tips to succeed in exams

Read the course overview to understand what the course will cover and how it will be scored. Identify your goal in concrete terms and put it in writing to strengthen your resolve.

Time management skills can help you take control of your study workload, achieve more, and stress out less. There are many ways to make time work with you, instead of against you. Purchase an academic diary or study planner. Buy one which provides a week at a glance or a month at a glance view, so you can get a holistic view of the time you have available. Find out assignment due dates and quiz/test/exam dates and mark them in your study planner in advance. This way youll be able to avoid social commitments during pre exam periods. Minimize distractions and keep your priorities straight. Focus on your goal of getting the highest marks possible. Schedule social activities around your study schedule and not vice versa! Remember this is not only an academic challenge, its your job in life right now. Make it a successful and enjoyable year.

Take a learning style assessment test and find out if you are a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner. This self knowledge can help you make more effective use of your time. Remember, your learning style may be quite different from that of family members and friends. Adapting your study method to suit your own natural style will enable you to produce powerful results in less time.

For each course, figure out how much time you will need to spend outside of class, in order to keep up and in order to do well. Plan a study schedule that allows you to stay in control of the academic workload.

Particularly in college or university, staying up to date in terms of your reading is critical to your success. When you attend a lecture without having completed the required reading, you lose a valuable opportunity to add to your understanding.

A variety of note taking styles can help you record key information and see the bigger picture in terms of subject matter. Good note taking strategies can help you make the most of the time spent reading from textbooks and attending classes.

Be an active learner. Attend lectures regularly and participate whenever possible. The interaction will help you to remember more than if you sit passively in class, dreaming of other things.

Mind maps are graphic organizers, developed by Tony Buzan, which can help you summarize vital information from lectures and textbooks. Each topic can be condensed onto a page; each chapter can be encapsulated onto a larger map. Eventually, you can develop a mind map to review the key sections of each course and get a broad view of how each topic relates to the others. Then, to review before an exam, see if you can reconstruct the map. In this way, you can test yourself to see if you can recall key terms, factors, reasons and examples.

Create a 24 hour learning environment by putting up review charts and points where you can see them daily on mirrors, doors, fridge, bathroom, television, or bedside table. If possible, purchase a white board and dry erase markers, so you can test your recall by reproducing the mind maps. Use bright colored markers, include images to trigger your memory and most of all, have fun.

Its in your interest! One hour of concentrated study is worth several hours of distracted study. If you learn how to work with concentration, you will achieve more than 95% of the population. This critical skill enables you to do more in less time and is one of the distinguishing features of super achievers around the world.