What You Can Do With The Remaining Time Left Until Your Major Examinations
Having school severely disrupted by COVID-19, many students have suddenly found themselves studying at home, with online lectures and assignments that they find so unfamiliar.
For those who can study independently without succumbing to the comforts of their home, they gain a rare chance to pace their learning and prepare sufficiently for the examinations. However, for many of us who are used to studying in a school setting, we find ourselves constantly distracted and unguided. We feel lost and unmotivated. If you feel the same way, fret not!
As someone who has gone through multiple major examinations, I can resonate with the anxiety and fear you may be feeling. Although it will not be on par with the fear and anxiety the pandemic may have introduced, I hope to offer useful advice on how you can proceed going forward.
Here are six steps I hope will serve you well in preparing for your examinations.
1. Calm down and don’t give up.
“Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”
― Harriet Beecher Stowe
This is probably a step you will not expect to see to prepare for your examinations. However, it is actually one of the most important to studying effectively.
By calming down and not letting your anxiety get the better of you, you can sort your thoughts out. With a clear mind, you can set goals that can spur you to work harder and remove the constant worrying that distracts you from your revision.
Deciding not to give up is probably half the battle won already. The gritty mindset that you set for yourself will constantly motivate you to strive for the best despite whatever hardships. You will push on no matter what and that is what will help you prepare for your examinations.
”Your mindset is of utmost importance, how you think will frame how you act and that will determine your outcome. Believe in yourself, have faith that you will put in your best effort, and even if results don’t show, you would still have done your best.”
― Reddit user shappirand, who jumped from 66.25 RP during the mid-years to 88.75 RP during the A-Level even though he was behind in terms of revision as compared to his peers.
Reddit user kageberry also echoed what shappirand shared.
“It’s all about believing in yourself, persevering and putting in the hard work (do prelim papers and TYS).”
She went from SSS/E with a C in GP during mid-years to AAB/C with a B in GP during the A-level.
2. Plan a schedule for the remaining time to cover as many topics as possible.
A schedule is especially important in a scenario like this. Not only do you have time restrictions, but you also have a lot of content to cover. Thus, a schedule shows you how many topics you can cover with the remaining time.
To do this, the first step would be to estimate how long you would likely take to finish revising each topic for every subject. I like to refer to the time taken to finish each topic as time blocks.
After this, try to fit in as many time blocks as you possibly can till your examinations. Try to cater in rest times too but keep them to a minimum as you are on a tight schedule.
Reddit user scrixie has a slightly different scheduling method that you can use! Dividing each day’s study time to Morning (9am-12pm), Afternoon (2pm-6pm) and Night (7pm-10pm), she made a masterplan of what she should try to cover in each block. She would typically re-do her schedule every 2 weeks, looking at what she did not cover and which topics she should prioritise. The method worked well for her and she scored 88.75 RP at the A-Level examinations.
She also shared that it may be helpful to create a master list of the topics you should cover for every subject and chapter. This gives you a birds’ eye view of what more you have to study, and which topics you should prioritise.
If you are able to finish revising every single topic for each subject, that is good. However, if you are not able to, try again by tweaking here and there to make time. If you are still not able to, try revising the important and big topics first and leave the rest for the last. This way, you can still get the bulk of the marks for each subject.
Make sure to commit to this schedule. Studying is tough, but if you put in the necessary commitment and effort, I believe you can get the results that you want.
3. Gather whatever resources you can to understand and revise each topic.
With a schedule in place, you can move on to the next step — gathering revision resources. These resources include explanatory videos on Youtube, tuition if necessary, consultations with teachers, your friends’ notes etc.
Basically, you need to dig out any revision resources you have to revise each topic sufficiently and effectively.
4. Compile important points for every topic.
Summarising important points from each topic not only helps you revise, but also reduces the revision time for each topic significantly.
This summary doesn’t have to be pretty. Instead, it has to be concise and easily readable for quick revisions.
A common app that you can use to note down important points is the flashcard tool, Anki.
In the event that you are short of time, you can try making notes with your friends to speed things up.
“Leading up to A-Levels, about six of us in my class collaboratively completed a bank of ~40 different essay outlines for H2 History. All of us got an A!”
― Reddit user scrixie
5. Practise so much that your pen ink runs out faster than you can buy them.
“Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong…ever.”
― Ziad K. Abdelnour
To be honest, this header might be a bit hilarious and/or exaggerated. However, it happened a few times to me and it motivated me because it was like an achievement.
Reddit user scrixie also has a similar tactic to motivate herself too.
I would do all my Math working on an A4 Jotter Book. I’d name each practice book a really ugly name I hated, or ask my friends for a name they hated. Because of the name, I’d be motivated to finish the jotter book so I could put it aside. These jotter books also became an archive for my mistakes because I would post-it the workings where I went wrong and revise them closer to the exam. By the end of A-Levels I had seven books to recycle.
Practising is so crucial to getting good grades because it gives you exposure to many more questions and allows you to find out your mistakes.
Even if you have not done your tutorials, I would still encourage you to prioritise practising prelim papers over tutorials.
At the start, you may feel discouraged due to the low marks or many mistakes you are making. However, don’t give up because everyone starts out that way. It is only through constant practising despite your mistakes that allows you to keep learning and gaining mastery of the subject.
6. Compile questions to take note of so that you can revise them quickly later on.
Marking your answers and knowing your mistakes are not enough. If you do not remember or learn from your previous mistakes, practising is not going to be useful.
“Don’t give up because of mistakes made, learn from them and improve yourself.”
― shappirand
To ensure that you do not make the same mistakes again, it is advisable to compile your mistakes. In this way, you can easily run through the past mistakes you have made.
In a nutshell…
“Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.”
– Earl Nightingale
No matter how late you think you are to revise for your examinations, continue pushing through and do not give up.
As shappirand shared, “You still have time to prepare yourself, but if you don’t start soon, it will be too late. So stop procrastinating!”
Every effort from now till your examinations count.
Even if you practise one question today, a similar question may come out in the examinations that would hopefully help you score one mark higher. Although I am not advising you to practise only one question a day, I hope you get my point that you should not give up. You will reap what you sow so try your best and persevere through this tough period.
“Persistence and putting one foot in front of the other is what’s most important even if it kills you. Good luck! Finish with no regrets!”
― Reddit user shipsarelaunching worked consistently hard for 2 years but yet did not see her efforts pay off until the critical moment — The A-Level examinations. For Math, her highest grade in two years was an E. For Chemistry, she scored a low U at prelims while her Biology grade fluctuated from D to U for two years. Eventually, she scored B for Chemistry and A for the other two subjects at the A-Level.
Keep calm and all the best for your examinations!
