GCSEs are two weeks away; How to maximise time during exam study wherever you are
Wherever you are in the world, exams are never that far away, so how can we make sure your teen gets through their exam study in one piece?
Hi there,
A couple of quick things before I launch into my top tips for your teen to maximise their precious study time in the lead up to exams.
First, welcome to new subscribers — it’s great to have you here and I am pumped to help your teen get their study on track.
Second, thank you for bearing with me the last few weeks while I have been MIA. My Dad was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of the year and declined very quickly over the last month, and passed away last week.
So as I embark on this new normal alongside my Mum, the kids are keeping me busy and I am looking forward to dedicating more time to Cram Lab and working with you to help your teen get through the rest of the school year.
If you are in the UK, you are no doubt well aware that GCSEs start in a couple of weeks, and I am sure there will be other exams coming up soon in other parts of the world. Here in NZ, teens will have mock exams in about June, which, scarily, is not terribly far away.
So this week, I thought I would take another look at what your teen should be doing with their precious time when exams are imminent.
Below are my answers to some important questions I imagine a lot of parents and teens are wondering about.
Is it too late to start studying?
You might be asking this question if your teen is horribly behind.
Even though exams are really close, some teens won’t have started, or will have hardly got over the starting line.
If this is the situation your teen is in, the most important thing for the next few weeks, is time.
Your teen only has a short period of time, and they need to use it very wisely.
They no longer have the luxury of procrastinating, or spending time on study tasks that are ‘low yield’.
My main piece of advice in this situation is to focus on the key topics. These are the topics that are mostly like to come up in the exam and be worth the most marks (‘high yield’).
Like it or not, sitting exams is a bit of a game, and as such your teen needs to be strategic when they are studying.
They need to really wrap their heads around those big juicy topics that are almost guaranteed to come up in the exam.
There is no point wasting time on what I call peripheral topics that might not even come up, and even if they do, will only be worth a couple of extra marks.
Does your teen need to make time for practice questions?
100% yes.
Your teen might be tempted to relegate answering practice questions to the ‘don’t have time’ pile, but having a bit of practice at answering actual questions is essential to being prepared for exams, regardless of how much study you’ve done.
Regardless of how (un)prepared your teen is, I strongly recommend they still carve out some time for practice questions / attempting past exams.
This is because it’s the skill of actually applying what they know that your teen will need to demonstrate on exam day.
Exam questions purposefully ask things like, discuss…or explain why…. or, compare and contrast… they don’t simply ask, write down what you know about X.
Your teen needs to be familiar with the format of exam questions and how to go about answering them before exam day. This is not something they should be doing for the first time in the exam.
Can your teen take a break?
Yes, and it’s important that they do. I don’t need to tell you that our brains need rest and sleep, and your teen needs it even more so when they’re preparing for exams.
Breaks are important when your teen is studying. There is no point in them sitting at their desk, staring into the abyss, with nothing going in. This is motivation-sapping and counter-productive.
Something I have talked about quite a bit is the need for your teen to figure out, or at least be cognisant of, how long they can study for before they stop being productive.
Figuring out their optimal study ‘chunk’ of time will help them stay productive, which makes studying a whole lot more enjoyable because you can feel yourself making progress.
The other part of looking after yourself during exams, is sleep.
Sleep is extra important during exams, because this is when your teen’s brain will file and save all of the information being stuffed into it.
Anecdotally, I remember how beneficial it was to leave something I was struggling with until the next day when I could tackle a tricky topic with fresh eyes.
Is there a way to keep epic stress levels down?
This one obviously depends on a lot of things; your teens mood / temperament / how prepared they are, and how they tend to deal with stress.
But there are definitely things you and your teen can do to help keep their stress levels under control.
The taking breaks I mention above is important here. Going for a quick walk around the block, getting the blood circulating again, and thinking about something else for 30 minutes is a great way to reset.
In saying that, taking breaks is all well and good, but what if your teen is stressed up to the eyeballs because the are (or feel) so under prepared?
In that case, the key to keeping stress levels at a level where your teen can at least get on with their study, is to make a plan for each day.
Having a plan, preferably one written down, can really help to take the worry out of your teen’s head. It can allow them to stop fretting and get on with things. The focus becomes sticking to the plan and working through it each day, rather than panicking about everything there is to do, but not actually getting any of it done.
I used to make an Exam Study Timetable during exam study, and apart from giving me a plan to stick to, I distinctly remember the relief it gave me. Seeing the plan down on paper reassured me that there was time to get through it all; I just had to stick to the plan.
One foot in front of the other.
(All of my articles about dealing with study stress are collated on this page.)
What happens if my teen fails?
Obviously, this is not ideal.
Your teen will be disappointed, and you will be disappointed and worried for what it means for their next steps.
But, it’s really important and helpful to keep perspective. One bad grade is very unlikely to alter the course of your teen’s future.
No one gets perfect grades. Even Paris Gellar didn’t get straight A’s 100% of the time.
What does matter is your teen’s overall performance and their trajectory. If they are generally doing okay but they had one bad exam, that’s okay.
If they are starting from a pretty checked-out place, then the focus could be improvement, rather than specific grades. The benchmark for success right now might actually be the effort they put in, rather than the grades they achieve.
It’s all relative right? If you would be euphoric if your teen actually sat down at their desk and tried, then that’s absolutely worth celebrating, regardless of the grade.
What else does your teen need to do before exam day?
One of my favourite exam techniques is preparing an exam strategy for exam day.
I suggest your teen’s exam strategy covers the following:
How long is the exam; how many pages is it likely to be and how many questions?
What type of questions are likely to come up? Short answer, multi-choice, essays? A mixture?
Should I start with the short answers or long answers? Which questions are going to be worth the most marks?
What will I do if I start to run out of time?
Should I answer the exam booklet front to back?
How much time will there be to write an essay plan before writing an essay?
What do I need to take with me to the exam? A calculator? A watch?
For more on preparing an exam strategy that maximises marks check out this article from earlier in the year.
Final tip of the day
And my final tip today is, don’t study right up to the last minute.
Encourage your teen to stop studying the night before the exam, or at least the morning if it’s an afternoon exam.
It’s generally too late to be studying right up to the last minute. It’s unlikely any information will sink in enough to be useful.
Your teen is better off having a good understanding of what they have studied, and maximing marks in those topics.
Remember, your teen doesn’t need to answer every question perfectly to get a decent grade. In fact, they probably don’t need to answer every question. If they get stuck on something, it’s better to move on and scoop up marks where they can.
I wonder if your teen has any other exam-prep or exam-day rituals? What have they found works for them? How are they going? Are they on track or drowning?
Would love to hear from you in the comments (paying subscribers), or email me clare@cramlab.org.
Thanks so much for reading.
Clare
P.S. For everything exams, I have a tonne of information for your teen both here on Substack and over at cramlab.org.
I have heaps of exam-related articles, like this one:
All of my exam-related articles are collated on this page.
And over at cramlab.org, there are free downloads for your teen, including templates to help with their exam study, as well as my free Learning Styles Quiz.
Whatever their issue, chances are I have written about it before. But as always you can get in touch with me at clare@cramlab.org. I’d love to hear from you.