Get Ready for your Exams

Top 5 Tips to Get You Ready for Your Exams

Being ready for your exams is far more than just getting revision guides and reading.  The danger that you face is resorting to tactics that you have used for previous tests which have not serve you well in the past.  If you are reading this, you know what I mean.  This post will outline 5 ways that you can start work SMARTer and get yourself exam ready.

5 Organise your Room

Your books, exercise books, practical books, controlled assessments should be in neat piles according to subjects. You will waste a lot of time looking for things if your room is untidy. Your life will be a lot easier after you have organised your room and maintain it. Set aside some time over the weekend when you tidy your room. Keep the past test papers so that you can learn from your mistakes.  The time you waste in a messy room looking for things far outweighs the time taken to tidy it and keep it tidy.

4 Plan your Revision

There are many revision guides/ revision websites in the market. But you should always read your TEXT BOOK first and then move on to revision guides.
During my teaching career, I have seen students leave their text books in school lockers
many times! Revision guides are good just before the exam period. They remind you of
the key points, once you have understood them from your text book.  You need to get used to the teaching style of the book so it is not a good idea to buy a new revision guide just before the exam starts. (check out this e-book for examples of how to do this).

3 Deal with Procrastination.

Friends will phone you and ask you to go out with them, it is hard to say “No”. If you
wish to do well, you have to be disciplined, there is NO OTHER way.
• Too many interruptions – telephone, TV, friends coming around, doing homework while listening to music.
You have to learn to minimize these. Choose your favourite TV programme, do your
time table in a way that you do not miss out. You can also record it, once you have
completed your work schedule, you can relax and watch the recorded programme.
• Too many things at once.
Prioritize your work. If you have a test coming up, then work for the test. Do some
past papers for that topic, look at the correct answers either in your text book or in
given mark schemes on your Examination Board on that topic. Do not try to do too
many things, it is better to do a little at a time.

2 Work closely with your revision plan.

If you have invested time working out how much time you have left and how much time is needed on your revision, it is not wise to totally abandon a plan. If you overrun recognise that this has happened and tweak your plan so it fits the time you have used.  Being disciplined means you are working at your optimum level.  However, if you find that the plan just isn’t working, ask yourself the question… why not?  If the plan has a flaw change the plan.  If the plan is fine but there are other distractions find any way possible to minimise, or change, the problem or ultimately avoid it.

1 Test yourself early and often

Working SMART means that you don’t revise everything multiple times you need to keep reviewing your knowledge and identify your weak areas.  A massive temptation is to avoid your weaker areas to build confidence, though is a limited value in this your weak areas are probably significant and if you tackle an area you already know you are not working SMART you are working hard.

If you implement these strategies, you are working SMARTer not harder and you will be more prepared for the exams.  For more tips or If you need help with any of these steps, then we provide workshops and training to help you to ensure high impact for your exams.  Also check the e-book success in exam to gain more insight into the exam process.

Written by Christopher Jones (Hexis Plus)

References

Success in Exam by Dr Indira Ghatak

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