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hardwork vs. natural ability (1 Viewer)

esp_d

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hay, i was jus wondering if it was possible to get a uai over 90 or 95 by just hardwork or by ur natural ability, as in if ur naturally brainy. i kno some1 tht is an eg. of that and she didnt even study that hard but got a uai of 98 and som1 that worked reallLY hard and got a uai of 96.45....
wt do u guys think, which of those- hardwork or natural ability do u need to get a really good uai???
 

acmilan

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Id say there would be people that fit both descriptors. Some need to study heaps to understand things, others only need to read it once.
 

mz_purfect

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well de dux of my skool (99.65) always told me that she NEVER studies. So i assumed dat her avg 100% marks were cuz of her talent. Wrong. Her best friend later told me that she gets up @ 1am evry nite and studies de entire nite.

my point: hard work as well as some natural ability gets u the marks.
 

Slidey

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Who, of the mentally sane among us, STARTS to study at 1AM? o_O

I think obviously you need to learn something at least once. And also learn it again, from maybe a different source, to both cement it in and get different perspectives and extra information.

Past that osmosis and experience probably kick in. Of course, learning it once is pointless if you weren't paying attention when you did so.

For things like maths, it may be the same but there's more chance of error if you do that as it is more fiddly. Safer to do some practice.
 

spin spin sugar

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it can go both ways. in my experience it wasnt hours spent studying or how hard i studied that earned me a UAI of 99.25, it was bullshitting skills and studying smart - as in, studying the right things at the right time
 

Sarah168

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spin spin sugar said:
it was bullshitting skills and studying smart - as in, studying the right things at the right time
got it it one :p

esp in writing subjects (eng, hist, economics), bull shitting takes u a loooooong way :D
 

ameh

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dux of our school in 03 with 99.85 claimed that she partied, and got drunk, yeah right! apparently she was stressed to the point of calling and emailing teachers at midnight for help
 

zhongie

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A girl at my school, who was just pretty average all through high school, worked super hard in Year 12, and she got 98.95, so it's possible.

My other friend doesn't work very hard, her idea of studying is reading the textbook once, and she got 99.90. So it goes both ways.
 

lukebennett

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i think it depends on the combination of both. people with ability cant learn stuff from thin air. they have to listen and taken in the info. they may not have to do as much work as other people. some need to do lots of work to understand things. my sis had a friend who was a hard worker and got 97. she couldnt cope with uni law at all.

people thought i was dumb till i started to actually pay some attention in class. that did the trick for me. i did little home work and just did some notes and crammed a couple of days before tests and it seemed to work. i could have done better though but i shud have worked harder earlier. my exam skills were shockig cause i only started to work in the latter stages of yr11
 
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to tell you the truth, people that say they don't study, lie. just in case they get some shit UAI so they can easily say "oh i didn't really study that much".

but yeah, hard work + natural ability, you need them both i believe. that, and it just depends what clicks with you. eg. i studied my arse off for physics and chemistry and went really shit (shit enough to drag my UAI down significantly), while with ancient history i studied only a few hours the morning before and it was my best mark. same with english too.
 

jang

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amoz_lilo said:
dux of our school in 03 with 99.85 claimed that she partied, and got drunk, yeah right! apparently she was stressed to the point of calling and emailing teachers at midnight for help
u have to know when to play and when to study.
she must have panicked/called teacher watever/studied before assessments and partied after... theres so many ppl like that, y cant u belive it

EDIT: also, all through life i underestimated my ability.. u dun know ur ability until u've tried your best.
 

rainonmay

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i believe u need a bit of both... there are ppl in my yr who have natural ability in certain subjects but due to a lack of effort they dont perform that well... there are also people i kno who studies hard but due to a lack of natural ability find it hard to get over 90... but then again i dont go to such a great school so maybe they just arent trying hard enough
 

withoutaface

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Hmm, well apart from maths I didn't really study that much for anything, but yeah it would have been a combination in my case I guess.
 

jellybeenz

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I tried to study for the HSC-- well what I call study, however it wasn't as much as most of my friends did. I had never studied for anything before and I didn't know how to do it (I still don't). I was very stressed because of this-- I never felt as prepared as everyone else because I didn't know the stuff well enough and relied waaaaay too much on bullshitting skills.

I think working hard is worth it, because although I spent Yr 12 pretty happy about the fact that I was breezing through not doing any work and pretty much bludging the whole time.

I freaked out before the exams because of how much I had to know for the HSC. I had never studied before, so I didn't know how to and I never felt as prepared as all my friends and ended up feeling like I failed every exam. By my last exam, I had pretty much given up studying.

I guess I relied mostly on natural ability but my UAI was only 89.70 and all my friends who worked really hard got 98.10, 96.9, 94.9 & 94.0.... I guess the numbers speak for themselves. If you rely only on your natural ability, you will always have this regret that maybe you could have achieved more than you did. If I had studied throughout the whole year I wouldnt have felt so stressed going into my HSC exams because I would have known the stuff and wouldnt have been bullshitting most of it.

I guess I'm saying, hard work pays off and you won't have regrets about your UAI, so don't rely only on natural ability because it can only get you so far. Working hard and studying will result in a much calmer HSC exam period and less stress during exams. Just IMO.
 

lukebennett

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thecurtainfalls said:
to tell you the truth, people that say they don't study, lie. just in case they get some shit UAI so they can easily say "oh i didn't really study that much".

but yeah, hard work + natural ability, you need them both i believe. that, and it just depends what clicks with you. eg. i studied my arse off for physics and chemistry and went really shit (shit enough to drag my UAI down significantly), while with ancient history i studied only a few hours the morning before and it was my best mark. same with english too.
it is a blend. the more natural ability you have the less study you need. i know people who ACTUALLY did jack all study and did very well. i did jack all most of year 12 but what got me results was my focus and listening skills in class and doing all my assignments on time. i absorbed info well and made good notes. i was lucky to do more than an average of 30-60 mins of home work each night. i did pretty well getting 97 but its not like thats a marvellous uai. i would have done better with more work cause i bombed out in the hsc (but that was nerves i think).

people who say that people who say they dont study much lie are really generalising cause some are so smart they dont really need to do much work at all. but many do study heaps but they dont know any better and it doesnt seem like much work to them
 

lala2

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the dux of our grade (we're 05'ers) is really smart--her dad's a doctor and they've got a mansion :eek: and her brother's at syd grammar (entered from yr 7--that's how brainy their family is), but she had to work so hard to top the grade, it wasn't funny. the dux used to do bio in yr 11 (and then dropped), and she used to sit at a table of four, and she'd always sit in the middle. the remaining three girls were left to fight it out as to where to sit, because she never talks during lessons, and works really hard, so the people who always sat next to her would just not talk to anyone all lesson, and would actually do their work.

so, conclusion is, it's a mixture of natural ability and hard work.
 

Katie123

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I think its a mix- the dux of our school had a super duper memory but she also put a lot of work into it. Definitely natural ability with hard work.
 

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