Passing Exams For Dummies

Patrick Sherratt

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780730304432
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Study Aids
• Subtopic: Study Guides

Release your potential and get better exam results

Do you panic at the thought of exams? Do you think you're just not the academic type? No matter how old you are, exams can be stressful—but they don't need to be. This essential guide provides expert tips on how to change your mindset, improve how you learn and revise, control your anxiety, and get good marks—whether you're studying at school, college, or university, or to advance your career.

In Passing Exams For Dummies, you'll get hands-on, expert help to find out what motivates you and how you learn best; make your brain more receptive to incoming information and cope with exam pressure and anxiety; improve your reading style and condense your notes using visual mapping techniques; learn association techniques using memory pegs; use visualization to mentally and physically rehearse passing your exams; and more.

• Fully updated to reflect new research in how the brain thinks, learns, and remembers
• Information on the key role that astrocytes play in learning and the five key principles for rapid learning (attention, sensory input, solid effort, emotion and time sequence) that get these astrocytes engaged more quickly
• Reworking of terminology used in the model of the mind to bring the book fully up to date and simplify the content

If you're preparing for a school, college, university, or career-related exam, Passing Exams For Dummies has you covered.

Part I

Releasing Your Potential to Pass Exams

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In this part . . .

Find out how your brain works and explore the mechanics of what happens in your brain when you are learning and studying for exams.

Discover key principles to get your brain switched on and working to improve how you review, retain, and recall information.

Explore your ideal learning states and styles to help make learning and study easier.

Get essential tips on how to keep motivated, manage your study time, and concentrate effectively.

Understand how your mind works and how to harness the power of an exam performance mindset to improve your preparation and ultimately your results.

Chapter 1

Passing Exams: Preparation Is Everything!

In This Chapter

Adjusting your exam performance mindset

Exploring the features and functions of your brain

Discovering how to learn more effectively and efficiently

Using thinking strategies to improve your exam preparation and performance

Taking a look at the four steps to effective preparation

Have you ever thought of taking a test as giving a performance? If you’re into music, sports, or drama then you already know the benefits of thinking this way: Preparing beforehand improves your abilities, so that when you get to the podium, the field, or the stage, you can give your best performance.

You can approach exams the same way. During an exam you sit at a desk for several hours, concentrating and writing as fast as you can. Your preparation beforehand determines how well you perform in the exam.

In this chapter, I help you gain an understanding of where you are right now with regard to your exam performance mindset. This understanding can help you develop strategies to enhance your thinking and use techniques that enable you to perform at your peak on exam day.

Developing Your Exam Performance Mindset

No matter what subjects you’re studying, whether you’re in high school, in college, at university, or facing vocational or entrance exams, to pass your exams you need to do these things:

Attend classes, pay attention, and make notes for later review.

Teachers only present information — they don’t put it in your head. That’s your task and, usually, you’re required to follow up with research or further reading.

Organize your class notes and plan your study time.

Become well acquainted with the subject matter. This involves improving your ability to study and to retain information — two different skill-sets. Right now, you may simply call it study, but to answer exam questions you need to know how to retain information and access it when you need it.

Demonstrate your knowledge by performing well on the exam. If you don’t perform well on the exam, your results won’t reflect how well you know the subject.

Obviously, accomplishing all this takes work, and developing an exam performance mindset gives you a good start and helps you

Maintain an attitude of excellence.

Know very clearly what you want and why you want to pass your exams (which is your goal, after all).

Identify and address how and why you may be holding yourself back.

With the right mindset, you can discover your capabilities, clarify your motives, and gain a better understanding of yourself. Learning and studying then become much easier — and fun!

Cultivating the right attitude

The famous Greek philosopher Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” What he meant is that the quality and quantity of your thinking determine how your life goes. If your predominant thoughts are affirming, positive, constructive, and generally optimistic, the quality of your decisions, actions, and ultimately what happens to you will be great as well.

Think about whether your thoughts drive you forward towards being the best you can or make you feel defeated before you’ve even started.

All meaningful and lasting change begins on the inside, then slowly becomes a reality. Change involves addressing your thinking processes. Becoming aware of what you’re telling yourself on the inside helps bring constructive, affirming, positive thoughts to the forefront of your mind. Through repetition, you can make them a habit. You can train your subconscious mind so that you naturally perform at your best no matter what you’re doing.

Setting your purpose

Sailing through life without purpose is like sailing the oceans without a destination. A rogue sailor’s life may interest some people, but a successful career requires direction. To do well in exams you need to know very clearly why you want to achieve good results (or, what you want to do next).

I didn’t do very well in my high school exams, mainly because I had no clear-set academic goals and therefore no real reason why I should pass. I didn’t know what I was going to do when I left school, so it didn’t matter to me how well I did.

The trick is deciding what you want, and then deciding why you want it. Take a moment to visualize achieving your exam goals, then explore all the benefits that follow. Clarifying your purpose in this way helps maintain your motivation when the going gets tough — and when exam time rolls round and you have more than one test to prepare for, the going will get tough!

Clearing roadblocks

Sometimes you may consciously choose a goal (for example, to pass an exam so that you’re qualified to do a job you’ve been offered), but for some reason, you unconsciously sabotage a good outcome. Perhaps you’re beset by self-defeating, critical thoughts that point out why you won’t do as well in the exam as you hope. Or you may procrastinate, putting your preparation off until the last minute, then discover you need more time. The small amount of reviewing you do is inefficient and leads to a poor result.

The way around problems like self-defeating thoughts is to identify and analyze all the reasons you may be trying to hinder your own progress. Listing what you perceive to be lacking in your knowledge or skills helps you pinpoint your negative attitudes and beliefs. This requires digging deep and being honest with yourself.

When you become aware of the ways you limit yourself, you can take steps to rectify your behavior so that you’re not working again...