HOW TO PASS EXAMS WITH GOOD GRADES

PART 1

Practice the following steps religiously, and exams will be nothing to worry about.

1

Review your syllabus. Figure out when all of your exams will be and how much of your grade they are worth. Put these dates into your calendar or planner so they don't sneak up on you!

·         Plan review sessions beginning at least a week in advance of each exam. Ideally, you'll do several mini-reviews well in advance, gradually increasing the time in which you study, rather than trying to cram everything into one mega session the night before the test.

2

Pay attention in class. This seems like a no-brainer, but actually paying attention while you're in class will help you immensely once exam time comes. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you'll just "absorb" knowledge; be an active learner.^[1]

·         Listen carefully, because teachers often give hints like "The most important thing about this topic is...". Or they may just place emphasis on certain words and issues. This is the real key to testing well. The more you absorb the information early on, the less studying you'll need to do.

3

Take good notes. This is easier said than done, but learning how to take good notes will help you immensely once it comes time to study. Write down everything your teacher writes on the board or puts up in slides. Try to record as much of what the teacher says as possible, but don't allow taking notes to distract you so much that you forget to listen.

·         Review your notes daily, right after class. This will help reinforce the information you just learned.

4

Make studying a part of your habits. Too often, it's easy to view studying as something that only gets done at the last minute in a huge overnight cram session. Instead, try setting aside some time every day to study. Scheduling it just like another appointment or class may help you stay motivated to continue the habit.

5

Ask about the exam format. Ask your teacher what format the test will be in, how it will be graded, if there are any opportunities for extra credit, and if they would be willing to talk to you about highlighting in your notes, what the most important broad subjects will be, etc.

PART 2

Creating an Optimal Environment for Learning

1

Study in a clean, quiet and orderly room. Keep anything and everything away from where you are that may cause you to get distracted. Jumping up to read a text message on your phone or periodically checking social media is ill-advised whilst studying.

2

Turn on the light! Studying in a dark room is not recommended. Add lamps at night, or in the daytime, open the window coverings (open the window a little, too). People tend to study and focus better in a brighter, oxygenated room with little noise.

3

Turn the TV off. While many students believe that they're good at multitasking, such as studying with the TV on or while chatting online with friends, research suggests that this is not true for the vast majority of people. For better studying performance, eliminate distractions such as TV and loud music with lyrics. Rapidly swapping attention between studying and watching TV makes it more difficult for your brain to prioritize information acquisition.

4

Decide if music is right for you. Music's effect on memory performance varies between individuals. Some studies have found music to aid the memory performance of individuals with ADD/ADHD, while reducing it in individuals without the disorder. Classical music appears to be the most effective in enhancing studying performance.

You must determine whether you're better off with or without it. If you do enjoy listening to music whilst studying, make sure you're actually concentrating on the material you have to study for, and not the catchy tune that's playing in your head.

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          If you absolutely must listen to music, find instrumental music so that the words in the music don't interfere with your studying.

·    

      Listen to background sounds from nature in order to keep your brain active and prevent other noises to distract you. There are several free background noise generators available online.

·         Listening to Mozart or classical music won't make you smarter or keep information in your brain, but it may make your brain more receptive to receiving information.

PART 3

Organizing Your Learning

1

Focus on your work objectives. What do you intend to accomplish during this session? Setting a concrete study goal may help you. Creating study plans is also a good idea. If 3 out of 5 lessons are easy and can be finished fast, finish them first, so you can spend quality time on the difficult lessons without fretting. Also, keeping a folder for your exam reviews is a good way to keep organized.

2

Write yourself a study guide. Go through your notes and rewrite the most important information. Not only will this give you a more focused way to study, but it creating it is another form of studying! Just don't spend too much time on the guide itself: you need to have time to go over it too!

3
Reinvent your notes in other formats. Rewriting your notes is great if you're a kinesthetic learner. Mind mapping is the most effective way of doing this. Also, when you re-write something, you will probably think about what you are writing, what it's about, and why you wrote it down. Most importantly, it refreshes your memory. If you took notes a month ago and just found out that those notes will be relevant in your exam, rewriting them will remind you of them when you need it for your exam.

Don't simply copy your notes over and over again. This tends to lean towards memorizing the exact wording of your notes instead of the actual concepts. Instead, read and think about the contents of your notes (such as think of examples), and then re-word them.

4

Ask yourself questions about your material. This can help you tell if you have remembered what you just studied. Don't try to remember the exact wording from your notes in your answer to yourself; synthesizing that information into an answer is a much more useful tactic.

·         It can also help to say the answers to your questions out loud, as if you were trying to explain it to someone else.

5

Review previous tests and assignments. If you missed questions on previous work, look up the answers and understand why you missed these questions. This is particularly helpful if the exam you're studying for is cumulative or comprehensive, meaning it covers things you also covered earlier in the course.