Ah, SWOTVAC (or STUVAC, depending on your location). The gloriously horrible week or so after classes finish, but before the exam period. It’s such a tease, isn’t it? “Semester has finished!” says the uni. “… But exams are still to come,” it whispers. Such a tease.

The thing with SWOTVAC is this: it really can make a difference toward your end-of-semester exams. And using your time wisely can really boost your marks. So you might be wondering how students usually use SWOTVAC – particularly if you’ve never experienced one before. Here are just a few of the usual activities.

Catching up on lectures

Maybe you came into uni thinking, “this’ll be such a breeze.” Some people like to characterise uni as though it’s the easiest thing in the world, where you can cruise into class whenever you want and still manage High Distinctions. Of course, we know that’s not really the case – but a lot of students only find that out when they experience it in first year. It’s actually pretty common for people to take the start of uni lightly (for whatever reason), and then suddenly panic later on as they strain under the load of fifty thousand incomplete assignments.

This tends to result in a backlog of lectures, particularly for those who pushed aside recorded lectures and put them in the “I’ll definitely watch this later” basket. Spoiler: you’ll probably keep putting it off until SWOTVAC.

how to study in swotvac

When SWOTVAC comes and there are no more classes, it seems the perfect time to catch up on all those lectures you’ve missed. And that’s all well and good, but it means, really, that you’re just catching up to where you should be in the first place. If you spend all of SWOTVAC watching lectures from the semester that’s just passed, when do you expect to actually revise for exams?

For that reason, 2/10, would not recommend this tactic.

Finishing overdue assignments

Along a similar line, some students back themselves into a corner, and have to finish overdue assignments. You shouldn’t have anything due in SWOTVAC, but if you delay your earlier assignments, you’re really in the same pickle as above; you can work super hard to get back up to speed, but then it’s time for exams and you haven’t actually done any active exam revision.

Of course, extended deadlines are sometimes uncontrollable, due to thinks such as illness. But that’s not the scenario we’re talking about. We’re talking about the “I’ll just cop the late penalty and submit this in a few days” sort of thing. Those days always add up and make a difference in the end.

Something likely to be more productive for exam revision is re-assessing your old assignments. Look at what you were assessed on during the semester. What did you get marked down on? Make sure that you’re on top of your mistakes, and that you won’t repeat them in the exam – that would just be throwing away potential marks.

Organising your notes

Whether you’re a physical notebook or laptop sorta person for notes, SWOTVAC can be a good time for organising yourself. If you’re anything like some of us at ATAR Notes, your lecture notes might be all over the place – between notebooks, only some digital, crowded with random cartoons you drew when you were bored etc. Organising your notes can go some way to organising your mindset before the exam, which is a good thing.

Now, note that this does not mean you should just re-write your notes mindlessly. This is a classic time-waster, where it sort of feels like you’re studying but you’re actually not getting that much value from it. If you want to do something similar, you could make study summaries, condensing what you’ve learnt from that semester into, say, a page per topic. Doing this can kill two metaphorical birds with one metaphorical stone: you organise your notes, and, by virtue of the summarising process, consolidate knowledge. Big win!

how to study in swotvac

Exam-specific study

In some instances, you’ll know before the exam what it’ll focus on. This might be a particular topic or three; it might be a few specific reasons; it might be the entire semester’s (or more) content. Naturally, it depends on the unit, but if you have it, you should use this knowledge to your advantage.

Obviously, if the focus of the exam is limited in scope, you shouldn’t bother going beyond that scope in your revision. There’s no point revising lectures #1-3 if they’re not going to be on the exam. That’s not to say that content isn’t important or shouldn’t be given due attention, but like, to prepare for the exam specifically, studying it just wouldn’t make sense.

Speak to past students of that unit and see how they found the exam (but note that it very well may change from semester to semester). If you don’t know anybody doing that unit, there might be a student review on ATAR Notes! You can find links to our subject review threads for all unis at this link – some unis have hundreds and hundreds of reviews.

Doing practice questions

Uni is a bit different to high school insofar as you might not have heaps of practice exams at your disposal. In fact, you might not have any. Obviously, this makes preparation a little trickier, because you can’t just use the default “I’ll do a practice exam!” approach. If you’re lucky, you might have access to some practice questions, either through your uni or externally (say, from textbooks or on the internet). Doing these is good preparation – particularly if uni-endorsed. The more practice you get answering exam-like questions, the better.

Literally no study whatsoever

And, of course, some people just use it to chill. Is this wise? Maybe. But also maybe not.

If you’ve kept up-to-date during the semester and feel as though you’re on top of things, relaxing a bit through SWOTVAC can be a pretty good refresher before exams. It means you’d be able to walk into the exam hall fresh, instead of having spent the previous three nights desperately cramming, and subsisting on instant coffee and milk bottle lollies.

Of course, you might not feel this a legitimate option if you’re eight lectures and sixteen readings behind the eight ball. This is really why consistent work throughout the semester – so, right now if you’re reading this – will pay off nearer exams. You’ll have longer to let content consolidate in your memory, and you’ll save yourself unnecessary pre-exam stress. Being well-rested is a really underrated exam hack, and this starts throughout the semester. 💪

There are countless ways you could use SWOTVAC/STUVAC. The key is to go with your gut. If you feel like you need to study more, do that. If you feel confident and just need to rest, do that. Either way, we wish you nothing but the best for the rest of the semester and for exams!