Hi, my name is Andie and my goal is to help average students get into their dream colleges by becoming excellent test takers.
Preparing for an exam is hard, especially when you have really only done enough so far to submit assignments worry-free of getting a 0. Maybe you're averaging 80's and 90's with a few 70's sprinkled in there. Or maybe you're averaging 70's and 80's with a few 90's sprinkled in there. No matter which group you fall into, if you're going to be ready by exam day and score higher than you've averaged so far on class assignments, you're going to need to prepare.
Preparation comes down to doing the work repeatedly with quality feedback. If you're in a math class and you find yourself struggling to complete the homework each night, you've probably been tempted to use Symbolab or Mathway to do your calculations for you. Or, maybe you're in an English class and you've really been struggling to improve your writing and you've been tempted a time or two to let ChatGPT do its thing.
If this is you, that's okay. That was me too. Now, I'm not going to tell you what you should be doing (or shouldn't) that's for you to decide. I'm just going to tell you what's been working for me to improve my understanding and scores in class.
Make a plan of action. This is the easy part because there is so much information out there that can tell you how to build the best study plan for your personality/situation/zodiac. I'm going to give you a quick overview for how I built my study plan, but if you're interested in learning more (in depth) on how to build an exam ready study plan, drop a comment below or send me an ask to let me know you're interested.
The way I used to build my study plan was by identifying what I knew I didn't know, how much time I had to learn it, and how much of it was bound to be on the exam. After I figured out as much as I could about those factors, then I made a timetable for what to practice each day. Following that, I went online and put together a bunch of practice problems and tried to do as many of them as possible.
This sounds great in theory, but it's a lot of unnecessary work that doesn't necessarily lead to the result you want. For one, it's hard to gauge how many questions of one topic will be on an exam. Even if your teacher points out a particular topic or chapter as important, it doesn't mean it will be all over your exam. One time, I was studying for a calculus exam and spent so much time reviewing improper integrals because I wasn't too confident on the topic and our teacher had mentioned in class that it was one of the more important chapters know. So, I went online and found a bunch of improper integral questions to practice. When it came time for the exam, there ended up being only one question on the exam related to improper integrals!
And, to add insult to injury, after the exam he mentioned offhandedly in class that all of our exam questions were taken directly from our homework. Those little facts changed how I decided to approach studying moving forward.
Now, I focus on the homework problems, extra practice worksheet problems, and study guide problems my teacher gives us. And the way I plan to study is by deciding how much time each day I'm going to work on those practice problems.
Find a way to stay accountable. I found a fun way to do this was by creating a study stream. For a while, every time I needed to study, I would stream the session on youtube. I made sure my camera could capture my computer screen, notebook, and me. Then, I placed my phone across the room (or you can record using your phone) and that keeps you from using your phone.
Get in the reps (repetition). The last part is notably the hardest part because you just have to do the difficult and sometimes mundane work. I use the practice questions I gathered in step one, set up my accountability system from step two, and get to work! Setting yourself a timer is a great reminder that this will eventually come to an end, and always helped motivate me to stay focused. Also, I found that starting as early in the day as possible (for me it was around 6 am) worked best, because I could do it before my day truly began.
If you're using this to help figure out how you can prepare for your upcoming exam, I hope you found value in this article. If you did, please like it and share with a friend! And, I would love to hear what topics you would like for me to cover next!
What topic are you interested in learning about next?
How I avoid frustration when tackling a difficult problem
How I build a study plan
How I avoid burnout when increasing test prep volume
Voting ended onMar 20, 2023
