What we regret after exams

EXAMS ARE FINALLY OVER

As of 30th May 2013 my exams were officially over. This was a day which I had been waiting for impatiently for about a month. Now I have around three weeks to estimate what results I should be getting and how that will affect my overall mark for the year. Most importantly, have I passed my first year, or have I not?

For all of you who have passed their exams, congratulations, you are now free to have lie-ins and watch television to your heart's content without feeling stressed or guilty for doing so. However, looking back on how the exam period went, were there certain things that you could have done better? This blog will tell you about the regrets of the way some of us prepare for exams, how to avoid this, and what life could be like if we lived a little more productively. Hopefully this can be applied to any exam you take in the future.

"My exams are months away, I have plenty of time!" *Ten weeks later* "... oops."

When beginning a module or a course, it seems that the exams are far away and that there is plenty of time to revise and prepare for them. However, for most people, including myself this year, I found myself with a few weeks left until exams without previously doing any revision or preparation whatsoever.

As a pretty organised person, I feel as though I didn't have this problem due to laziness or an inability to care about my results. Here I have written a few reasons why this problem can happen and what we can try to do to prevent it;

1. Lecturers/teachers not talking about exams specifically until most/all of the information for the exam is taught. Personally this makes me forget that I should be focusing on remembering and understanding the information in class and lectures rather than just sitting there and trying to stay awake.
2. Seminars normally require extra work and extra reading which can often be time consuming. Even if you have devised a timetable for revision from the very beginning, it's easy to find yourself using this revision time solely for doing seminar work. This can also apply to standard school lessons, as there is time you've planned to revise in but instead you are spending this time doing homework.
3. Essays or coursework are sometimes just as, if not more important than the exams you are taking, therefore it is common to disregard all revision until this essays are completed. Essays can be seen as revision as research into key topics is often essential, however this usually means that the topics which the essay is based on will not appear in the exam paper.
4. Free time/ work balance is a difficult balance to make. Before revision breaks, our days usually consist of a day in school, work, or at lectures, then coming back home tired and in no mood to do extra work. The problem with this is that we often spend several hours relaxing after coming home which leaves little time to revise, and just enough time to do seminar work.

Top tips to conquer these problems-

1. To avoid forgetting about the importance of starting revision sooner rather than later, constantly remind yourself of the details of the examinations. A way to do this is to find out your exam dates as soon as possible and write them in all calendars and diaries and somewhere where you will see it every day. When writing lecture or class notes, make sure they're understandable for when you revise, otherwise your just wasting good ink!
2. When creating a revision timetable for yourself try to separate seminar work/ homework hours with revision hours. This way your revision time will not be taken up by this and you can start revising earlier.
3. Similar to above, when you have been set an essay try to devote certain time periods for essays as well as separate time periods for revision and seminar work. You may need to rearrange your timetable for this and then change it back once the essay is completed and submitted.

2. "I simply do not want to revise."

Hardly anyone adores revision, so when the time comes to revise, we simply want to do anything but. After exams this can leave people feeling that if they revised better and more often, they would have been able to answer the exam questions to a higher standard. In my previous blog I have addressed certain ways to motivate yourself to revise, but below is a further summarised list of ways this can be achieved.

1. Make a varied timetable with lots of breaks to make the prospect of revision more inviting
2. Write a list of reasons why you have to revise, and what you can achieve by getting brilliant results, and put it somewhere you often stare blankly when revising, this should encourage you to carry on. For example, this list would do well stuck on my bedroom window! (as shown on the right)
3. Use your free time well, by making sure you have something fun and interesting to do when you're taking revision breaks. By doing this you have something to look forward to, and the more you revise, the more you will feel you deserve the break you've planned for yourself.

Lots of lovely benefits

If you're reading this at the beginning of the new term and the idea of preparing for exams now still seems like a ridiculous idea, then read below to see what life could be like around the exam period after following my ideas.

• Forget cramming before an exam, you will know everything there is to know by this time.
• "Stress? What stress? I've been preparing for these exams for months, piece of cake."
• "Yes I can go out tonight, I have exams in a couple of weeks but I'm already confident I can pass!"
• There would be less time spent revising during the day, as it is spread out throughout the term. The only downside to this is that others may not have done the same, and you'll be free when everyone else is busy!
• "Great exam results, well done you, you must be a bloody genius."

YOU MASSIVE HYPOCRITE

As you may remember at the start of this I mentioned how I did not follow this advice and ended up with a busy revision schedule in the last few weeks leading up to exams. HOWEVER I plan to follow all this advice at the beginning of my second year at university and I plan to keep you up to date with how I'm doing. This means that unlike the last few weeks, I will actually have time to actually write blogs every Sunday, not just when I am exam free!

Good Luck in your exams!
Goodbye for now!