So the other day my cousin who is sitting her first ever exams asked me for advice. I thought it turned out quite good so I’m putting it up here!
1. Make sure you have a list of everything you need to cover.
You can either use the course outline, the syllabus or you can make your own list (from class/lecture notes or the textbook).
2. Leave enough time to study everything on that list at least once.
I’ve never really been one to make a super detailed and strict exam timetable, but that doesn’t mean you can’t! I tend to decide what topic I’ll be covering on what day and choose the order on the day.
3. The absolute best study you can do is past exam papers.
Before my final year school exams, I did something like 13 past exam papers before each of my main subject exams (e.g. maths, science). I honestly attribute my success to that. If you don’t have past exam papers, try to actively recall the information in your notes by making your own questions or try to remember as much as you can about a subject from the title of your notes. Re-reading and highlighting notes is really not an efficient use of your time, this should only be done after trying to actively remember as much as you can. I can’t stress this point enough, active recall is 100% the best study method – it even has heaps of supporting scientific evidence.
4. Do NOT stay up late studying!
It is so important to get a good night of sleep before an exam so your brain works properly. Honestly, the sleep you lose will decrease your performance more than the extra few hours of study would increase it. So just don’t do it. Sleep is important for performance in exams.
5. Advice for exam day – panic at the beginning.
Not going to lie, other than number 3, this was the best bit of advice I was given. Always work fast at the beginning of an exam! It is much better to finish early and fix the panicked mistakes you made at the beginning then it is to run out of time and make “panic mistakes” when you don’t have the time to fix them.
6. Try to reduce your stress – not only for your mental health’s sake but to perform better.
A little bit of stress is good – forces you to study and gets the brain working. But when it is too much, stress-induced memory loss becomes such a thing!! Lots of people end up in a fantastic cycle – do poorly --> study more --> stress more --> perform poorly because of stress --> study more --> stress more --> perform even worse because of stress and so on. So for the love of studyblr, have a calm-mind during your exam!
Anyways, I hope this has been somewhat helpful. I’ll be making a few more posts like this, so let me know what you want to see!
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