Approaching past papers (1 Viewer)

[BandSixFix]

Do you guys generally do open book past papers or solely closed book? Or maybe a combination of both? How do you guys approach past papers?

 

[astroman]

Depends on how you feel, if your tired of bored or its 2am, split the paper into sections and do it as opposed to chronologically tackling the whole thing. Another way I did them was to do them open book then repeat the next day closed book.

 

[leehuan]

I always did maths closed book.

But then I did chemistry and physics open book begrudgingly so.

 

[eyeseeyou]

Close book because every exam will make you have no book at all

 

[leehuan]

Basically the book was there for me because I forgot stuff. And I'm one of those people that are like "FUCK YOU LEEHUAN YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS SHIT" so it agitates me bad and makes me feel weak when I did it.

But of course, I opened the notes/textbook where needed anyway because anything beats unnecessarily losing marks.

Maths was eh though, maths I never need the book because it was all in my head.

 

[bobmyself]

I did pretty much all of my past papers closed book and under exam conditions (though I only started them a week before trials and picked them up again a month or so before the external).

Theory was that you should know all the content before attempting to properly do a past paper so if I needed an open book then I knew my time would be better spent just be learning content. It's fine if you just need help with a single weird question or something but if you're doing an extended response and don't know what to cover then there's no point in even trying and wasting your time bsing.

If you want to use the past papers as just study material then open book should be fine for that.

 

[leehuan]

I did pretty much all of my past papers closed book and under exam conditions (though I only started them a week before trials and picked them up again a month or so before the external).

Theory was that you should know all the content before attempting to properly do a past paper so if I needed an open book then I knew my time would be better spent just be learning content. It's fine if you just need help with a single weird question or something but if you're doing an extended response and don't know what to cover then there's no point in even trying and wasting your time bsing.

If you want to use the past papers as just study material then open book should be fine for that.

It does vary for person to person. But I just want to say that past papers HELPED me find my gaps.

 

[bangali]

I reckon a mix; if you're really not confident (which is often the case when you're starting on past papers), then closed-book can be a nightmare that scars you for life, at the start. I liked to start open book and head towards closed book as I got better through the year.

If you're doing it open-book, just remember to record every time you check up, otherwise you can lull yourself into thinking you know it all and actually not get better, because you don't then bother learning the missing content.

Past papers are great for finding gaps, but remember to actually fill in the gaps once you've found them rather than just plough straight on to another past paper

 

[InteGrand]

Depends how much you've memorised and the nature of the subject. If the subject is rote-based like the HSC Sciences for instance, there's probably not much point doing past papers closed book if you haven't memorised the content yet, because your answers would be sub-standard or incomplete etc., due to not remembering key info. So for these types of subjects, you should probably only do them closed book if you're satisfied with how well you've memorised the content (or want to test how well you've memorised it, or something like that).

 

[leehuan]

I reckon a mix; if you're really not confident (which is often the case when you're starting on past papers), then closed-book can be a nightmare that scars you for life, at the start. I liked to start open book and head towards closed book as I got better through the year.

If you're doing it open-book, just remember to record every time you check up, otherwise you can lull yourself into thinking you know it all and actually not get better, because you don't then bother learning the missing content.

Past papers are great for finding gaps, but remember to actually fill in the gaps once you've found them rather than just plough straight on to another past paper

Lol obviously I did the question

 

[BLIT2014]

Business Studies

I did it close book for the multiple choice. Then for short answers I would jot down points on a seperate paper, then write my answer looking at the syllabus/notes/textbook then hand it in to a teacher for marking.

For practice business reports I pretty much was fully reliant on looking at the syllabus plus notes/textbook.

 

[Nailgun]

imo maybe for 1st, 2nd use open book, but by then you should be confident enough to do it closed book.
If you aren't, then you should go back and reevaluate how you're writing notes, preparing etc.
I generally (after making sure I feel confident enough to have the hang of it i.e 1-2 open books) go into full exam conditions, so no breaks timed, like make it legit
(I don't do that for physics though because it's never really time constrained, but I still do it seriously)
Some people get really stressed out doing that though lol ,and probably couldn't handle it at the volume I do it

 

[calamebe]

Closed book for me.

 

[HSCReady]

When I did my studying and did past papers, I would do them closed book (unless I was super stuck on a question that I had NO clue about), but even then I would mark my paper according to how many questions I genuinely got right using my brain. There's nothing wrong with having open book, as long as you make sure you're doing as much as you possibly can without your book, and when you do need to refer to your notes, that you are absorbing the information (all for the purposes of learning concepts). Having said this, I only really did past papers for 2u maths, 3u maths and physics (I didn't really do them for my Advanced English, ext 1 and 2 or for Music) - so with some difficult concepts I would have my book out for the first few papers I did, but after that I would do close book, but mark my paper by writing in the answers I had gotten wrong, so I would learn what I couldn't answer. With English, I was set with rote learning, and with Music, I just practiced my performances. Good luck however you approach your studies though!