Four Mistakes That Can Kill a Perfect VCE Physics Exam – And How to Fix Them

There are many types of mistakes any student could make in a VCE Physics exam and in a trial where a handful of marks could be a make or break between two different grades, it’s important to be able to identify and per format your best.

These are some of the most common mistakes we find many students (and even historically speaking, myself) falling into in exam. Many of these are in fact applicable to other subjects and SACs as well.  Regardless of the specifics though, exam-style conditions can often be the den for these beasts to rear their head…

1. Using incorrect values (or constants)

Whether it be measured values from the question, or constants from your own formula sheet, it’s certainly possible to end up with an incorrect answer. This is where two key exam techniques come into play:

• Identify when an answer seems wrong: this should be a core skill in your exam toolkit, but being able to sense that something is ‘off’ will be crucial to rectifying potential mistakes. It’s rarely possible to guarantee perfect exam performance, so some sort of failsafe will be necessary. Experience is typically the main determinant of this skill, typically obtained by doing more questions/exam papers.

That, however, doesn’t address the core issue and is more of a cure rather than preventative. On the flip side:

• Pay attention to the units of the values being used: another core skill that isn’t emphasised enough in VCE Physics. More often than not, the units will give you one of the greatest clues as to whether it should be used or not. This is due to the fact that units can also be treated the same as numbers. It’s actually the reason we end up with strange units on the constant values!

2. Insufficient detail in worded responses

This is a bit more of a general mistake in exams with worded responses, but of course still applies to VCE Physics, with its own abundance of 3-5 mark short-answer questions.

Yes, once again - experience and corrected exam papers will absolutely aid this issue, but there’s one major tip that many teachers (and we at Complete) stress.

As many dot points as marks!

While a bit of an extension on top of the classic ‘answer in dot points’, it is key to giving your examiner an easier time in handing out marks to yourself. Each dot point should have at least one significant point of information that corresponds with one mark from the question.

3. Silly Mistakes

The classic. It can happen to all of us – even outside of exams. This can range from but not be limited to:

• Algebraic errors
• Reading the question incorrectly
• Forgetting units or direction(s)
• Skipping two entire pages because they were stuck together…

In my own experience and also for many other VCE Physics students, the simplest cure to this issue is doing more practice questions. Sometimes the most straightforward remedy can be the most effective one.

Our brains, especially at a young age, are highly neuroplastic, meaning they are capable of adapting to repeated situations, modifying neural connections and pathways to more efficiently solve known situations that arise. While that may sound like a bunch of scientific jumble, it is the core principle behind the concept of experience.

This, however, has the one caveat in that you must correct your work. If it isn’t corrected, then the extra work done will likely not rectify silly mistakes – as you quite simply wouldn’t have identified the issues in the first place!  

Everyone however is different, so while this method may work for most, another tip in this regard would be to go through at a reasonably steady pace. Just like the TAC says on highways: “speed kills” – and your exam grades are no different.

4. Running out of time

Fortunately, the solution for this mistake is a bit simpler than the previous two.

Tackle harder questions last.

I’m not quite sure where the idea of attempting harder questions first came from, but it seems to have permeated into the online student-sphere. The greatest pitfall with such an approach is spending too much time pondering over how to solve difficult questions, then having no time left to obtain the easier marks!

This isn’t always the case however, and such an approach, while better than attempting hard questions first, can still leave insufficient time to complete all the questions in a paper. In this case, the remedy is quite simply:

Do more practice papers in exam conditions!

Just doing more practice papers is great for getting familiar with different types of problems and overcoming silly mistakes, but the key part of this strategy is to mimic exam conditions as closely as possible. It’s one thing to be able to understand how to solve all the questions on a paper, but another to be able to do it within the time limit. So, just like with most of the other mistakes in this article, experience is king.

How can Complete help?

While most of these mistakes can be brute force tackled by simply ‘spamming’ more exam papers and marking them, there are a few considerations to take into account to work smarter, not harder.

We at Complete VCE Education provide the toolset to work smart in overcoming the mistakes covered in this article. We offer:

• An in-depth, tailored tutoring programme lead by a team raw 50 tutors
• Banks of more than 3000+ practice questions with full step-by-step solutions
• An intensive exam preparation programme specialised to VCE Physics, with papers hand-marked for each student by tutors
• Plentiful Mock Exam sittings for maximum preparation
• An extensive resource vault of guides, summaries, and more for every Area of Study

And of course, much more beyond just these common mistakes, be it for any roadblocks throughout the VCE Physics curriculum. We hope to see you in the classroom soon, whether that be in person at our CBD campus, or online on Zoom!