People often ask me how I deal with exams - so just how do I do it?

Coping with exams is one of the hardest tasks of most our lives. However, I have some tips and tricks to share that might just help you out!

Revision, Revision, Revision

Every successful exam strategy must begin with revision. It must end with it too. We cannot motor on through exams without any practice, it’s a bit like trying to paint the London skyline after seeing it once a year ago - how do you think that would go?

Not bad, eh?

So, with revision established as essential, what does that look like? In itself, revision is a rather vague term which could mean anything from doing lots of questions to talking to yourself about topics (yes, people do that). With that in mind, I promote a three technique scheme:

1 - Questions

What is the capital of Honduras? A small town outside of Hampshire ❌

Start with questions, choose a broad range across each topic in the exam and answer all of them. Go through and mark them once done. There really is not too much to be said about this stage, questions are usually abundantly available online and the more you do, the more informed you will be for the next stage.

Once you feel you have answered enough questions, review your understanding of each topic and highlight key areas for improvement.

2 - Relearning

The capital of Honduras is Tegucigalpa.

Take your list of key areas for improvement and ‘relearn’ them: using a textbook or an online source, make notes about the important points and check you understand the key area. There are lots of different ways of approaching this step; you could introduce a tutor to go over the key area again, or talk to classmates about how they approach it, or maybe something entirely different!

The beautiful thing about revision is that everyone does it differently. I am, by no means, saying you must do it like this. Just that this is the way I have revised: adapt these techniques, find other methods, make revision work for you!

3 - Exam Practice

What is the capital of Honduras? Tegucigalpa ✅

What is the capital of Venezuela? Caracas ✅

Finally, use past exam papers and practice questions to hone your knowledge. Exam boards often like to set challenging ‘fringe’ questions that cover obscure points of the specification, but they also like to repeat question formats - make sure you are aware of the kinds of questions they can ask and the obscure knowledge to secure a high grade.

For exam preparation, revision is of upmost importance and having a clear strategy is even better for success.

Confidence

To extend my earlier analogy, if I have confidence that I know what the London skyline looks like, I might just do a better job in painting it. This is because I will spend more time perfecting the fine details even if I don’t really know what they look like! This works for exams too: be confident in your abilities and the practice you have done and you will do better.

But how? Confidence is not simply a switch to flick on, and it is completely normal to be nervous before an exam. So, how do we rewire our brains to have more confidence? The answer is, again, revision and practice.

A good mock result and increasing practice test scores will boost your confidence in the revision strategies you’re using. It is worth emphasising that if you do not see an improvement after using a strategy for a few weeks, it may be a good idea to experiment with another - but never expect immediate results, your brain is not a wonder sponge soaking up every bit of information at your whim, it needs continuous practice to make perfect.

Practice makes perfect is outdated. Practice makes progress.

Another way to increase confidence is simply to avoid thinking about the exam. Before your exam, carefully review your notes and take a final moment to familiarise yourself with the exam. This careful thought exercise will keep your mind laser focused and prepared instead of fretting about minor details.

Is That It?

Of course not! I have presented a simple general approach, not a foolproof plan. Everyone is different, and this might simply not work for you. Use every mock exam to experiment with different strategies and methods until you find the perfect combination - just the same as exams, exam preparation is something that needs careful thought and practice (this stuff has layers!) - don’t just choose one thing and stick with it, you never know what you might be missing.

A simple approach allows for a strategy to work for many people, but not for it to be optimal.

Another benefit of a simple strategy is it minimises worrying, if you know what you need to do and can work through preparation systematically you will end up a great deal calmer than any over-complicated method.

These are my suggestions, do I think they will work for you? I have no idea. But, do I have confidence in you? Yes.