9 Smart Tips to Prepare for a School Examination

Exam season undisputedly puts your hard work to a very, very tough test.

Sometimes when it's time to prove yourself in such trying assessments, there may be some things you're doing wrong or perhaps a few simple changes to exponentially enhance your performance, which you probably don't know about.

To help you do your best, here are 9 simple yet effective tips so that next time you do make the progress that you wish to see:

1. Studying Starts in Class

2. Review Class Topics

3. Gather the Motivation

4. Find the Balance 

5. Plan, Plan, Plan

6. Start Preparing Early

7. Backing Up

8. Don't Do Last-Minute Preps 

9. Don't overwhelm Yourself with External Resources

Let's get into some detail.

1. Studying Starts in Class 

Preparation for an exam does not begin a week prior, but during class itself.

Think about it. Whenever you are in a class or lecture you are studying. If self-study sessions were the only times when you prepare for exams, then what would be the use of attending classes anyways? 

Give it your all, your 100% during classes and don't miss out on them.

Be fully concentrated and focused on classes and interact with teachers or lecturers to make the learning process much more engaging, involving and all-the-more fun. 

Feel that you're part of the learning process and not merely a listener.

Take notes and clarify your doubts in class itself and utilize the classes as a learning resource, just as you would consider a guide or a textbook.

Be regular in showing up for classes as that is an investment in your time that will help you immensely during your exam preparation.

Put away all potential distractions. I like to keep my phone in the underrated Do Not Disturb mode and close all other tabs like email so that I don't get distracted while in class.

2. Review Class Topics

Once you are done with class, you probably won't retain all that information for long.

You are likely to forget everything within a few days time and that clearly isn't putting your attendance in class to good use. 

Once class is over, take a full, relaxed break and get back to your desk to revise everything covered in the lecture or class. 

Reviewing concepts helps you to shift them from short term memory to long term memory and can make it much easier for you to get a hold of your exam preparations as it mitigates the difficulty of rebuilding the concepts again.

Again, exam preparation does not begin only a week earlier.

3. Gather the Motivation

I'll admit it. Exam preparation is tough and it tests your patience and tolerance to a great extent. 

It can seem hopeless and there have been times when I am desperately wishing that these exams should just pass by quickly

So it ain't easy. All you can do is maintain the perseverance and optimism to help you cope with grueling exam seasons.

Expecting the worst case scenario and preparing to face it is one thing - but facing that actual worst scenario is a different thing. 

Perhaps planning is an important aspect of winning a game but to withstand failure might be a Herculean task that drains your positivity like leeches.

And there is no shortcut; you just gotta work hard, because it just isn't as effortless always.

4. Find the Balance 

The weeks before the exam are tense and it might force you into an unorganized lifestyle, forgetting to take care of yourself and sometimes unconsciously disturbing the balance in your life.

To me, that would mean eating meals in not more than 10 minutes, not taking any breaks whatsoever and shutting myself in my room the whole day, believing that that was going to help me take preparations to the extreme.

All this seemed completely normal at the time but later realizations taught me that it really isn't. This phenomenon more commonly occurs during exam season.

Living a laborious, industrious life expecting the fruits of your hard work might not always be so practical. Don't expect overwhelming results if you are constantly and extensively draining your energy for the sake of an examination.

Find the (almost) perfect balance during this time especially because you are prone to burnouts due to intensive studying and you just cannot afford that to happen during exam preparation.

5. Plan, Plan, Plan

Planning the days on which you will be studying what is when you are already halfway through with the exam preparation.

When you have a clear idea of the timeline of your preparations, it not only helps you put forward every foot in a structured manner but also helps you feel more confident that you would be able to complete everything on time.

It also ensures that you don't procrastinate your study sessions or chapters when it is the allotted time because having them physically on paper or digitally is itself a sort of contract that you signed with yourself that holds you accountable whenever you try to dodge your own rules.

I use calendar blocking with Google Calendar which I have done a tutorial about here - Tutorial on Google Calendar Blocking.

6. Start Preparing Early

Starting at the earliest gives you a head-start in the game. You will be able to complete the studying part early and keep the last week or so before the exams for revision. 

If not start at the very earliest, at least once you receive the syllabus for the examination, you should already know when you are gonna start and how much you time would you need for studying and revising.

This would also mean that you have more time to prepare and if you give more time to each concept, then it is proved to consolidate better in your mind.

Moreover, you would also be able to study calmly, without much pressure or tension that you would normally have if you opted to complete the whole syllabus in shorter period of time.

You never know what may happen along the way. If you must face unexpected circumstances that may interrupt your studies, then its better to have a part of it covered already so that such unprecedented problems won't cause much of an impact on your study flow.

7. Backing Up

Okay, so lets say that something goes wrong. You missed a whole day's studies or your device broke down or you suddenly had to accept commitments that require you attention.

Now what?

You should have a back up plan. I do not mean that literally - not that you should have a completely different plan altogether, but that you should be prepared to face anything that could possibly not go according to plan.

After all, this is an examination that you preparing for, and you just cannot risk making mistakes.

But if you do make serious blunders, then it would be safer to know that not much damage is done to your overall study pattern.

So to back up your study plan,

• Give more time to complete a single topic than you would normally do in case you guessed wrong about how much you would need to study a particular concept.
• Complete the most important topics first so that you would be able to score the best that you possibly can even if you haven't been able to complete the whole portion. Use the Pareto principle, which basically states that only 20% of the total portion would actually have 80% weightage in the examination.
• In case all topics require equal attention, and time decides to betray you, dedicate equal amounts of time to each of them so that you would have at least some understanding in everything. A little bit about this and a little bit about that.
• Have a versatile mindset and flexible planning system so that you can easily shift around and reschedule whenever you have to without much fuss.

8. Don't Do Last-Minute Preps 

Never do last minute preparations just before exams. You wouldn't be surprised at all if I tell you that one of the many commonly Googled questions is how to prepare for an exam the night before!

But nothing beats preparation that has taken time. If you use time properly, the rewards would be generous and bountiful. 

Consolidating the matter you learn requires time and to a varying extent, spending time with the material can help retain what you have learnt for longer periods of time.

A good student is good at time-management. Time is a best friend when you know how to properly navigate through its eternal oceans.

The pressure and mess of last minute preparations won't give you the confidence to face the examinations.

9. Don't overwhelm Yourself with External Resources

This is such a controversial and debatable topic, but I have a firm stance against this - I stay away from most external resources to prepare for an examination. 

I literally just stick to the school syllabus and textbook and don't go behind guides or videos or other resources.

Supplementary reading is crucial for the arts and subjects of that nature. I know guides are supposed to help you with studies but they do a handful of harms as well. 

I know a good many instances when my own friends have Googled questions and they were bound to lose marks because regardless of Google's accuracy, the examiners would make it clear that they have glued themselves to the school syllabus.

That's when Google search has let us poor students down.

And yes, videos, books, Google and other external study material do help to broaden your vision and take on a subject and it also helps you develop the depth of knowledge required to build a strong foundation in that subject.

You might even feel more secure believing that you have almost everything covered in that topic and confidence from having such an in-depth knowledge.

But you see, some disadvantages accompany those benefits.

Not all that you study in such resources may actually be in good terms with what you have to study in the school syllabus. 

Anything that is wrong according to the syllabus might actually be true in reality. 

School syllabi have a deficiency in updates to latest versions, yet we must follow it (unreasonable, I know).

Thus following guides or Google might cost you some precious marks.

It can be confusing and time-consuming trying to choose what you should be studying itself and my simple solution to that is to stay away from external resources.

When External Resources are Helpful

Question banks can be used for subjects that require practice such as mathematics or those that can put forward different puzzling models of questions such as science.

Practice and assess with those resources but I wouldn't advise you to study from them.

Even videos are great learning tools because your attention span lasts a lot longer in front of a screen than in front of lengthy, boring paragraphs of a textbook.

So, the million dollar question - can you prepare for an exam in a week, a day or the night before? 

Maybe. It depends from person to person but a very large majority of us unfortunately don't have those unicorn-superman powers (but if you do, I would want them).

There was never a shortcut when you're the path to success but there are some simple tweaks that you can always do to move faster on that path.

You know, maybe fear of exams, to some extent, is necessary to keep you on track - so that you don't spend the few immediate weeks before them watching Netflix.