What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry? (1 Viewer)

LoveHateSchool

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Re: What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry

There will always be craziness in HSC, and it's a little saddening to hear people don't mellow in uni.

Honestly ignore;
*Bitchy comments/Psyching comments
*Passive agressive tweets/FB comments
*Hiding resources

And you'll be doing yourself a world of good. If people put that extra effort in being hostile to other high performing students into their studies, they could probs do better themselves. The HSC is part a mindgame of not being drawn into pettiness or anxiety about exams etc.
 

deswa1

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Re: What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry

I never really experienced these levels of competition because at my school, people didn't get that insane over the competition etc. Just a quick story about why you shouldn't get drawn into it. Me and one of my best friends at school shared everything (essays before tests, notes etc.). The average ATAR between the two of us was 99.90. If we both went solo, I highly doubt either of us would have broken 99.5 (meaning he wouldn't have made med, I would have missed Comm/Law etc.).
 

Blue Suede

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Re: What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry

Worst thing that's coming to mind so far was last term. This girl in my year who is really competitive told our entire class that the teacher had informed her of some changes to the exam and told her to spread the word, notably, that a whole chapter that the class had really struggled with was totally removed because we still needed to work on it. No one was prepared for it to be in the exam, and as I said, we had all found it really difficult. When we had our reading time we realised that the chapter was not only still there, but it took up half the test because our teacher wanted to challenge us. What he had actually told her, was that the chapter would constitute more than its fair share of the text so that we would all be forced to study it more and learn it thoroughly. When this all came out in the next lesson, she giggled a little and said that she got a bit mixed up, and thought he said something else. Yet she topped the class in the exam and got pretty much every question right in that part of the paper. More than a little suspicious to me...
How did not a single person think to confirm with the teacher? You're all 17/18 years old and seem to be lacking in maturity. I think what she did was undeniably bitchy, but you all let yourselves be taken for a ride.
 

Blue Suede

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Re: What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry

I never really experienced these levels of competition because at my school, people didn't get that insane over the competition etc. Just a quick story about why you shouldn't get drawn into it. Me and one of my best friends at school shared everything (essays before tests, notes etc.). The average ATAR between the two of us was 99.90. If we both went solo, I highly doubt either of us would have broken 99.5 (meaning he wouldn't have made med, I would have missed Comm/Law etc.).
Same thing happened with me. Everyone worked individually for trials to get their ranks sorted, but when it came to HSC, it was a whole combined effort. Heaps of people in our grade shared notes on a forum we made for our grade alone, and our year was one of the best they've had.
 

Capt Rifle

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Re: What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry

I despise people like this
 

Omnipotence

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Re: What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry

I hate them snakes.
 

nifkeh

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Re: What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry

You can only borrow stuff for a certain length of time, and if someone else puts a hold on it, you can't keep renewing it. So people hide it so they always have access to it.
I think they are reference books, the ones you can't actually borrow
 

GoldyOrNugget

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Re: What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry

I never really experienced these levels of competition because at my school, people didn't get that insane over the competition etc. Just a quick story about why you shouldn't get drawn into it. Me and one of my best friends at school shared everything (essays before tests, notes etc.). The average ATAR between the two of us was 99.90. If we both went solo, I highly doubt either of us would have broken 99.5 (meaning he wouldn't have made med, I would have missed Comm/Law etc.).
Definitely this. Ranks aren't important if everyone does well.
 

nifkeh

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Re: What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry

I don't think I've really experienced like direct things, but I've noticed indirect things such as one smartish person in our grade only talking to who she considers smart (i.e. people topping the tests in the subjects she does). I've overheard her convos about ranks/marks to the person who came second in our prelim year in my physics class, she suggested that 'you're going to be screwed if you get below 5th ranking in any assessments because of our school's rep on maths & sciences' which I think is bs, unless she's trying to state rank or something lol. our school might not state rank (but we did for chem this year yay for once) but there would be lots of HSC band 6 marks I'm sure, just that there is very few raw band 6 finalised school marks. apparently my chem teacher said only 4 people out of 90? or so chem students for 2012 cohort got a raw chem band 6 as a unmoderated school assessment mark, but she said if you came at least 41st or lower you would still be good. I don't know if this is right lol.

this girl in my grade doesn't really tease people or anything like that, she just hints at the quality of people 'less worthy' than her to the people she happens to talk to in class which are usually topping chem or physics. I'm not in her maths class either, so I can't say about that, but she has a slight ego and doesn't really live up to her expectations... there were heaps of others in physics and maths and chem beating her in the first assessment so that she was 10th - 15th already lol

anyway, she is pretty much a maths/science person so her english probably isn't that great, but who knows lol, I think she is an average english student (for our grade) but she seldom discusses about english to anyone in general as I've noticed, unlike what she does in physics to others. she's not that competitive to the point where she won't answer your question or anything like that but it's not like she offers a study session/group or notes to others freely
 
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Ealdoon

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Re: What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry

Now I'm worried about what people are going to do next year XD
 

deswa1

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Re: What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry

Same thing happened with me. Everyone worked individually for trials to get their ranks sorted, but when it came to HSC, it was a whole combined effort. Heaps of people in our grade shared notes on a forum we made for our grade alone, and our year was one of the best they've had.
No sorry, what I meant was me and my friends worked together BEFORE trials. After trials obviously everyone shared resources and stuff.
 

Ealdoon

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Re: What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry

No sorry, what I meant was me and my friends worked together BEFORE trials. After trials obviously everyone shared resources and stuff.
That sounds like a good idea! Being able to study together, compete against each other, asking each other for help, copying homework, etc :)
 

iSplicer

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Re: What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry

I thought this was going to end with her turning off the air con in order to hinder your studying.
Hahahahaha that's hilarious.
 

Naz1234

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Re: What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry

During the HSC, I would try very hard to get top marks. And so my hand writing was HUGEE and sometimes the table would shake when I write.
I heard from my friends, that a few people from my grade had been bitching about that and so they posted shit about me all over facebook and twitter.
I went up to them during a business studies class, and they shit themselves. I was about the punch the Asian bitch (no offence to the nice Asians out there)
I DIDNT EVEN KNOW THEY EXISTED!! I had just moved to the school.

They were jelly cause I was beating them thus they attempted to let me down, but they failed... dun dun dunnnnnnn
 

nifkeh

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Re: What absurd things have people done in your school due to competition and rivalry

I would also say some people in our school would be mixed, so far my friends aren't like "my notes are a secret" or not helping me out on a question if I asked them, I would help them too. I know some people in our year that are pretty okay with sharing their essays that got high marks around and helping each other out, but there would be some people I think that are hesitant. Some of my friends are like 'come to this tutoring centre its good' publicly, where others in the year who are topping it/quite good who I am not close to don't exactly tell anyone where they go to. I haven't really been in a constant study group yet but the occasional is good to work in, though most of the time it ends up with conversation rather than being alone, both have benefits and disadvantages.

I remember now of this friend I had back in year 9/10 when we were doing accelerated IPT because our school had a class if you were interested to do it. anyway, this friend who I thought was pretty good with has been acing her prelims with 90's while I was sitting on the average around a 87-88, I wasn't with her due to her academics being higher than me but because I knew her in year 8 already and we were friendly to each other before we actually were in the same class again, this time for IPT.

in year 10, it was after trials but before HSC I think we were going over the past actual HSC papers for IPT in class but I can't remember which part of the month exactly, I had to go overseas and miss school for 2-3 days as I was going to a wedding overseas lol. So I missed writing down the answers for the past papers as I wasn't physically there and I didn't exactly tell someone to give them to me beforehand. Anyway when I came back, I'd thought I would ask this good friend of mine for the answers because I had missed out on school and also because I sit next to her. She said okay, but she didn't give them to me on email/in person that day or that night. So I had to ask around the people on msn who were in my IPT class and were online and I was kind of panicking ish at this point because I have missed out on answers the whole class has got already. I think this was within a week of the actual HSC exam in the end of October, which was on a Tuesday and this was the weekend or something. I finally got it from another friend who I wasn't too close to at that time and didn't sit near me in class but I was happy that she at least helped me so I thanked her and we kind of exchanged some study stuff afterwards before the exam. Since that thing I haven't really talked to the 'good friend' deeply because she didn't give me what she said she was able to and I had asked her, not demanded her if she was okay to send me the answers the class did that day in school. I don't think she forgot either, I didn't give her a rushed question because I asked her in class when I got back and another time in the lesson at the end I think because she didn't give it yet and I'm pretty sure she said "I'll send it to you tonight by email" and it wasn't like I wasn't online or oblivious to checking emails by that age because I kind of did it everyday.

I think this incident kind of distanced us a bit, whenever I see her I say hi and stuff but I've noticed whenever I bring up something general about the recent chem exam or any other exams we both did like the average, how easy/hard I thought it was or how long the experiment took in the prac (not stuff like what's your mark or my mark or what stuff you got wrong) she tends to avoid talking about it, which is alright because not everyone wants to talk about it but in a sense we don't have much in common as we're not in the same friendship group, just friends so what there is to discuss is already limited. Since IPT I haven't been in the same classes as her (she moved out of my chem class in year 11 because she thought the teacher was a bit iffy) but even as we do almost the same subjects she doesn't really talk much about it in general, so I can't expect her to be in a study group with me as I think she would be reluctant to share on the basis of helping out, rather taking into account 'who is better and if I help you it can potentially beat me' so I can't really talk to her as much as in year 10. I wasn't a freeloader from her, we did most of our stuff back then individually (incl. studying) but just sat next to each other in class as a friend and we would exchange notes to copy stuff that we didn't hear from the teacher because we were not listening or occupied with finishing the last sentence of notes as he spoke. but it's sad to see that even back then in year 10, she was already competitive..., I never really beat her in an assessment for IPT back then so I didn't think that we were rivals or anything or that taking an accelerated course was because you were serious or that it was competitive (I took it because I liked technology and thought why not). But being competitive/treating others as rivals can seriously damage a friendship and make you distant from others, at the end you haven't really gained anything when you could have helped each other out and got the marks you both wanted together. If you wanted to continue your friendship post HSC, I would imagine it to be difficult because I can't forget or pass off this thing as just minor because friendship should be not just confined to marks even though you only met in school but also how you get along/interests you have so that marks or studying do not take the majority of your interests or friendship away. I can't really see myself still staying friends with this person after year 12 ends because in a sense she has been ignoring me when I wanted to talk lightly about school life which is what we both have in common, not like I was treating the HSC as a competition or something lol or making sure that I get a higher ATAR or something. She didn't add to the friendship but kind of stalled it. But if people want to continue shunning others for their own competitiveness, it is their loss so let them be and soon they will know that maybe having a companion to talk to makes life a lot happier and that not everybody is after resources to better themselves.

sorry for tl;dr
 

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