exam tips

Exam Tips

tips for the day of your exam to boost your exam performance.
61. What To Do If Your Teen Hates School More Than Anything
Im not a parent. I dont know what its like to have a teen who hates school. I cant imagine how frustrating that must be.
But, Ive tutored enough students to see how stressful and frustrating it is for parents.
I get how badly you want your teen to do their best at school. I understand how crucial it is for your teen to get the best start possible to their young adult life. Its excruciating to see a teen with truckloads of potential who doesnt give toss about school.
If this sounds like a fairly accurate description of your teen, then today Im here to try and offer you some help with getting them on the right track.
62. Where do you start
The very first thing to do is to put yourself under the microscope. Are you helping or inadvertently hindering your teens progress? If youre in the habit of nagging your teen to study and to do their homework, youve got to stop. Long term, nagging isnt going to get you or your teen anywhere. Your job is to be encouraging and supportive. You want your teen to know youre their friend, not their enemy.
63. Is your focus on the right thing
The next thing is to make sure that the focus of your encouragement is on your teens effort, and NOT their grades.
Of course grades are important, but if your teen is completely unmotivated about school, then weve got to get a few things sorted first before getting straight As becomes the goal.
If your teen hates school, encouraging them to get good grades is pointless. They may not even believe its even possible at this stage.
64. What IS important is the effort they put in
Making an effort is something your teen CAN do today, getting straight As probably isnt.
Getting your teen to do just half an hour of homework/study each day after school is realistic. Its something that they can complete successfully, and its something that you can reward your teen for doing.
65. What is your teen good at
Thinking about this may help your teen find something about school they can really enjoy.
If your teen hates reading and would rather do household chores than write an English essay, please dont force them to like it. Of course its important that they try their best in every subject, but sometimes youve got to call a spade a spade, and accept that your teen is never going to like every subject.
Whats far more likely to see your teen succeed down the track, is if you encourage them to pursue the subjects that they do enjoy. There are successful people in every industry. Your teen doesnt need to be a doctor or a lawyer to have a good career. If they have a subject that they like and enjoy, thats the thing they should really go for.
66. Projection thinking is the key
One of the biggest issues with getting teens to care about school, is that they often dont give a toss about the future. The part of their brain that deals with things like consequences and repercussions is not fully developed. Literally.
So the cruel irony is that the time your teen is at high school is one of the most important times for them to be thinking about the future, but many arent able to. This means its up to YOU to help your teen think about their future. Not many teens do this without encouragement.
A huge motivator for me at school was my parents pointing out how un fun it would be to spend my days working behind the check out counter at the supermarket because thats what would be waiting for me if I didnt do well at school. Whether thats what would have happened or not is up for debate, but the point is it was a great motivator. Maybe something like this would motivate your teen too?
If I had to some up this post with one word, it would be positivity. Thats what has the best chance of getting your teen to see the importance of putting in the effort at high school.
67. Ways To Maximize Your Output During An Exam
Good grades are won and lost in the way students approach the actual sitting of the exam.
Obviously its the hard work put in before exams that counts the most, but it would be a huge mistake for your teen to not appreciate how important having an in exam strategy is.
Today Im talking about the 3 most important things to do in an exam to ensure your teen gets the most out of their exam time.
68. Make the most of your reading time
Most exams allow for about 15 minutes of reading time before the exam actually starts. This time is not 15 minutes of leisure time, its 15 minutes that can make or break your teens exam results.
This time is invaluable. It allows your teen to read over the exam, get an idea of its length and format, and sometimes they might even be able to start jotting points down on scrap paper. The most important thing for your teen to do FIRST, is to skim read the whole exam. Dont let them underestimate how important this is.
Its crucial that your teen does this so they know how long the exam is before they start writing.
Some exams will allow your teen to write on scrap paper before writing time starts. If theyre only allowed to read, then just make sure they read as much of the exam as possible, and that they start to think about their answers.
69. Stick to your time schedule
Students who get good grades dont only know their stuff, they time manage their exams too. One of the biggest mistakes your teen can make is to spend more than the allocated time on one question and consequently run out of time on another. At the end of the day, what counts is the overall grade your teen gets for the subject. There arent any prizes for answering one question incredibly well when you fail to answer five other questions worth just as many marks. Your teen MUST plan their exam time, and stick to this schedule.
70. Take a moment and breathe
Being in an exam room is a high stress environment. All of the work your teen has put in leading up to it depends on the next few hours, and theres usually a huge time pressure.
This pressure cooker environment can play funny tricks on your mind. About an hour after my last exam a couple of weeks ago, I realised that I forgot to include something really, really obvious in an essay. It was a point that I knew really well. There was no reason for me to forget it in the exam.
The exam environment can also make you include irrelevant information. Getting good grades is about quality, not quantity, so its equally important that your teen doesnt waffle on about something thats not relevant. They should ask themselves before they launch into something,