Studying without planning and not organizing things smartly is one of the biggest mistakes very often students make while studying or preparing for the exams or for that matter while starting to answer the paper. By thinking a bit longer before you start anything, you might be better than someone who plunges right in.
So, at this moment when the exam is already round the corner, if at all one needs to think and be focussed on is to ask oneself a big question – How do I now recall smartly what I have studied?
Studies have shown that the best way to remember and recall what you studied is REVISE and REVISIT very carefully, the learnings done.
First and foremost, what you need to understand now is – TIME is VERY PRECIOUS! Learning to manage your time effectively is also an important life skill that will always stand in good stead. We all have the same number of 24 hours in a day, yet the smarter ones get so much done out of that same time frame. To benefit from your studies, be it for an exam or otherwise in general, you will need to have some measure of control over your time.
The next important thing is Don’t Panic. Relax, ease yourself. Fear, anxiety, and stress will only hamper your preparations and ultimately affect your performance in board exams. So, instead of taking tension, start revising for the exam with a relaxed mind. You just need to put in the best efforts, the result will automatically come out to be the best. Learn how to memorize information smartly and access it when you need it.
There are small, little tricks you can use to retain and recall the learnings done.
• Revise your notes. The more you go back and forth over the learnings, the better you’ll remember them. However, revisit smartly. Bullet point the main points you have covered and organize the structure of your answer, in what order you would like to present those points.
• Write and Read aloud things out to yourself – The more ways in which you access the information the better. So apart from reading the text silently with your eyes, also write the answer and read it aloud too. Writing is a skill that needs to be practised while preparing and studying for the exam. It is a skill that needs to be built and this can be sharpened by doing a little every day. As muscles are also involved in writing, it goes into the memory and gets etched better in the long-term memory. Practising the papers of the previous years – answering real exam questions is one effective way for both purposes.
Use Memory tricks such as writing the main ideas in short, the keywords – this will help you to trigger the recall process and retrieve the rest of the details. Use Mnemonic, Acronyms, Acrostics, Word Web, and many more such smarter ways to remember the matters learnt.
Mnemonic, the first letter of each word in a list of items is used to make a name of a person or thing.
• ‘ROY G. BIV’ – For colours of the rainbow
• PEMDAS ‘Please End My Day At School’- is a mnemonic for the order of operations in math equations – Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction.
• SMART Stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound. Almost every manager would be familiar with this popular mnemonic. It is a popular common, sometimes and funny.
• 3Ps – Plan, Prepare, Present.
• Please, Question the President’s Objections Courageously- A memory aid to remember the sales process- Prospecting, Qualifying, Presenting, Objection handling and Closing the sale.
Acronyms – Acronyms are only written in upper case letters and usually can be pronounced as a new word. It is an abbreviation made out of the first letters of the words of a sequence.
AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.
AIDS: Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome.
SARS: Severe acute respiratory syndrome.
Acrostics – It is the same as acronyms, only thing is to make up a silly, funny sentence with the first letters. Once you have the first letter you will remember the full word, for example –
Stop talking and
Allow me to talk about
Respiratory syndrome called
SARS.
Use Word Web with question words to infer the main idea of the text or any passage by finding the details – WWW HWW – Who, What, Where, How, Why, When.
Scribble Pictures – Draw small rudimentary pictures or sketches around words. Close your eyes and you will see the picture and the words inside.
Use Visualisation – Visualise yourself doing the thing you are trying to remember in the same sequence and order as it is in the main points of the notes.
Use Stories – Be a little more innovative and creative, weave what you need to learn into a story.
The Examiners are not your enemies. Teachers would want the students to succeed. They would want to award you good marks! Make it easy for them by writing in a way that’s easy for them to read and understand.
• Plan the main points before you start your answers – be clear about what you want to say by planning answers by jotting down some key points.
• Read through the entire paper once, reread the questions and choose which ones you’ll answer and make sure you understand what they are looking for. Make an Impressive start – start with your most confident questions first and work your way down to the ones you might be less confident about. Not to drift away from the question is the single greatest way not to lose marks. So, stick to exactly what you are asked. Do not use very long winding sentences, use of good grammar and punctuation and correct spelling is very important to make a good impression on the examiner.
• Cut the cackle and come to the horses, which means keep away all the frills and come to the point, in short, keep your answer to the point asked in the question, clear and structured, following your plan. In other words, write clearly and concisely without beating about the bush.
• Keep track of the time – know how much time you have to answer and stick to it. If you’re not finished, do not stretch the time in that particular question, move on and come back to it later.
• Paragraph your writing – Do not write long stretches of answers without breaking them into the paragraph. Start with an introductory paragraph stating what your answer will contain. Use one paragraph per point. Build a paragraph around that point. Sum up what is important.
• Give an impressive ending to your answer – End with a concluding paragraph that sums up the main points of your answer again and leaves a lasting last impression.
• Do not leave any questions – attempt all required questions, even the ones you think you do not know. You might get a few marks for something you write but you can get no marks for a blank page.
• Revise your paper. Re-read carefully all your answers. Proofread them for errors or if you may want to add any extra information you remember. Check against all instructions. Check that you have answered all required questions and all the answers are correctly numbered. Do not miss out on anything.
After the Exam is over avoid the post-mortem. Going over the paper is a fruitless exercise. Leave it alone. Focus on the positive– think about what you did well. Move on– you can’t change anything now so leave it behind and move on. Concentrate on the next exam.
All the very best to you all!
