Exam Survival Tips

Being a former student myself, I have had a lot of trouble with exams growing up. This was either because of my  exam anxiety, poor preparation or just an overall case of stress. For all the students out there exams are now just around the corner, I have decided to make a list of survival tips that I have found quite helpful during my years as a student. Here goes :)

1.  Get some sleep

Everyone at some point or another has pulled an allnighter to cram for an exam, however believe it or not  this method simply does not work as effectively as most people think especially when it is the night before the exam.  Most health practitioners would recommend at least 8 hours of sleep in order to have a fully functional brain, I must admit that is not entirely true as different people will require different amounts of sleep depending on your dietary habits, exercise routine etc. However my personal recommendation is you will need at the very least 6 hours of sleep to function properly during an exam, 7 hours is more preferable. Pulling an allnighter for coursework is one thing, however an exam is a completely different ball game. If you are required to cram in a huge amount of material before the exam, I recommend you pull an all nighter a couple of nights before the exam.

This is so your body can have some time to recover before the exam and also in order for all your information to be imbedded in your short-term memory. 

2. Cramming

Although I should be technically here to advise against cramming, but because I have been there myself a few times, I know that most of us out there cannot really plan ahead for an exam as well we all happen to have more important things to do with our lives (NOT STUDYING). I am therefore here to advise you to cram accurately. So let's say you have to study 5 subjects for the exam and well you take a look at the exam papers and notice that some subjects seem to appear most often in the past few years. These are the subjects that you will spend most of your time on, as they are most likely to appear in the exam and by studying them I mean perfect them. Try your absolute best to be 100% confident in these subjects and just ignore the other ones, as all they will do is divide your time and it is better to be great at some subjects than be average at all of them.

3. Do not revise on the day of the EXAM!

"Most students 15 minutes before an exam"

This reminds me of my mathematics exam a couple of years ago, I remember meeting up with my buddy on the day of the exam to get some coffee and do our last minute preparations. I remember going into the classroom and seeing him surrounded by about 5 different books on  mathematics and looking absolutely wrecked. Like the guy in the image above, I was on the other hand very relaxed and I honestly did not give  a sh**t.

"Me on the day of the exam"

Now I am not saying that you should not care about your exams or that I am a flawless student however I always believed that on the day of the exam, you should just kick-back and relax. In fact wake up and listen to like your favourite laid back tunes and dress up really well, it does wonders for your mental state. Remember that you cannot really do much on the day of the exam, as any added information of the day will prove to be useless simply because it will create an interference with all that you have learned previously. So really all you are doing here is just shooting yourself in the foot. Instead ensure that you have done all your studying previously and even if there are topics that you have yet to cover just neglect them as it is simply too late now.

4. Relax, this is not the Hunger Games

I struggled really badly with this myself, as I always put myself under incredible stress for my exams and I only realised later in life how pointless that might have been. The truth of the matter is, an exam can only count that much and it does not define your destiny. Name the five most successful individuals in the world, most did not even have a university education or they were dropouts. Now I am not saying that you should just call it quits....

However do the best you can do and just always remember that one exam does not define who you are, and that goes for people with jobs too as only you can define who you are.

5. Study the easier subjects

This may not be applicable to everyone however it is usually the case when you have a number of exams and your result is then the average out of all of them. If your mathematics grade is dependent on a calculus and a statistics exam, make sure that you become absolutely amazing in statistics. This is simply the law of averages. It is a lot more impressive to come out with a good average and fail that complex numbers question, or get a much worse grade as you simply did poorly on the easier topics. Remember always to pick your questions smartly, it doesn't make you stupid if you picked the easier question to solve.


To conclude this post, I hope that these points can help you with your exam studies as I wish someone advised me during when I had my exams. So good luck and remember that whether you pass or fail, you are still freaking awesome.  Have a great day people and peace out.

"Don't be like this guy :)"