Okay, would everyone who likes exams please put your hands up? That’s right; just raise them up nice and high. No, No, no one. Not one person. If you are a sane person, like me, you will detest exams. They are stressful, a lot of work and all in all a fact of life. That is right, a fact of life. When people leave school after 12, 13 years of school, they are often led into a false sense of security that their lives will be free from study and exams for ever. Wrong!
The bottom line is
that no matter what you do, in this day and age you are always going to be in a
situation where you will have to do some sort of exam, whether it is to get
your license to drive a car, to get a promotion at work or to get a University
degree, we are always going to be faced with having to do some sort of exam.
Even at a computer training centre, when you learn how to use Microsoft Office
you have the opportunity to gain a certificate from Microsoft in using
Microsoft Office, but to get it, you still have to take an exam. However, there
are certain things you can do that can help you prepare for you exams and give
you a better chance of passing.
1. Ensure You Read All the Material Provided After Lectures
The number one mistake people make when they do any training,
including computer training is to not re-read and go through all the material
they covered during the lectures within seven days of doing the actual
lecture. So, for example, if you do a one-day
computer training course, you need to go back through all the material within
seven days.
Why?
Well there is lots of research that has been undertaken showing,
if you do not reinforce the material you have learned within seven days of
first hearing it, that you will lose 50% of that knowledge within the next
seven days. If you do not review the
material within 21 days you will lose 50% of the 50% left, which now means you
will only remember 25% of the material covered. Some of the research shows that
for every 7 days you leave reviewing the material you keep losing 50% of the
remaining knowledge which means in about 6 to 10 weeks after the course you
knowledge on the subject. If the material has not been reviewed, the retained
knowledge will be close to none.
Have you ever been to one of those tax seminars or financial
planning seminars? Have you noticed that they only give you enough information
to remember the good things, they do not give you a training pack to remind you
of the potential flaws of their services, that is because they use the same
issues outlined earlier in which as time goes on, you will only remember the
things you have reinforced.
2. Make Sure You Redo All the
Practical Exercises
With many courses that you study for there will be practical
exercises included. For example, when
you are doing computer training courses, you will do a little bit of theory and
then a practical exercise. It is extremely important that when you leave your
training that you go back through those practical exercises as they will help
reinforce the theory you have learned.
Let say for example, you were studying bookkeeping. One of
the things you are taught in bookkeeping is how to create a manual set of books
such as the Journals, Ledgers and Trial Balance. During your course you would be given
practical exercises to create your own Journals etc and it is extremely
important that you redo those exercises in your own time to reinforce the
elements you have learned and the process as well.
Yet another example for university students, if you were
studying say biology or chemistry, one of the requirements you have is to do
certain experiments in a lab. It is
absolutely essential that you practice those exercises as they will help
reinforce the theory you have learned.
In the case of University studies, most faculties will allow you to book
lab time to practice your exercises outside the normal lecture time.
3. Do A Minimum of 4 Hours Study Per
Week Per Subject
People often ask how much study we should be doing each
week. Well, in reality, it really does
depend on the course you are doing. For example, if you are studying medicine
or law, you will find that you will need almost the same amount of time to
study as you attend lectures, so you are looking at 40 hours of study time per
week.
However, for computer training courses or IT courses where
you are studying for Certifications you will find that if you allocate 4 hours
per week per subject, that it will be sufficient to study the material and to
become proficient at it. Make note though that the study period does not
include doing your practical exercises, the study period is in addition.
4. When Studying Have Light Music On
As I write this, I can hear all the parents in the world
cringing and crying out saying, No! Well in fact, if you listen to the right music,
music can in fact increase your ability to retain the material you are
studying. Briefly, research shows that
baroque music at 60 beats per minute causes your brain to produce more alpha
[calmness] waves.
This simply means that you calm down and relax, in a way
similar to when you whistle a happy tune, or when you daydream. This
"alpha" state of mind is ideal for learning, creativity, or just
relaxing. Baroque Music also makes the
perfect background music for all training from pre-school to government
"think tanks." It is used in schools all over Australia. A quote from
the teacher of a remedial class in Australia: "It seems to slow them down
so they can think."
Corporate trainers can improve the effectiveness of training
sessions dramatically by playing Baroque Music during a session.
I also recommend listening to Baroque Music before you
actually attend your exam as this will help you to improve you calmness and
focus before undertaking the exam and as you have used this music during your
study program, it will help prompt the material to come to the forefront of you
mind but it will not replace studying.
5. Review Previous Exams
This is one of the most important things every person must
do prior to sitting an exam and that is to review as many previous exams as you
can. In most University courses, you will find that each year the lecturer will
in fact lodge the previous year's exams in the Library for use by the
students. My recommendation has always
been to go and photocopy the exam if possible and then study the exam as much
as possible. Some universities and
colleges allow you to do this, others do not.
There are a few key reasons for doing this. The previous
exams will give you an insight into the way the lecturers structure the exam
questions and they also give you a very good indication of the sorts of
questions that lecturers are likely to put on the exams, especially if you have
three or four years’ worth of past exam papers.
One lecturer at the
college I was studying at, every year would go through this one question on the
board prior to exam as part of their pre-exam build up and then put that exact
question into the exam papers. You would be amazed the number of people who did
not take notice during the pre-exam briefings and consequently would get that
exam question wrong. So, it is
definitely worth taking note.
If you are studying Microsoft Certifications or IT
Certifications my strong recommendation is that you access pre-assessment
material from companies like Self-Test Software or Transcender as they are a
really good representation of the sorts of questions you will face in the
actual exams. One thing to note though,
do not rely just on the questions in those pre-assessment exams as if you do,
you will not pass the exam. The
pre-assessment exams are simply indicators of the material you need to know and
whether you have a good understanding of the material. They definitely do not guarantee a pass. I have seen too many students over the years
rely on these types of material only, to find they fail, because the exams have
changed or have new areas not originally covered. Always make sure you check
out the curriculum for the exam and that you know all the areas the curriculum
specifies. Never assume that certain
things will be in the exams as you most certainly will be wrong.
6. Have a Colleague Write Practice Exams and Questions for You
If you are doing long term study at a college or University
it is always worthwhile to try to form a study group. Even if you are working in a corporate
environment and working in a team that is doing study try to form a study group
to help you with studies. The reason I
recommend this, is so that you can all work together and right a series of
practice exams and questions for each other to try to answer.
See, the key with passing any exam is practice. The more practice you have and exposure to
the various ways questions could be possibly structured the more likely you
will pass the exam. Getting each person
in you study group to write practice exams and questions also helps them, as
they need to know the correct answer and how to structure the correct answer,
which helps reinforce the material for them.
If you are studying in a corporate environment and you have
people who have done the exams in the past, get them to write a set of practice
exams. It would be even better if you
could get three or four colleagues to actually write some practice exams for
you as they will give you such a variation that you will be able to identify areas
you may not have covered sufficiently.
To finish off my article I want to highlight once again the six
things you should do to help you prepare you for your upcoming exams.
1. Ensure
You Read All the Materials After Lectures
2. Make sure
you redo all practical exercises
3. Do A
Minimum of 4-hour Study Per Week Per Subject
4. When
Studying Have Light Music On
5. Review
Previous Exams
6. Have a
Colleague Write Practice Exams and Questions for You
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