Arrival of exam season can cause nerve wrecking havoc, which is no surprise given that performance is likely to have a significant effect on the final result. But rest assured you are not alone who experience exam anxiety, as many students feel similar dread having to sit for exams. The very thought of not performing well on the day of the exam can be a huge concern. However there is hope! Organizing your revision properly can help ease out the worries and also ensure you are able to focus on making the most of the opportunity and achieve a great result. All that is required are some simple steps that allow you to stay in control of the situation and reduce those feelings of being overwhelmed and anxious.
It is advisable to take time and understand yourself to know how you learn. This will help you learn and revise most effectively. Simply learning all the content won't necessarily help your revision to be more effective or result in a better exam performance. There are some factors like when you focus best, your living circumstances and your health needs need to be considered first before starting revision. You have to consider what combination of notes, quizzes, or talking with others best reinforces your learning. It is important to know the format, style of questions and what skills, knowledge and understanding you will be expected to demonstrate in your answers. By practicing using previous years (past) papers and sample questions both with and without notes or learning materials.
Lay the groundwork well in advance if you want to achieve the best score possible. Regularly attend lectures and seminars all throughout the year and make sure to keep up with weekly readings and coursework.
If you want to achieve the best score you can, lay the groundwork well in advance. Attend lectures and seminars throughout the year and be sure to keep up with weekly readings and coursework. It requires a deep understanding of your chosen subjects for most university level exams. It is expected that you know the concepts well enough inorder to be able to apply them confidently to real-life problems and scenarios. Your revision will therefore be far more effective and less stressful if you have worked consistently throughout the year. Simply trying to cram a truck load of information a night before into your short term memory only creates more anxiety and panic, which makes it even harder for you to retain everything you are trying to remember. This leads to panic, disrupted sleep and further confusion.
One tried and tested technique for revision is to work through past exam papers. Reading through past papers can give you a fair insight into the type of questions that are likely to come-up and enable you to develop a fair strategy as to how to best prepare for the exams. A way to test yourself is to have a go at answering past papers under timed conditions. This gives you a good idea of how confident you actually are at working with this material. This will not only help you in better revision of the concept at hand but also make you better at timing
Don’t avoid work! It is important to strike a fine balance in your revision plan. Also don’t over do it. For better retention, distributed rather than concentrated learning tends to work best. This means that by revising a little, but often, by splitting up your revision sessions into one hour slots across a number of days is more likely to reduce your stress and enhance your learning experience.
In conclusion, don’t stress too much and keep focus on improvement, rather than rote learning. Also keep practicing by timing yourself, since exams are also about time management and with practice you will definitely be able to improve yourself, feel less anxious and be able to score better in the exams.
