How to Prepare for an Exam

Most of the students have the habit of preparing for an exam two or three days before the exam and some students start to study only one day before an exam. These kinds of students normally face pressure such as whether they will complete all the important topics or not. There is no need to feel any stress or problem before exam. You can be always confident before exam by just following tips:

1.       Start reading early: First, determine how long it takes you to complete all the topics that will be on exam. If it takes you to complete 1 week, you can start reading two weeks before exam so that you will be confident enough to give exam. Don’t just start reading one day before the exam. Give yourself more than enough time to complete all the topics.

2.       Get some good notes: If you don’t have sufficient notes for the exam, you can ask your friends who is good at study and make neat and clean notes to borrow a note or you can do a photocopy of your friend notes. If you don’t have good notes, you will just be stuck in the middle of your study and the stress will develop. So, before starting to study, make sure that you have sufficient and good notes.

3.       Read all the topics written on notes and important for exam: Having good notes is not only good if you are not going to study them all. You have to study all the topics of note and if you read the topics that you think important than the other topics might come in exam and that is the nature of exam. So, study the entire notes that you have prepared.  

4.       Ask your teachers about the test materials: Teachers don’t tell the exact questions that might come in exam but they can tell about the model of question, topics that need to be covered for exam, which topics will be necessary for exam or not, etc. So, it is best for you to ask teacher about the test and the topics needed to be study for exam.

5.       Re-read your notes: Yes, re-read your notes. Reading notes only one time might not help you. It is not sure that you will understand all the things just reading once. So, re-read until you understand the concept of topics what you are reading.

6.       Take notes while you study: While studying notes, take notes of some topics that you are feeling difficult to understand, important topics that you think will come in exam and some topics mentioned by the teacher. Before the exam, it will be time consuming to review important topics from your notes which include all the topics important as well as not important. Therefore, take notes while you study.

7.       Review your syllabus: Syllabus includes all the topics that should be studied before the exam and that might come in exam. Syllabus also provides students information what topics should be studied and what not. Teachers teach students on the basis of syllabus, so, it is very important for students to review syllabus before exam.

8.       Write down the major topics that you find important in syllabus: Study the topics once again in your notes and books that you find important in the syllabus.

9.       Review study guides and sections: Most of the books at the end of each chapter have summary on important topics and questions as well as answers on some books. So, don’t forget to study and review that section of books.

10.   Make flash cards: Make flash cards for the topics or information that you are having difficult to understand and remember. In addition, you can carry the flashcards wherever you want and review it whenever you like it.

11.   Quiz yourself: You can ask your brothers, sisters or friends to ask questions from your notes, books and flash cards relevant to exam. In this way, you get to know how much you understand the topics of your notes and books. If there is anything that you had forgot, you can re-read and memorize it.

12.   Practice questions: For subjects like math and statistics, the more you practice the more you understand and gain confidence for exam.

13.   Review past questions: Collect the past questions and you can study the topics that have come in the exam before. Even though the past question might not come in exam but it will give you an idea on what type of question will be asked in what format in the exam.

14.   Go to class the day before the exam: Teacher generally provide information such as topics that need to be study, format of question and the most important topics.

15.   Study with a friend: Form a study group with your friends and study together and discuss the topics that might appear in the exam. This will help you to further understand the topics that you have read.

16.   Quiz each other: In a study group you can ask each other potential questions to each other and you might find some topics that you have forgot to study.

17.   Have a sound sleep: Scientist believe that a sound sleep is also one of the major factors determining a better test scores. So have a sound sleep before the exam and don’t stay all night studying.