state. Over our two years of completing VCE, we heard the same useless advice that everyone hears and we ignored it. Yes, it seems it is possible to achieve success without mind-maps, study timetables or wasting hours attempting to plan out a healthy 'work-life balance'.
Our thinking was, it's all about the exam. That's where the majority of your mark comes from, your SACs are statistically standardised based on your exam results, and many of your SACs will be similar to the exam anyway. (SACs are like mini-exams taken throughout the year that factor into your final study score.)
So we spent hours doing every exam-type question we could get our hands on... or at least we wish we did. Only problem was, doing the hard work was, well, hard. Practising the same type of question over and over and over can get pretty monotonous. Deciding between Netflix and the 10th 'Differentiation of Circular Functions' question of the day is a very easy choice for a bored, stressed out VCE student.
However, during the holidays before exams, we were doing 10 hours of effective work a day. I think that's a pretty good improvement compared to the first SAC of the year where I procrastinated until the night before, did half an hour of studying/freaking out and then gave up and winged it.
So that's the essence of our attitude towards VCE: work smart and work hard. These core beliefs drive everything we do here at Exam Ready. That clarity in what to study and how to study it also massively increases motivation. We want to build this website as the go-to place for those students that want to achieve success, those students that are driven, those students that are ambitious and those students who would rather do a practise exam than practise their 'mindfulness' for an hour.
