Optimising your ATAR is something that can be done at any stage of the high school journey. Whether you’ve just started high school or are in the middle of your external exams, there are still steps that you can take to maximise your ATAR. If you're still hesitant about what exactly the ATAR is, check out this comprehensive article where we dive deep into the intricacies of the ATAR score.

Before getting into the tips, it’s worth addressing that as important as your results and ATAR may be, it is not the only thing that matters, and should not completely consume your life.

Table of Content:

1. Try New Things
2. Do Not be Afraid to Fail
3. Do Not be Limited by the Syllabus
4. Meet your Prerequisites
5. Ignore Scaling
6. Follow your Passions
7. Stay Consistent
8. Keep Ahead of Deadlines
9. The Rubric is your Friend
10. Understanding Trumps Knowing
11. Take it Easy
12. Do Not Forget the Syllabus
13. Practice makes Perfect
14. Sleep Well
15. Stay Healthy
16. FAQs

Tips for Junior Years

1. Try new things

Take the time to try different things in your free time. Go ahead and learn karate; make and use the French mother sauces; create some short films; or build a calculator in Python.

Whatever it is, while you have spare time in your younger years, make the most of it. This may seem a bit random, but it will make sense later.

2. Do Not be Afraid to Fail

Did I just tell you to fail in order to get good results? No, but especially while your ATAR is still years away, focus less on getting good grades and more on actually learning.

If you focus on trying to learn, the grades should follow; but if you focus on the grades, you’ll be less likely to retain what you’ve learnt, which makes things harder down the track.

3. Do Not be Limited by the Syllabus

Perhaps you found something in one of the subjects really interesting, but you only get to spend a little bit of time on it before the class moves on. Do not let this hold you back from learning more about it. Especially with the internet at your fingertips, there is nothing to stop you from finding a good blog or YouTube channel that can help fuel this interest.

Tips on Choosing Subjects

4. Meet your Prerequisites

If you’re planning to go to university (which, if you’re taking the time to learn about maximising your ATAR, I assume you probably would be), then there will likely be subject prerequisites that vary depending on the program that you would like to study.

While this tip won’t necessarily impact your ATAR, it is still important to ensure you meet the other entry criteria to put it to full use, so be sure to keep this in mind while choosing subjects!

5. Ignore Scaling

Many people I’ve spoken to assume that to get a good ATAR, you must take the highest-scaling subjects.

There’s a massive caveat to this: scaling only really helps if you performed similarly well in the subjects. Therefore, to get the best results out of the courses that you study, try to think beyond just how well it scales.

6. Follow your Passions

This ties into all the previous tips, but in order to make the best subject selections, play to your strengths and choose subjects that you’re passionate about. If you’re passionate about the subjects that you choose, motivation should not be an issue that you face, and you’ll enjoy spending the necessary time exploring it.

This is where the tips for junior years pay off – if you’ve followed those, you should have a good idea of where it is that these passions of yours lie.

Tips for Senior Years

7. Stay Consistent

One of the worst things you can do to your studies is be inconsistent. It is so easy to get yourself into the perspective that “it’s all easy” or “I know most of it”, but this leads very swiftly to a poor understanding of core concepts and a quickly growing workload. Come the time for studying for external exams, you will realise how horrible that will be.

Make sure that you are taking the time from the very start of each term to do the revision, including recapping past content. This article has a study routine you can follow to get a 99+ ATAR. If you find that you need some extra help understanding the content being taught in school, a private tutor from KIS Academics can help!

8. Keep Ahead of Deadlines

Things come up, assignments can be hard, and plans don’t always go they way you want them to – that’s just life. The best way to avoid letting this throw you off is to be proactive, and keep ahead.

In addition to just being better prepared if something goes wrong, doing things ahead of schedule has a host of other benefits:

• Teachers will be more available to help early on
• You don’t have to cram right before deadlines; and
• It won’t matter if every subject has something due at the same time, you’ve already done them!

9. The Rubric is your Friend

The rubric/marking guide provided with assignments is not just for teachers; it also tells you exactly what to do to get each mark.

Because the rubric breaks down exactly where the marks come from, it also tells you exactly what must be included to succeed. It’s basically a cheat sheet, so do not ignore it!

10. Understanding Trumps Knowing

This may have slightly more relevance to STEM subjects (although I wouldn’t count it out for the rest), but essentially try to understand WHY things work, don’t just leave it at knowing that they do. If you need help with understanding the concepts, always ask for help as soon as possible! Ask your teacher, your tutor, or even just your classmate.

If you take the time to understand a concept and how it came about, it will be much easier to remember, revise and apply it than simply knowing that it exists.

11. Take it Easy

As counterproductive as this may sound, take a step back from time to time. You have a full two years of senior subjects – if you’re pushing yourself to the limit the whole time, you’ll be burnt out well before your external exams.

External Exams

12. Do Not Forget the Syllabus

The best way to make sure that you know everything that you need for your exams is to consult the subject’s syllabus which should be accessible online. The syllabus lays out everything that the subject could assess, so it serves as a fantastic checklist for content to know.

It is also important to know how much your subject scales, for example, if you're a VCE student, take look at the VCE Scaling Report. If you're still curious about how the ATAR works, here is a thorough breakdown of the ATAR for you to check out.

13. Practice makes Perfect

There’s a reason it’s so cliché, and that is because it is true.

Understanding the content is crucial, but it will only get you so far. The important thing for exams is knowing how to apply this information and communicate it to address the exam. Past papers and practice questions will give you an ideal opportunity to hone this ability.

14. Sleep Well

You may be tempted to pull crazy all-nighters and late nights to give yourself as many hours of study as you can get – DON’T!

One of the most important tools in your arsenal is your sleep. Staying well-rested will keep you at peak mental capacity and help you to actually hold on to what you get out of studying.

15. Stay Healthy

Do not use external exams as an excuse to neglect your health. Be sure to eat well and get regular exercise in your studies. In order to ensure that you’re mentally fit for exams, you’ve got to make sure to keep the rest of your system running at full capacity.

Conclusion

The ATARs can be stressful, but it is important to remember that it is not everything. Remember to take care of your mental and physical health, and enjoy your senior year in high school too! If you need help with any subjects in school, a private tutor from KIS Academics can help you, so book a free 30 minute study skills consultation with an expert tutor today:

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FAQs

Written by Quinn Horton who purseud a Bachelor's (Honours) and Master of Engineering [Mechatronics] at the University of Queensland.

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