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Exams are not mysterious, hit or miss affairs: with the right kind of preparation you can maximise your chances of doing well. MANY students believe that the amount of time spent revising is the key and indeed the longer you spend revising, the better your results. Nothing could be further from the truth it is quality not quantity that counts! Luck doesnt have much to do with exam success if you are well prepared, then you will do well.
Plan of Action
1 Do your very best to get specimen (Past) papers and to make sure that you know the exact format of the exam and the sort of areas likely to crop up. Decide how much of the syllabus you need to learn so that you can safely answer enough questions. Be sure to revise several areas in addition to the ones you hope to see on the paper to cover all eventualities. Make a flexible but realistic revision plan / timetable which includes: Exact dates, times and places for all your exams Time allocated to each subject avoid devoting all your time to the first few subjects and neglecting the later exams Variety make revision as stimulating as possible to avoid boredom, so timetable different topics at different times Time to obtain copies of past papers for practice sessions Time off! Take frequent short breaks either to relax or perhaps to get some exercise (which stimulates the brain) Look after yourself practice relaxation, eat and sleep
4 Work for spells to suit your concentration span. Have plenty of breaks, but make sure that you return to work. Taking regular exercise in between revision sessions helps to stimulate the brain. 5 Practise doing what you will have to do in the exam. If it is writing unseen essays, practise doing those; if it is recalling a lot of information, practise doing that. Avoid passive reading of notes. Be ACTIVE. This means: Summarise to reduce the bulk of your notes down to key ideas or information Formulate practise questions, create a bank of questions with friends to share Write skeleton answers, practise timed answers, and assess your answers
Re-visit topics you dont understand Work with others Having planned your timetable you now need to put it into practice. Some people like to work alone, others may benefit from working with friends. What is important is finding out how you work best and timetable your time accordingly.
Questioning
Developing Questions Listen to clues and hints from your lecturers. Turn these into questions so you can practise. Looking at a page of your notes (or a book) turn the notes into short, sharp questions lots of them. If you build a question bank all the way through your studies, youll have a fuller understanding of your subject and be better able to answer any questions, whether in discussions or exams. Use problems and exercises from relevant textbooks. Select relevant tasks and add them to your question bank (with a reference to remind you where you can find the solution). Collect and store questions from assignments, work examples and past exam papers. Work with fellow students on formulating questions. If three of you sit down for five minutes and each write 10 important questions, then share, youll soon have more than the ten you thought of yours elf.
Using Questions Practise with your question bank. It only takes minutes to scan 20 questions and find out which ones you cant answer. You can then plan ways of improving your understanding and/or technique at recalling information. Get people to quiz you to find out how much you actually know. Quizzing each other and judging each others answers helps to develop analytical skills and improves memory.
Assessing your progress Practise answering some questions. Check how long it takes you to answer try to work your speed up gradually, until you can complete them in the time given in the actual exam. Practise skeleton answers. For example, practise spending 5 minutes mapping out how you would answer a 30-minute question. You can get
through a lot more thinking by making several skeleton answers than if you simply sat writing one full answer. Using past questions will help you highlight areas you do not need to revise further and also gaps in your knowledge. This is the time to fill these gaps. Work through some questions with fellow students. Find out the things that they think of that you would have missed. Between you, work out what the best-possible answer may be.
Study Groups
Working with others can be very beneficial. When you explain a topic to other members of a group, the person who does the most productive learning is you. Finding the words in which to explain something is one of the best ways of coming to understand it. However, in order for members of groups to work cooperatively, not waste time and learn effectively, the following should be considered: Establish some ground rules. These can lay down acceptable standards for example punctuality, level of contribution to the group, and the constructive nature of critical comments. Make the group task driven. Agree an agenda for each meeting of the group, so there is always a sense of purpose. Rotate the leadership. Its a good idea to have different leaders for different tasks, so that all members of the group take on responsibility for aspects of the groups work. Share out chores. For example, share out the task of tracking down information, or collecting resources for a task (such as past papers). This can help make better use of the time of all members of the group, avoiding each member spending time chasing after identical books, papers and references. Maintain flexibility. Even though the group will normally have an agenda, retain some time at each meeting for the group to address spontaneous tasks or unexpected events. This helps the group develop a proactive ethos, rather than simply a reactive one. Avoid the feeling of competition. The aim of working as part of a group should be that all members of the group benefit from cooperation. The purpose of working as part of a group should not be to make it possible for individuals to do less work. Everyone should contribute in order to benefit. Dividing your revision time between working in a group and revising alone might suit you better than just the one revision method. Remember to take into consideration how much time you have available to you prior to the exam, when you revise best and your particular learning style. These might help you decide how much time to allocate to each revision method and allow for catch up time.
After the Exam Mostly, it is not very helpful comparing your answers with others after the exam; it can upset someone else, or perhaps you. If you have more exams, move your thoughts and energy to the next one. Some people find it useful after the exams are over, to look back and work out what worked well or not so well before and during the exam period. Successful techniques should be used again; anything that made the process more complicated or more stressful should be altered or avoided.