Exams are around the corner! Are you anxious, concerned, and terrified? The key to not stressing out is to get a good night sleep and to fill your mind with positive thoughts, so that you face each exam with confidence. Studies show that a good night sleep is in fact the key to a successful day. Studying last minute is not a good idea! You might want to consider revising during the day so that you will go to bed relaxed and wake up confident about the exam. I recommend that you make a study plan, organize your week so that you won’t be stuck last minute not knowing what to do. Yes, you might think it sounds useless, and you might think you already know the material well enough without needing to study, however on exam day, nerves can get in the way and can cloud up your memory. If it helps, study with your friends, test yourselves and see your results. I advise you to take out all your old tests and quizzes, notes, books and study from them. This will help a lot! Study a couple hours a day for each subject and take 5-10 min interval breaks.
If you are worried about the type of questions that will be included in the exam, don’t be! The key to understanding any type of question is to read it thoroughly and to mainly try and identify key terms. If your exam contains multiple-choice questions, concentrate mostly on terms and definitions. When reading these types of questions in exams, read them slowly and carefully and pay attention to key terms. If you don’t know the answer, skip it and go back to it. After you are confident, that you have completed all answers on the test, go back and read the question you were previously stuck on, and try your best to find the answer. If you encounter short-answer questions, read the question well, look for key terms and answer. It would be best to practice these by using old test and quizzes; this might help you become more familiar with these questions. There are many other types of questions, and you might want to ask your teacher before hand which forms exactly the exam will consist of.
Last but not least, the way to face exams in a proper way, is to be fully concentrated.Concentration comes from the motivation of a certain goal, and it is only through concentration that studied concepts remain trapped in your mind. Thus, this is the reason that concentration is always followed by motivation. Subsequently, exams must be confronted with the right mentality; that this is not another passing or failing grade, but a huge step in your life and that it will have a huge impact on your future. Looking back at this in a few years, we definitely won’t remember the marks that we got in the exam, however we will remember the effort and determination we applied to achieve such result. There are many study techniques, but of course we all know that the time a day when we are most focused, is in the morning because our mind is fresh, and it has not yet been inflicted with everyday stress that we face.
Follow these simple strategies and you will be perfectly fine! I wish you good luck on your exams and happy holidays!
Have a nice day,
Isabella D’Angelo
Sophomore Class President
