What Makes a Student 'Smart' #6

For students in grades 9-11, exams are looming large, with two weekends to go for extra studying time. “Smart students,” as I have discussed in this blog series, are planners, organizers and they self-advocate for themselves with teachers. In that, every student can be a “smart student” – after all, the next two weeks are all about getting ready for exams in these ways.

It is time to plan carefully, know what is needed to understand weak areas, and rehearse material in chunks of time. A well-prepared student is not anxious in a self-defeating way, instead he or she uses anxiety as a motivation to study harder and relies on the following techniques:

1. Going to bed right after working on problems or rehearsing material allows your brain to keep working on the material once you are asleep. Our brain processes and stores the last information it receives in the day. Have you ever gone to sleep at night with a problem and woken up in the morning with the answer? That is your brain at work while you are asleep.

2. Pretest yourself thoroughly up until the day of the exam, but never pretest right before the exam because it will make you more nervous. Right before an exam, look at outlines and chapter diagrams only.

3. If you have formulas or definitions to memorize, write them on your exam before you even look at the first question. This makes the best use of short-term working memory.

4. Skim through the test and plan your time. Talk to yourself in an encouraging way like a best friend. Do not say to yourself “I’m going to fail,” rather say something encouraging like, ”I will take this one step at a time and stay calm.”

5. Read directions carefully! Be sure to answer every part of the question, and pay close attention to directive words: describe, discuss, explain, analyze, outline and summarize. If you have any concerns at all, you can always ask the teacher to clarify the question.

6. If an idea occurs to you while writing, jot it down on scratch paper so you don’t forget it.

7. Multiple-choice questions: read all the choices first. If you’re not sure which one, “back into” the answer by eliminating the one(s) you know are not good choices. Watch out for words like not, always, never, all, every, only, some and most in the question. Take these words literally, and don’t try to interpret them as some sort of trick. “True” choices usually have qualifiers like most, some and usually. “False” choices often include absolute terms like all, every, any and each. If you can’t decide on a choice, mark the question in the margin and move on! Do not waste time – it is better to be sure you have time to answer all the questions you know first, and then come back to the ones that take more thought. Also, sometimes you can find a hint or even an answer in another question!

The most heartfelt advice I can offer students for exams is not to leave studying to the last minute and, therefore, not get enough sleep. Memory and thought processing do not work well without sleep! Planning ahead and studying in chunks of time is the key to success. This is what “smart students” do.