6 Hacks To Help You Effectively Prepare for Exams
Tips on reading, handling test banks, and choking during exams.
Let’s dive right into it and waste no time!
Before Exam: How To Study for the Sake for Test Taking
Hack 1: Exam Preparation Strategy Is Not the Same As Learning Strategies
I am an excellent test taker.
Something I observe as a student and a teacher are that taking exams and learning require different strategies.
If you use exam strategies all the time, you will miss out on learning. Meanwhile, if you use the learning strategies during exam preparation, your grade might suffer as a result.
Choosing the right strategies at the right time is the key.
While you are learning a subject, say Gross Domestic Product (GDP), for example. You should give yourself as much room as possible to explore and challenge the concept? What is GDP? What was this concept designed to measure? What does it really measure? What are the common critiques of GDP?
It’s not the time to ponder those above-mentioned questions while preparing for the big test, though. Test preparation requires you to think like the one writing those questions. Your goal is to find out what the questions are trying to test you for and what are the answers they have in mind. It’s past the time to think critically about whether those suggested answers make sense.
You do the critical thinking before or after the exam preparation phase, not during it.
Hack 2: Approach Reading Materials Using the Boomerang Method
How do you read the textbook or reading materials provided for the course?
Do you start with page 1 and attempt to understand every paragraph before moving on?
If the exam involves reading and comprehension, it’s not wise to skip the materials. And it’s equally not wise to read page by page. It’s very easy to get stuck on a sentence that may or may not be important for the exam and wind up having no time to finish the review.
Assuming that you have read the materials earlier in the semester (bold assumption here!), I would suggest you practice through test banks or a similar format.
Review the questions that you answered incorrectly and find the book's associated pages to study. This way, you get to apply the concept that you read immediately in answering questions. You are creating a smaller feedback loop for your reading and makes the reading more purposeful.
Not all pages in a book are created equally. Some chapters/concepts are heavily tested than others. Your instructors might have told you what those are. If not, search through homework and quizzes, and you might be able to estimate the weights assigned to each topic. You can also reach out to your instructors and ask for reviewing advice and points of focus during the review.
What if there is one concept that is particularly confusing even after seeking help from others? Mark it, work on the rest of the materials and circle back frequently. Most concepts are interconnected, so studying chapters 2 and 3 often makes chapter 1 easier to understand.
Hack 3: Methods To Test Your Understanding
Some subjects are intuitively easy to read.
Students tell me that everything makes sense when reading about them, and then during the exam, it all becomes a blur. Choking during exams can trace back to stress and anxiety, but more strategies to make choking happen less frequently.
You need to test yourself.
How to test your own retention?
Read a chapter, close the book, and get out a blank piece of paper. Write down as many points as you can remember. Compare your notes with the book to identify the gap. You are learning to narrow down the topics that you need to study.
You can use this strategy on a single topic as well if a whole chapter seems too overwhelming.
If the practice questions provide the solution, it’s okay to make sense of the solutions during the exam preparation phase instead of solving on your own (not much time left.)
The danger is having a false sense of mastery after reading the solutions. Everything seems intuitive and easy. But on exam day, you will be tested based on your ability to produce the output, not making sense of the answers!
While cramming, read the solutions, understand them, and then write down your own answers. Compare and study.
Hack 4: Mimic Exam Taking Environment
Depending on the length of your exam, it can take an hour to six hours (I have a six-hour exam coming up this July!) For example, GMAT takes 2 hours 45 minutes.
Most of the time, we study and practice in small chunks of time at our preferred location. The unpleasant furniture and the length of the exam can be the exogenous factors that cause you to stress out.
For a major exam, do simulation tests and try to mimic the actual exam environment as closely as possible. If the exam is from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, you know when you should do the simulation test. Don’t sit on the couch if you need to sit on a hard chair on exam day. Don’t snack if no food is allowed during the actual exam.
During the pandemic, if you need to wear a face-covering on exam day, do the same while practicing.
During Exam: Your Goal Is To Get As Many Points As Possible
Hack 5: Don’t Leave Any Questions Unanswered
It doesn’t matter if this is a multiple-choice or essay question, don’t leave anything blank. Make a guess. Write down something you think is relevant to the question.
Having no clue what to write? Use other questions on the exam as inspirations and compose a few sentences based on the essays.
You have to give yourself a chance to score the points. With blank space, it’s a guaranteed zero.
Hack 6: Spend Time on the Questions You Are More Confident With
Say you have 60 minutes to answer 30 questions. Should you spend 2 minutes on each question?
Absolutely not.
Just as the reading strategies we mentioned early, not all questions deserve an equal amount of attention.
Glance through all the questions first, if possible. Answer the ones that you are familiar with first. This strategy has two advantages:
- You get some sure points in your pocket.
- You warm up through these questions and build confidence.
For example, if the first question seems extremely challenging, skip it and revisit later if time allows. (Pick an answer if for multiple choice question.)
Note: if the exam locks all previously answered questions, this method will not work.
Final Comments
These are tips to help you handle exams more strategically. They are not meant for you to skip studying altogether and only work on passing the exam.
I am sharing these because I known people who are curious, brilliant, and hardworking but lack exam-taking skills. I don’t want us to hold negative feelings towards learning because of the anxiety caused by exams.