Hi CH,
It’s nice to hear from a fellow selective school student (and asian ;D you were correct in your assumption)
Actually, although trials have ended for most schools, my school started ours a week later than other schools, so we don’t finish until the end of next week. Surprisingly, although I was really nervous right before trials begin, now that I’m in the middle of trials season, I don’t feel as bad! I think people put way too much emphasis on how stressful the trials are. After all, you’ve already learnt most of the content after task 3, so studying for trials is just a quick revision of topics you’ve probably already worked hard on before.
I think part of the reason I’m not as stressed as a lot of people in my grade is because I’ve sat a HSC exam before, as an accelerant. I saw how low my marks at school were, then saw how I still managed to scrape a band 6. So now, I know what to expect from my trial marks, and understand that it can be significantly lower than my actual marks.
Generally speaking though, this whole year, I generally haven’t been coping too well. But by posting through these forums, and talking regularly to one teacher in my school who I’ve known for most of my high school life, its been getting me through. I actually did used to go on weekly study groups with my friends. Eventually, however, my timetable got crowded because of all the extra tutoring I began to do, and since it’s trials, everyone becomes independent since your whole grade is competing against each other. As a result, we stopped forming study groups, and I stopped sharing my notes. It sounds horrible, but TBH the environment gets kind of toxic around trials for everyone, especially in a selective school, since it’s particularly competitive.
I have tried studying in my school, and it has proven very effective. Unfortunately, my parents usually demand I come straight home if I don’t have tutoring, which is quite a pain. I do spend some lunchtimes at school studying in the library though, so that’s quite nice.
And yes, I’m looking so forward to taking a small break after my trials are over! Again, it was really nice hearing from you. I notice you mentioned you were also struggling to get by - if there’s anything you want to know about year 12, or if you want any advice, I’d be more than happy to answer anything :)
C74