With exams looming I thought I'd share some tips on how to deal with exams and all the pressures that come along with them. There's no denying that studying for exams can be downright painful, especially if you have no interest in what you're studying. But that doesn't mean that you can slack off and feel sorry for yourself. Instead do yourself a favour and get the grades you know you're capable of.
1. Give yourself enough time to study - Make sure you have a study plan, even if you don't stick to it exactly, at least you'll know how many topics you need to cover and how long it should take you to learn them effectively. There's no point, the night before an exam realizing you have 18 topics to cover, all of which take about 3 hours to fully learn. You'll run yourself into the ground.
2. Organise your study space - Organise your study space, a tidy desk equals a tidy mind. Have you enough light ? Are you comfortable in your chair ? Try and get rid of all distractions, make sure your computer games are out of sight. If you study best in complete silence, make sure you're in a suitable environment, if you prefer listening to music while you study put on some background music.
3. Organise your study materials - Make sure you have enough room for all of your textsbooks, laptop, stationary etc. Make sure you have everything you'll need to study so you won't be getting up every two minutes to get a different book etc. Ensure you have enough pens, notepads, sticky notes to last you.
4. Figure out what type of learner you are - Make sure that when you are studying you're studying efficiently. For example, I'm a visual learner, I respond to flow charts and diagrams much more than to a block of text. Some people prefer rote learning. Find whatever suits you and stick to it.
5. Practice old exams - Familiarize yourself with the layout of the paper. Practice doing a full paper within your time limit. When studying a particular topic, be sure to answer all previous exam questions on that topic especially if it's a reoccurring question. A lot of exams repeat the same questions year in year out for example in maths they usually always use the same question , they just change the figures.
6. Take Breaks - I cannot stress this enough, breaks are essential. When I was doing my leaving cert *shudders* I used to study a topic for an hour then give myself a little break then study for another hour and so on.
7. Explain it to someone else - If you can explain a topic to someone else and help them understand it, then you'll know that you yourself understand that topic 100%.
8. Eat right and stay hydrated - Give your body proper brain fuel. Eat good proper meals and always have some healthy snacks on your desk ( nuts, fruit etc). Keep sipping water, always have a bottle on your desk.
9. Set yourself goals - Set yourself attainable goals, a grade you want or finish an essay by the weekend, whatever it is set your goal an do everything you can you reach it.
10. Rest - Make sure you get plenty of rest and try to get enough sleep.
Hope these have helped in some way. Do you have any other tips ?
Erin x
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