Tips for surviving the exam period
If you’ve ever taught senior school students going through their VCE (or SATs for the US) exam period, you’ll no doubt have been asked for some last minute tips or advice on how to deal with the exam. These are some basic points I that I’ve found useful in the past.
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever been given is simple. “If you fail to prepare, then prepare to fail”. This piece of advice is relevant to most things in life, although it is perhaps most relevant when talking about exams. It’s important to remind people that if you do the preparation, then that is really the hard part. Exams are all about showcasing your knowledge. Therefore, in the lead up, devote your time to recapping what you have covered through out the semester, do you best to ‘know’ everything. Make study notes, summarizing key topics and refer to these throughout your preparation. In a lot of cases the act of preparing the notes will be good revision in itself.
It’s good to remind people that the night before an exam need not be a last minute rush. The night before an exam, make sure you have all you need for the following day. Working pens, pencils, erasers, calculator (if needed), student ID and a watch. Check the starting time of the exam. Make sure there are no surprises.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of cramming in as much study as you can the night before an exam. This only seems to cause stress and sleepless nights, which are not a good combination for exam success. Perhaps do some sample questions, or read over your notes, but not anything to intense. The most important thing is to relax. Do something you enjoy, anything that will take your mind off the exam. Get a good night’s sleep. Just remember to set your alarm.
Over breakfast, to a briefly recap your study notes, just to get the mind ticking over again.
The two most important things to remind people preparing to sit exams are to relax and remain positive.
If you’ve got any other tips you think would be handy, please leave them in the comments field below.
