Studying and learning can be enjoyable… honestly, but the fun has to come to an end and it does, with the exam. It cannot be avoided and so is best embraced. Treat the exam as a game and you the player. What you need to do is give yourself the very best chance of winning.
Become a professional exam taker, someone who follows a process of preparation, very much like a top sports-person. This means you personally need to be in the best physical and mental shape and have a series of exercises that will get you match fit.
Below is your training regime from the night before the exam – good luck.
The night before
You should by now have:
- Read through and reduced your class/tuition notes down to approximately 10 pages (20 max) of revision notes. You may have some professionally produced revision notes, but it is still best to make your own.
- Practised past questions on the key examinable areas both under exam and non exam conditions.
- Started the process of memorising the revision notes.
Be realistic – The key to the night before the exam is to be realistic. You don’t have much time, so don’t think you can cover everything. Let’s assume you have 3/4 hours, 6.00pm – 10.00pm maybe.
Put to one side the large folder that contains all your notes taken throughout the term/year, and concentrate only on the 10-20 page revision notes.
Focus and memorise – In the 3/4 hours that you have you want to get an overview of the subject and focus on the areas that need memorising. These should be the key examinable areas and are most likely to be standard formats, definitions, lists, formulas not given in the exam, etc. Memorising should include some rewriting of notes, but very little, talking out loud, drawing pictures, writing out mnemonics, etc.
Admin – Make sure you have set to one side everything you will need the next day. This includes your exam entry documents, calculator, gum, mints, etc. You don’t want to be thinking of these in the morning. And of course make sure you know exactly what time you need to leave to get to the exam with about 1 hour to spare.
Physical and mental preparation – Drink lots of water, avoid tea, coffee, etc as you will need to get a good night’s sleep. Exercise is an incredibly effective method of reducing tension and stress. So you may want to build into your 4 hours, 30 minutes for a run or brisk walk. This could be at the halfway point of your evening, combining a well earned break with the exercise maximises your time.
Getting sleep is important, so avoid reading your notes and then going straight to sleep. Pack you notes away, put them ready for the morning, then physically go into another room if possible or even outside, watch TV for 10 minutes, something trivial or read a book. You need to break the state of mind from that of studying, relaxation leads to sleep not stress.
And finally keep a positive attitude, think about what you know and are good at and not what you don’t know and are bad at. Keep telling yourself that you have done everything possible, and if you follow these steps you will have. Thinking you know nothing and should have done more will not help at this stage, it’s a pointless thought strategy and not what the professional exam taker does.
The morning before
Set your alarm sufficiently early to give you at least another hour of revision. You don’t need to get out of bed, just continue memorising your notes. This is now about little and often, short 10 minute intervals. Don’t worry about falling asleep in the exam; the adrenalin won’t let you.
1 hour before
What you do after arriving at the exam centre/school etc is personal. Some will prefer to sit on their own going over the revision notes; don’t bother taking your folder of course notes. This is still very much about short term memory. Others will prefer to talk, chatting about nothing, just to stop them worrying. Both are fine.
After the exam
Afterwards is also a little personal, most will go home, but some will want to talk through what was in the exam, looking perhaps for some conformation they have not made a complete mess of it. Most importantly, if you have another exam, go home, put your old revision notes to one side, forget everything and start on your next subject.
The American basket ball player Art Williams had a good saying that I will leave you with.
"I’m not telling you it is going to be easy — I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it."
And although personally I found exams difficult, I have never regretted the hard work; it was, for me, worth it.
Stuart Pedley-Smith is Head of Learning for Kaplan Financial. Involved with training and educating finance professionals for over 20 years, he is especially interested in the process of learning and the exam skills and techniques that contribute towards success in the classroom and in life. Stuart has written two books – The E word – Kaplan’s Guide to Passing Exams and A student’s guide to writing Business Reports.