Resources for NCEA Students in 2023

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Summary

• This page provides a comprehensive list of New Zealand and relevant overseas resources that assist with NCEA preparation. We update it regularly.
  
• If you are a Year 11, 12 or 13 student, we believe the list will assist in making internal and external assessments easier, give you greater confidence, and increase your chances of success.

Our guide covers:

• Helpful Resources for NCEA Students
• Other Useful Resources and Tools for Studying

Know This First - Quick Tips for Success

1. Have a look at past exam papers and marking guides. Familiarising yourself with the high-yield material and how that material will be tested will streamline your study.
2. When you do not understand a concept, try utilising a video from Studytimenz, LearnCoach, a YouTube video or Khan Academy.
3. Try to improve your studying efficiency by trying active studying techniques (such as flashcards).
4. Utilise other resources such as Anki, Forest and Grammarly to improve your overall productivity.

Helpful Resources for NCEA Students

NCEA Subject Resources

The best resource for NCEA students is its website. On the website, you will find many past papers, exemplars from other students, marking guides and other useful information such as resource booklets. Having a look at the past papers, giving them a go and comparing your answers with the marking guide will help you familiarise yourself with the style of questions and help you prepare for examinable material.

How to navigate the NCEA website:

• Use this link to go to the “NCEA Subject Resources” page.
• Once you are on the page, find the subject you are looking for. 
  
• Then, scroll down to the section titled "Resources for externally assessed standards”.
  

Under “Examination papers and exemplars”, you will find past year exam papers and exemplars from other students. It is key to look at common questions that were asked previously so you know the high-yield content and concepts you should focus your study on.

Under “Assessment schedules”, you will find marking guides from older past exams. These are very helpful to see exactly what the marker is looking for and are key for your exam preparation.

Our View: Utilising past exam papers and marking guides is very useful for NCEA. However, it is still important to not exclusively rely on past exam papers and marking guides as the examiner may examine different material or do so in a different format the year you sit your exam.

StudyTime

StudyTime has a plethora of free resources to help you ace your papers. They have videos, walkthrough guides, cheat sheets and more. They also provide links to past exams and assessment schedules from their website.

On their YouTube channel, they have videos showcasing NCEA strategies for a specific standard, tips for different subjects, and more lighthearted videos such as politicians trying to complete NCEA exams. Using this resource will help you understand things when you need a concept explained in a different way than how you were taught in class.

LearnCoach

LearnCoach is a library of short videos and quizzes for students doing NCEA. In addition, they have courses for both internals and externals. The strength of LearnCoach lies in its ability to simplify complicated ideas into a format that anyone can understand.

Their basic plan is free, which provides limited access to their content.

To get unlimited access, the premium version of LearnCoach costs $104 a year. Many of their videos are free to access through their YouTube channel, so have a look and check it out. Like, StudyTime, LearnCoach is very useful for helping you understand concepts that may not have fully clicked in the classroom.

Infinityplusone YouTube Channel

Infinityplusone is a YouTube channel dedicated to helping students with NCEA Level 1 & 2 maths and Level 3 calculus. The channel teaches many concepts as well as many useful worked examples. Trying to do the questions yourself first and then comparing your answers with the worked examples will help you understand the best way to think about certain problems and learn where you are prone to making mistakes.

Khan Academy

Khan Academy produces many videos on maths, economics, physics, biology, chemistry, finance, history and much more. Although much of the content is targeted at students studying at a level higher than what is required for NCEA, it is often helpful as it helps explain the more complex concepts that can often be hard to wrap your head around.

They publish many of their videos on YouTube, and you can access them through their website. They are a nonprofit with the aim to provide a world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

Mr Whibbley & Andrew Sargent

Mr Whibbley and Andre Sargent are YouTube channels that help with physics by walking through NCEA questions. This is a very useful way to learn physics. Try solving the NCEA paper yourself and check your understanding and reasoning by comparing your thought processes with these YouTubers.

Other Useful Resources and Tools for StudyingApart from having the right resources to help you with NCEA, below are a list of resources you may find helpful to help you increase your studying efficiency. For example, active studying techniques such as using flashcards and trying to write down a mind map from memory are much better than passive studying techniques such as rewriting notes repeatedly.

Anki

Anki is a free program that allows you to make virtual flashcards. You can install it onto your computer and create flashcards, allowing you to test your knowledge. For example, you can select whether getting the answer was easy, good or hard after completing a question. The computer program will then determine when it will show you that exact question again based on your answer.

Using Anki is a very active technique and will help you memorise facts well. However, it is still essential to use other studying techniques to have a broader perspective. Anki also has a phone application that is free on Android but costs around $43 on the app store.

Grammarly

Grammarly is an English spelling and grammar tool which may help you write without obvious spelling mistakes. It covers New Zealand English and is very easy to use. It is very useful when typing internals and drafting English externals and is handy for every other situation where you need to check your spelling and grammatical errors. It is compatible with Gmail, Google Docs, Word and even Facebook & Discord.

Ali Abdaal

Ali Abdaal is a former doctor with a YouTube channel focused on productivity and personal growth. He has made a few videos on study efficiency and the science of learning.

His video titled How to study for exams - Evidence-based revision tips as well as How I ranked 1st at Cambridge University: The Essay Memorisation Framework are two really good videos to learn about efficient studying techniques that helped him rank 1st at Cambridge University as a medical student. For his full playlist of studying, click this link.

Forest App

For those who tend to go on their phone after 5 minutes of studying, you may consider using a productivity app such as Forest. When you want to study, you can set a timer for how long you want to study, and the app will plant a virtual tree. Going on any other app will cause the tree to die. It costs around $7 on the app store and is free on Google Play. Alternatively, you can access the Chrome extension for free.