How to Prepare Optimally for your Upcoming Exam
- Andy Stephan Lee
- Oct 17, 2020
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 13
It is the time of the year when students feverishly prepare for their End of Year (EOY) examinations. This season usually brings on high levels of stress and burnout for many. The stress is further compounded by the closure of schools permanently or for prolonged periods in the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, forcing students to adapt to new ways of learning.
In view of the disruptions and changes, it is imperative to put in place an effective preparation program prior to the exam period. With a dedicated and disciplined approach, we stand a higher chance of overcoming the challenges and emerge even stronger than before.
I hope that the tips will come in handy and prove useful to you in coping with the upcoming exam season.
Start Early
Early preparation can be a critical success element. There are many factors that determine when to start. These include the number of subjects one is taking, school commitments such as extra curriculum activities (CCAs) and also personal commitments which may include part time jobs.
The start date may be as early as two months before the exam. By starting early, we can better understand and discover any academic shortfall and need early and have sufficient time to remedy them. Then through regular and consistent practice, we will strengthen our mastery of the subjects. These will help to minimise hiccups and mishaps, thereby mitigating any stress and anxiety arising from last minute preparation work.
Numerous studies have shown stress and anxiety as silent “killer” elements that are highly detrimental to our health and psychological well-being. As such, providing sufficient buffer can help us to manage our stress and anxiety levels better. This surely puts us in a better state of mind to perform during the exam.
Stay Focused
During the preparation process, it is always key to recognise what may potentially affect and derail our progress. This involves first identifying and then minimising the disruptions that will likely arise.
In this internet era, distractions for students are numerous and probably uncountable. A common complaint amongst parents is that they find it an insurmountable task to prevent their children from spending excessive amount of time surfing social media apps such as Instagram, Tik-Tok and Twitter, etc.
Online gaming is also prevalent amongst students, some of whom become addicted to hugely popular games such as Call of Duty (COD), Mobile Legends (ML Bang Bang) and Candy Crush (CC) etc. In this multi-billion gaming industry, the list of highly addictive games is simply non exhaustive and it is just so easy to move from one game to the next after getting tired of playing one.
As such, self-discipline plays a critical role in our preparation process. We need to possess the tenacity and determination to abstain from our daily online addictions when exams are nearing. Instead, the time and energy should be diverted to our revision. Ultimately, this realignment of time and effort may yield tremendous reward in the form of better grades.
To keep focus, it means that we need to plan our revision schedule according to our own pace and learning habits, and stick to it. It is also useful to adopt useful tools such as mind mapping and even remembering key concepts based on our own personal learning technique. Some examples include common Additional Math Trigonometry acronyms such as “Add Sugar to Coffee” (ASTC) or even “Add Salt to Coke” (ASTC) if your preference is drinking Coca Cola instead of Coffee.
Keep Healthy
Have you ever suffered from insomnia because you have an upcoming exam paper the following day? Have you ever been down with flu or fever the moment your first exam paper started? Have you ever experienced stomach cramps or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) when you stepped into the exam hall? These are common phenomena that may have greatly affected the academic performance of many students. We have prepared so much for our exams and yet, our true performance for them have been adversely affected because of our inability to concentrate fully when we most needed it.
Therefore it is highly recommended that students adopt a healthy lifestyle. An individually tailored supplement program such as Vitamin C, Zinc and B-Complex vitamins may help to boost our immunity. Alternatively, eating healthily on a daily basis and supplemented with a dose of fruits may simply perform the trick.
Most importantly, deprivation of rest and sleep is a definite no-no during this highly stressful period. We should always obtain sufficient rest daily so that we can journey on the following day with a clear mind. Indeed, staying healthy is just so critical during the exam period and this is especially true during the current Covid-19 pandemic.
Time Trial
A time trial aims to measure our current academic competency level and time management skill. It provides a rough gauge of our current performance level and helps to surface gaps and needs. We can then fine tune these shortfalls before the actual big day. Time trials are useful in providing a reality check before it is too late. We don’t wish to realise what we are sorely lacking only on the actual exam day. By then, it can get really frightening and stressful.
It is also useful to practice in an environment that closely simulates our exam venue. We need to understand that the exam venue is never a place whereby one can surf the internet while doing Math or Physics practice. Also, it is never a place with the music blasting in the background.
It is suggested that these trials be conducted at least two week before the actual exam dates. In this way, we will still have sufficient time to tweak our revision strategies to close gaps and achieve better outcomes such as completing the paper ahead of time. Also, a successful time trial or positive mock test result can definitely serve as a mental and confidence boost prior to the actual exam.
Stay Calm
Below are some lamentations commonly cited by students after their exam papers:
“I am so angry, you know! I actually know how to do the question but I just couldn’t execute it correctly at that particular moment”;
“My mind just went into a complete blank when I most needed it to work, and my stomach kept churning butterflies during last fifteen minutes of the paper”;
“My palm became cold and sweaty and started dripping sweat onto the exam booklet and even smudged the Math workings on one of the pages. Gosh!”
It is a pattern most of us have likely experienced in the past. You prepare so much for your exam and all the information seems coherent and simple. Alas, the moment you are stumped by a challenging question, all the information you have mastered earlier just disappear into thin air.
Anxiety, a common side effect of stress, can often lead to your minds becoming blank when you most needed it to be functioning at its optimal level. You struggle to pull up something but the dreaded mind just goes into a complete blank. Worst of all, the harder you try, the darker and hollower it becomes.
During such intense situations, we need to constantly remind ourselves of the slogan ‘Stay Calm and Carry on’. We need to appreciate its deeper meaning and understand that it was really created for a simple purpose - to remind us that life goes on as usual even when we are faced with tremendous difficulties or obstacles.
During an exam, when we are confounded by a particular question, we should always move on to the next question. If we are still stuck by the subsequent questions, we continue moving on and don’t give up hope. Of course, if we were not able to answer most of the exam questions, the failure could only be attributed to our own faults. It was obvious that we had not studied enough and we had failed to start early revision and practiced sufficient questions that were warranted for our exam. In such an instance, we should take a deep breathe and console ourselves that we will most likely fail the paper but we shall live again and fight another day.
Conclusion
Putting in a dedicated revision plan can make exams become less of a pain for many. A comprehensive revision plan will help to mitigate and minimise the risks of last minute preparatory work. By being better prepared, we alleviate our stress and anxiety levels so that we are more likely to scale new heights during the highly intense exam period. In fact, this enables us to gain the essential confidence and develop a positive mindset, both of which are important in overcoming any intense situations and in this instance, our exams. It is clearly a wiser choice to endure the pain of discipline now rather than suffer the pain of regret later.
In a meritocratic society such as Singapore, grades may not be everything but they surely mean something. As such, the recommendations above aim to help us better prepare for our exams so as to keep our stress levels in check and preserve our health and well-being at tip top conditions. These in turn provide us with the ammunition to perform at optimal levels and potentially to ace our exams. Lastly, we need to appreciate the fact that exams are not just to grade us but rather, they serve to grow us both academically and psychologically.
Additional Reading
a) ‘Singapore schools to shift to full home-based learning from April 8 to May 4 amid Covid-19 pandemic’ (The Straits Times, April 2020)
Website: https://www.straitstimes.com/Websitesingapore/education/schools-to-shift-to-full-home-based-learning-from-april-8
b) ‘Stress, The Silent Killer’ (The American Society, May 2019)
c) 'Singaporeans are second most Internet-addicted people in the world: Survey' (The Straits Times, Oct 2014)
d) ‘Programme to help young people with gaming addiction launched’ (The Straits Times, August 2019)
Website: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/programme-to-help-young-people-with-gaming-addiction-launched
e) ‘Why mind blanks happen during exams’ (The Straits Times, Oct 2016)