Practising Exams
In order to achieve you personal best, it really helps to treat exams as events where you have to perform. This means you can rehearse and improve your performance as you come closer to the day. Many students spend most of their time revising but rarely practice performing in conditions close to the exam hall.
Simulate exam conditions
- Simulate exam conditions
- Memory and recall are two different processes
- The key to both intellectual and emotional preparation for exams is simulation
- The closer a simulation is to the actual event the more likely it is that preparation will be effective
- A simulation engages both intellectual and emotional responses
Adjust your environment
- Make part of your study space look like an exam hall
- Use photos, sketches, etc to bring the exam venue into your study space
- Mentally place yourself in the exam venue when your are rehearsing
Develop strategies for performance anxiety
- Visit the exam venue and get comfortable in it
- Know your potential examination anxiety
- How probable
- How serious
- Plan to minimise
- Simulate coping with exam anxiety at home
- Practice “time out” in place
- Maintain your physical and mental health
- Go into the exam rested
Rehearse performing at your personal best
- Practice deconstructing questions using a prepared format
- Practice writing answers using prepared answer formats
- Mark your own answers as critically as possible
- Practice – un-timed and timed