I need a very high ATAR to get into medicine, but I really messed up in my first assessments. For maths I got a C, I think my rank is very poor. And in English, which I usually do well in, I got a rank of around 15. Because these are only the first assignments, and weigh 25%, will it still be possible to get a 99+ ATAR?
My school is ranked in the 100s, and I'm taking English advanced, Maths advanced, Biology, Chemistry, Investigating Science. What ranks would I need to aim for to get a high ATAR? I've heard I'd need to be ranked first in all my subjects, but I'm not sure I can do that for maths or chemistry, like, at all. If I grind I can do well in English, Investigating Science and Biology, but idk about being first rank. Also I don't take tutoring.
Am I screwed???
What should I do over the holidays to prepare, especially for maths and chem? If anyone who got a high ATAR has tips or advice that would be a huge help.
you are definetly fine, 25% gives you 75% left to work on your rank, which is plenty. for example my first physics task was the depth study, i cant really write scientific reports so even with all the effort i put in i bombed it, i got like rank 7 or something which doesnt sound that bad but i got like 50% lol my school marked harshly. needless to say it was quite frustrating given that it was 40% weighting. however, i slowly climbed, and eventually i ended with rank 2 in my school, and acheived a mark of 95 external in the exam, allowing me to recieve a band 6 for physics. so needless to say your atar is not over yet, if you can try your best to gain rank 1-3 in your subjects. given that you are at a highly ranked school, rank 1 is not completly necessary to recieve a 99+ atar, as your cohort would (hopefully) achieve high marks as well allowing your internal mark to not pull you down. but of course, the higher the better, as it offers more security for your marks.
for maths, i would recommend just doing as many questions as possible, as especially for advanced maths once you have completed enough questions, you can basically predict what 90% of the questions will be on the exams. just make sure you have a good conceptual understanding for those 10% of questions which will test your knowledge deeply, i would recommend watching videos from multiple sources, and potentially reading several textbook explanations on the concepts which you are struggling with. the more time you put in the better, id also suggest always being at least one chapter in the textbook ahead, that way the teachers explanation will make more sense for you in class.
for chemistry, i dont have first hand experience (only with year 11 chem that crushed my soul), but i did take physics so hopefully my advice will be helpful for chem. first thing i would recommend is going over year 11 content, you need the foundations to understand year 12 stuff, its all building on top of past knowledge. just look through the syllabus's important dot points, circle any patches in your knowledge and try to fix them up. after that i would suggest having a baseline look at the rest of the years content. by this i mean skim the whole textbook, try to make sure you understand the vocabulary and ideas as much as possible, not necessarily at a deeper level but just to have a very basic understanding, like you can explain the topic in one very surface level sentence. after that i just went on youtube and watched a bunch of videos on all the topics (eg science ready) to build upon the surface level understanding i garnered from the textbook, it helped me understand wtf was actually happening instead of just memorising definitions in the textbook. then when your teacher goes over the topic, you are already halfway to being an expert, so then the final level of understanding can (if you have a good teacher) hopefully be gained by having the topic explained to you one last time, and then you can ask questions to your teacher as well of course to clarify. after you feel like you have a good knowledge of the topic, then it is time to do as many questions as possible, beit from hsc or past papers. i was in a similar situation to you at the start of year 12, i thought i was going to absolutely flunk physics but with consistent hard work it is possible to succeed.
my last piece of advice is to be consistent in all your subjects, just doing half an hour of work a day on the subjects you hate adds up over the week to 3.5 hours, i would say that is the bare minimum for success in every subject if your time is used well. just know that 99+ atar is certainly not an easy task, you are competing to be in the top 1% of students, but it is not a contest of talent, anyone can succeed with enough hours put in. so dont be discouraged that you can't get rank 1, if you work harder than your peers naturally you can overtake them (take that from somebody who barely passed years 7-10).
