How hard to get 99.5+ ATAR? (1 Viewer)

jimmysmith560

Le Phénix Trilingue
Moderator
Joined
Aug 22, 2019
Messages
4,116
Location
Krak des Chevaliers
Gender
Male
HSC
2019
Uni Grad
2022
To answer your question on how hard it is to receive a 99.5+ ATAR - as was mentioned above, it's pretty hard as you need to be consistently monitoring your performance (mainly ensuring you are ranking at the top of your school cohort across all your subjects). Once you get to the HSC exam, you will also need to study hard and ensure you regularly apply your knowledge to past exam papers as you will also need to receive very high marks (all marks will need to be in the band 6 region for an ATAR this high).

There are a few people on here who recently achieved an ATAR higher than 99.5. Perhaps those people would also like to provide tips and advice from their experience. :D
 

dasfas

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2019
Messages
470
Gender
Male
HSC
2019
Basically you just grind a shitton of past papers, focus on exam technique and your weaker subjects.
 

idkkdi

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 2, 2019
Messages
2,454
Gender
Male
HSC
2021
Basically you just grind a shitton of past papers, focus on exam technique and your weaker subjects.
And also never study english and pray it doesn't drag u down too much LOL
are papers really that useful?
most just seem like regular things u should already know from textbook if u read it properly.
 

pikachu975

Premium Member
Joined
May 31, 2015
Messages
2,739
Location
NSW
Gender
Male
HSC
2017
are papers really that useful?
most just seem like regular things u should already know from textbook if u read it properly.
Yeah for me I thought textbook was to learn the basics, then papers to improve your problem solving
 

dasfas

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2019
Messages
470
Gender
Male
HSC
2019
are papers really that useful?
most just seem like regular things u should already know from textbook if u read it properly.
Yeah past papers are literally the single best resource. Sure you might know the content, but if you can't actually put it into words and convert that into a good mark, then what's the point.

I keep telling my tutees this. The difference between band 5, band 6 and state rank (in the sciences at least) is just a matter of exam technique. Typically people get exams back and it's stupid mistakes, rather than actual holes in their knowledge. Past papers are the best way to improve exam technique.
 

queenb_3

Active Member
Joined
Sep 7, 2019
Messages
319
Gender
Female
HSC
2020
Uni Grad
2025
are papers really that useful?
most just seem like regular things u should already know from textbook if u read it properly.
Past papers are undoubtedly very useful and as @dasfas mentioned, the difference between band 5, band 6 and a state rank.

It's not really about how many papers you can not only get your hands on but how much you actually do, and then work to improve on. Sometimes, students just do the papers and they don't submit them, so in saying that, improvement is very important. Keep on submitting your work to your teachers/markers to continuously improve and perfect your exam techniques and responses. I would personally say that the textbook and your notes are just the basic - a majority of schools use the same textbooks for the same subjects so in just understanding the content, that would put a student with just the average let's say. For such a great ATAR, you really need to go above and beyond.
 

dasfas

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2019
Messages
470
Gender
Male
HSC
2019
Yeah to add onto what queenb said, also you gotta prioritise QUALITY work.

So if you get a question wrong, ask yourself why you got it wrong, what incorrect thought processes happened, what you can learn from it. Add the information you learnt from getting it wrong to your notes.

Re-do the question in a few months time to see if you learnt from your mistake.

I kept hearing about people doing 100s of questions but being outperformed by people who put in less effort because the people doing a lot weren't learning from their mistakes, so really there was very little utility in them doing the questions. This and my point above is literally all that separates a decent student from a great student.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top