Review, refresh and rest: How Rohan aced the VCE English exam

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Rohan Green, the 2024 captain and co-dux of Melbourne High School, was awarded the highest possible Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank score of 99.95 last year.

But Green, who also achieved the highest possible study score of 50 for English, says cramming and stressing aren’t what got him his outstanding results.

Rohan Green, with pet dog Ododie, found a balanced life was important in last year’s VCE exam period.

He credits some of his success during the exam period to maintaining balance and a sense of normalcy.

“I think something that’s quite common is students deactivating their social media accounts during exam period,” Green says.

“But to me, I think it’s [social media] a way to provide that kind of normalcy.”

As VCE students prepare for this year’s exams – the first one, English, is on Tuesday – here are Green’s tips for preparing for a big test.

Touch grass: Know when to stop studying

On the day before last year’s English exam, Green didn’t write any essays.

“I understood that at that point, there was nothing tangible I could do to really lift my scores,” he says. “It was mainly about getting myself in the right mindset to be able to perform at the level that I expected of myself.”

Green says he knew if he wrote an essay the day before the exam and wasn’t happy with it, it would have stressed him and been counterproductive.

Green says relaxing is just as key to studying when it comes to mentally preparing for VCE exams.

“[I] mainly focused on reviewing what I had previously done, thinking about what worked, what didn’t work, so that I had a pretty good framework for how to approach the next day,” he says.

“And then from that point, it was mainly about just trying to relax. So I took my dog for a walk, went to sleep early, just really focused on trying to keep everything as consistent as possible.”

The secret to sleep: Just make time

Green had also established a consistent study schedule – nothing after 10.30pm – which meant he was leaving adequate time to sleep each night.

“Getting a good night’s sleep before the English exam was basically just another iteration of the routine that I had been following throughout the whole year,” he says. “So it came fairly naturally, luckily.”

Again, a clear, relaxed mind was Green’s ally here, allowing him to have quality sleep.

Professor Therese Keane of La Trobe University’s School of Education endorsed Green’s approach towards getting to sleep at a reasonable hour the night before an exam.

“Put away phones and social media, pack your bag and set up two alarms so you don’t sleep through it, and don’t touch caffeine or high-energy drinks,” Keane says.

If, and how, to use AI

As in many other facets of life, it can be tempting to use AI when studying.

But Keane says there are limitations to AI’s helpfulness, meaning it is no substitute for traditional study methods.

“It’s no point asking AI to write an essay because if you haven’t done the work, you won’t know if it’s right or wrong,” she says.

“So you’ve got to really do your own background checking, you’ve still got to do the past papers under [exam] writing conditions.”

But AI can be useful in a study-adjacent task, she says, such as clarifying difficult concepts or generating essay prompts to practise.

Green says he didn’t use AI while preparing for the English exam.

“I was already comfortable with the material that I prepared. So I never really felt that I’d use AI to develop analysis or anything. It didn’t provide that specificity that a teacher could.”

To cram or not to cram?

Green’s attempts to keep himself free of any last-minute stress extended to the morning of the exam.

“My feeling was I won’t be able to cram everything, so I might as well cram nothing,” he says.

“I wasn’t going to do materially better by cramming, but I would do materially better ... if I felt awake, felt engaged, felt relaxed. So that was the main priority there.”

Your teachers are still there to help

Green says there is still time for students to check in with teachers or co-ordinators for advice or reassurance.

“I remember our teacher sent us a nice message on our class page the night before the exam. It all helped us feel seen,” Green says.

Green, who is now studying a bachelor of commerce at the University of Melbourne, also has advice for parents: give your children some space.

“Parents have very good intentions, and a lot of the time they ask, ‘How can I help, how can I help?’ But I think at this stage in the year, [students] have got [study habits] figured out,” he says.

“Not being crowded by people wanting to help but who end up distracting you, I think that’s something parents can be mindful of.”

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