Elevate Education (EE) came to speak to AS students for their third instalment of study advice. This session was titled “Acing Your Exams”. The speakers started by talking about marginal gains and what a massive difference they can make, using the example of the British Cycling Team. If you don’t know this inspiring story, you can read it here.
EE told the students that exam success is 80% preparation and 20% exam technique. They shared tips for how to improve in both areas.
Seven steps to improve exam preparation
- Giving yourself adequate time to prepare – for example, a week to memorise content and two weeks to do past papers
- Identify past mistakes – focus on teacher feedback in assessments, not grades. Identify the areas where marks were lost.
- Get teacher advice – ask how to improve, get specific advice on what has gone wrong in past assessments and create a checklist
- Learn from the people around you – get papers from people who are doing better and work out what they are doing well and copy
- Fix the mistake – redo sections of past papers that you got wrong and get them marked.
- Use an exam planner – subject, target grade, tasks (what do you need to do to achieve your goal e.g. past papers) and deadlines for completing each task.
- Practice papers – number one way to improve grades. Do three to five practice papers per exam (or more). Don’t do initial papers under exam conditions (not timed, use notes) then move on to timed exam conditions. Get the papers marked.
Exam Day Tips
- Stay calm – develop a routine (pack bag the night before, eat breakfast, have enough sleep, check start time of exam), avoid people who stress you out, practise breathing exercises.
- Ration your time – work out how many minutes you can spend on each question
- Consider all answers
Parents can access more advice on how to support their child from EE here: Parent Info | Elevate Education
Students can access resources (including ones that are subject-specific) from EE here: Home | Elevate Education Password: RONDO
