How I got into Nossal

How I got into Nossal: my story - Suhaan

If you are reading this, you probably want to try for a selective school, but just remember you are competing with over 5000 high-achieving students, and this competition will only get bigger and bigger as the years progress. You are competing for a very limited number of seats across all four schools. Does this mean it is impossible to get in? Absolutely not. The first step is dedication.

if you are doing this simply because your parents forced you to or because you simply do not have a desire to go to one of these schools, save yourself the trouble and don't. I know people all around me who sat the exam without a purpose and simply did it for the sake of their parents, and I have seen firsthand how damaging it can be. if you work without a purpose, you will set yourself up for failure. my experience, I had done a lot of prior research to these schools and developed a sort of hunger and genuine desire to have a spot in a select entry high school. This gave me an ultimate goal in mind but having a goal is one thing; the steps you take to achieve that goal is just as crucial.

What's important is that you have a social life and an ultimate life outside studying. However, this goes about saying some sacrifices must be made. Like, instead of playing video games after school,l try to shower then study for a bit. and study with a purpose as well. Set 5 minutes aside and have a goal for the session. What subjects will you cover? How long will it be for? Any breaks? These are just some things to consider before. set any distractions, such as your phone. A good app I used to track my study as well as prevent me from going into other apps was 'Forest'. It really helped me get the most of my study sessions. Also, don't completely rely on the work your tutoring gives as 'preparation' (unless its dev). Your preparation isn't limited to what your tutors give you. in short, plan your sessions and stay consistent brochacho.


In the last two months until the exam, you should have familiarised yourself with the format and have learnt most theory at a year 9-10 level. Here, this will be the time you really need to focus and really push hard. In the last two months, you will put everything you have learnt to the test. Here do a lot of mock practice exams, go to Dev's simulation for the exam and use iLearn, which I can confidently say is one of the closest simulations of the exam questions and pressure. Start timing yourself, and at this stage, it is just practice test after practice test. Work on your weaknesses and make use of the resources around you.

At the end of the day, it is about how you perform on the exam. Just keep your head high, stay calm, have a big breakfast and try to take it easy on the day.  to quote Winston Churchill, 'Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. Good luck to you all, and I hope to see you all on campus one day