How to squeeze every drop of goodness out of semester study
The study technique to prepare for exams all year 'round
Hi there,
Your teen’s time during term / semester can be put to good use, or squandered.
Even if exams are months away, it’s never too early to start thinking about how what you’re learning about in class is going to be examined on.
To that end, today I want to give your teen a study technique that will help them make sure the study they do during term / semester time is focused on preparing for the types of questions that will come up in their exams and other forms of assessment.
This should be of particular use to teens who are putting in effort during the year but are frustrated by disappointing results.
Let’s get straight to it.
How this technique works
The crux of this study technique framing your study around the types of questions the exam (or other assessment) is going to ask.
The best way to explain is to use an example…
Let’s say your teen is studying for Biology, specifically, mitosis and meiosis (cell division for those who need a refresher!). Because these topics are so central to the subject, and have been a huge focus of class time, your teen knows these topics will absolutely come up in the exam.
The simple way of studying mitosis and meiosis would be to go through the steps of each process.
Doing this would be a good starting point, to make sure you were familiar with the two different processes. BUT — if I wanted to absolutely ace the inevitable question on cell division, while studying I would ask myself — what type of question on mitosis and meiosis am I going to be asked?
The reason for thinking about what the exam is going to ask is because exam questsions are designed to test your depth of understanding of a topic. The exam isn’t designed to trick your teen, but it’s also unlikely to simply ask “Tell us what the steps of mitosis are”.
Rather, a classic Biology exam question is, “Compare and contrast the cellular division processes of mitosis and meiosis”.
Compare and contrast.
If your teen had simply studied the steps of mitosis and meiosis, they would probably answer this question adequately, but to get top marks, they would also need a good understanding of the similarities and differences (“compare and contrast”) between the two processes.
If I was studying cell devision again I would set out two columns in my study notes, one for each process, and use one colour pen to list the similarities of the two processes and another colour to list the differences.
This is only a subtle change from simply studying the two processes separately, but by using this technique, your teen will have not only learnt about the two processes, they will have studied in a way that applies that knowledge and readies them for the types of exam questions that are going to come up.
This technique will help your teen to anticipate their assessment questions while they study, meaning they will have already thought about what the exam/assessment will test them on.
The impact on results
For all those students that actually do put in the study hours but don’t get the grades they were hoping for, making this relatively simple change to their study process should enhance their ability to convey to examiners that they really understand the ‘issue’ that’s embedded in the question.
To get those top grades, examiners are looking for that little bit extra — that in depth understanding — something that separates your teen’s answer from the rest of the pack.
Obviously your teen cannot predict the exact questions that are going to come up in assessments, but they should be able to make a fairly good guess at the types of questions that are likely to come up, like my mitosis/meiosis compare and contrast example.
There is no point in your teen spending hours studying something in such a way that’s not going to help them answer an assessment question.
After all, your teen is never going to get an exam question that says “Write down everything you studied about this topic”.
It is essential that your teen studies in a way that connects what they’re studying to the assessment, and this simple study technique can help your teen do exactly that, simply and easily.
Thanks so much for reading.
Clare
