Taking exams can lead to stress and anxiety if you have not studied
during the year because you will find yourself cramming for each test
and studying late into the night. With a little time management during
the school year, you not only minimize
stress at exam time, but maximize productivity and results.
- Buy an extra notebook
for each subject at the beginning of the year so that as you finish a
chapter in class, you immediately write notes and summaries in that book.
The classwork will still be fresh in your mind so at exam time you
merely have to take the notebook home from school. Write down the key
points you learned from each lesson onto a cue card. This helps your
mind to retain the day's important facts. On the weekends look over the
cue cards. Get your parents or friends to quiz you on them.
2
Record your notes on a
digital voice recorder or another device (you can also use your phone),
listen to them in your spare time, listen to them as you would an audio
book, concentrate on the words and try to memorize them as you hear them. Researchers also found that listening to sounds during sleep enhance memory. [1]
3
Learn how to make mind maps, cluster maps, PowerPoints and other memory aids.
Mind maps are graphical illustrations of a subject and a great memory
tool to use, especially during exams. These tools are great for
flash-carding and memory-retrieving.
4
As soon as you finish a topic, take out a book from the library and read more information about the subject.
Look up questions you had and try to clear any confusion that you
possibly had while learning the topic. Take notes to refer back to them
before and at test time.
5
Don't do rough drafts for essays.
Just do the good copy straight away, but thoroughly as well. In an exam
situation you won't have time to write out a whole draft copy, so
practice writing out good copies straight away. Make sure the good copy
is neat, punctuation and spelling are correct, and the information makes
sense.
6
Make a timetable for exam days by marking the dates on a calendar, so you can be prepared by the time the test comes around.
7
Make a list of your classes and the topics covered in class. As you study a topic, mark it in a way that is meaningful to you, to remind you which topics have already been studied.
8
Set aside a study time each day when you are not too tired, or too hungry. If you are going to study for a long time, remember to take a break in between, preferably every 20 minutes or so.
9
Set up a study group.
Study groups share notes, thoughts and ideas or how to solve or
understand a particular problem. Be sure to honor the class rules on
what work may or may not be done in groups.
10
Plan out 'trial' exams for yourself.
All you have to do is redo one of your past tests or quizzes within a
time limit. Get into the exam mode by clearing your work desk of
everything except your paper and pen.
11
Plan for academic success and execute the plan with tenacity.
Provided that you are healthy you should execute your plans whether you
are feeling strong or weak, tired or energized, lazy or motivated,
focused or distracted, discouraged or encouraged. Realize that it is up
to you to make the moments in your hand count for something and don’t
let your feelings trick you into being less than empowered.
12
Get enough sleep at night.
It's harder to concentrate when you got less than six hours of sleep
the night before. Aim for eight to ten hours of deep sleep to feel truly
refreshed and ready for anything in the morning.
13
When choosing individual subjects to study, start with the least enjoyable or the most difficult subject.
Master it, and you'll end up loving it. At the very least, you won't
have to worry about putting it off until it's too late because you don't
like it.
14
Follow
a daily timetable, on the first day it will be a challenge; second day
it will become a practice and the third day it will become a habit.
It is a matter of conditioning yourself to a sustained work ethic that
will facilitate peak performance in the sometimes intense academic
arena.
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This video shows you how to study for exams. |
- During the exam, avoid blanks. Try as hard as you can to make an
intelligent guess. Take the closest answer but remember not to take too
much of your time in answering one item. Go back and review your answers
after you finish the exam, if you still have time.
- Always have a positive attitude. Prepare for the worst and expect the best!
- Don't stress out, it makes your mind work slower.
- Don't panic on exam day. On the night before the exam, and in the
morning, read through your notes a few times, then put them away.
- In the lead up to exams, try and get your hands on some exam papers
for previous years. Doing these before the real exam will give you an
idea as to what you'll be up against and will highlight anything you
still need to revise.
- Avoid visiting any social-networking sites! It can be done after the exam.
- Mind your diet and don't drink alcohol.
- Don't panic if you have not studied well. Just think over the
question and you might remember something the teacher taught you. After
all, you are studying things that men/ women have discovered before
without previous knowledge.
- Adopt passionately creative methods of memorizing related
information using numbers, acronyms, mnemonic poems, wild stories and
outlandish mental pictures to truly bring the material alive in a
virtually unforgettable way.
- Make your own reviewer. Write your keywords in every topic and use
different colors of ink for easy recognition. When you create your
reviewer, use all the resources you have available. Make sure to
personalize it so you can enjoy it!
- Don't waste valuable opportunities to better yourself by being lazy!
- Develop a positive attitude towards exams. If you are well prepared
you'll walk into the exam room thinking "WOW! I can't wait to prove
myself to these examiners, I'm gonna Ace this test, just to show them."
Negative attitude: "Oooh, I'm so nervous. I hate exams; what's the
point? I really don't feel up to this".
- Eat a healthy breakfast
that day, so you feel energized, but don't eat so much that you feel
full. Something to consider is a study that says males do better on
tests if they are slightly hungry, and females do better on tests if
they are slightly full. Again, don't overdo it.
- Allow yourself a few minutes to settle into a zone of intense
concentration when approaching your reading or writing academic
assignments.
- Reproduce the academic material from memory to monitor retention
levels at regular intervals as a sort of self-testing mechanism.
- Research shows our focus can last about 45 minutes, so take a 20
minute power nap or relax your mind by listening to classical music.
- Ever heard this? "Good luck with your exam!" This is false hope, you
shouldn't need a pint of luck to help you succeed,and if you DO need
good luck, then you obviously haven't prepared enough.
- Have a balance in life, exams are simply a quick and lazy way to assess people. Don't panic, just study.
- Realize that you may need to internalize information actively to
keep focused. This may be accomplished by following the text with a
pencil and whispering the text to yourself to ensure that you are
progressing during your study segments of time.
- If you suffer from exam stress then take a calming antidote, perhaps an herbal tea. Just don't overdose because it'll make you drowsy.
- Try and have all your study notes complete at least 2 weeks before
the exam. This allows you plenty of time to work through past papers for
revision and go over and re-read anything you're a bit hazy on.
- Find as many associations or ways to connect the new information
which your brain is acquiring with the information which is already
securely entrenched in your brain to foster cohesion in your arsenal of
knowledge.
- Be relentlessly confident in yourself and your abilities!
- While some can be, most exams aren't really this big. Exams are really just large quizzes with a time limit. No big deal.
- You gain less by studying for exams at the last minute. One way to
think about it is to start studying for the next exam as soon as you get
the material, don't wait until a week before the test to start.
- Keep a glossary of any words belonging in an educated vocabulary and
pertaining to your subject matter which you may be able to incorporate
in formulating your exam responses.
Edit Warnings
- If you have not prepared yourself for the test, during the term, and
before the test, then expect to reap according to what you have sown.
- Mind blanks are possibly the most frightening things to occur in an
exam. They can happen in any subject, but you can overcome them. The
only way to overcome mind blanks is to relax the brain from its
hysterical state. In the exam room, close your eyes, breathe in for 5
seconds and let it release through the mouth automatically. Repeat this
until you can feel the facts crawling back into your memory.
- Too much study can be as bad as not enough study because the mind shuts down when too much information is crammed into it.
- Don't cheat. It is very dishonest and rude.
- Failing an exam can be a very traumatic, shameful and embarrassing
experience even if you have other opportunities to redeem yourself so
you should do your best to ensure that your mastery of an area of study
is sufficient to enable you to pass with pride.
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