Tips for scoring high in your exams

Exams are always stressful for students and they tend to put extra pressure even on the most prepared students.

Here are a number of tips that may help you out to ace any kind of exam:

What should you do a month before your exam?

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Making a revision timetable might be a good idea for many students. Organize yourself and divide your day accordingly, giving most of your time to studies. Get familiar with the most up to date syllabus and keep a track of what you have done so far according to it. Attempting past papers is the key to ace any kind of exam. Get familiar with the exam format/pattern in order to formulate your own strategy of attempting the exam. Usually, you have to focus on the type of questions, variation of difficulty and time management.

What should you do on exam day?

Have a firm belief in the fact that you are fully prepared to attempt any kind of question. Believing in yourself is very important: It helps to build up the required confidence and you will be taking the exam as an opportunity to prove your capabilities instead of taking it as a bunch of papers that are going to decide your future. Stay calm and relax your mind and body in the exam hall. It is very important that you enter the exam venue at least 30 minutes before the exam starts. It'll help you adjust yourself in the exam hall. You may need to change your chair in case it is a  faulty one, organize your pens on the table and ask the invigilator to bring you a glass of water to drink while you are attempting the exam. Apart from that you never know what's coming: you may get stuck in traffic or be forced to take the long route in case of any blockage or protest. So reaching early to the exam venue is always a good idea.

Make sure that you get a good night sleep and a healthy breakfast. It will help you to feel more charged up and retain what you have learned. Whether, it's a bowl of cereals, fried eggs with toast or some peanut butter toast it will help you stay more focused and energized. Make sure that you get at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep and don't interact with your cellphone before your exam.

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Adding to it, let me highlight the fact that is absolutely normal to feel anxious just before the exam. Many students tend to experience stomach aches, cramps and some may begin to consume more food while feeling nervous. Such experiences are totally normal and it happens with almost every student, so don't consider yourself as an exception. In order to overcome this follow what I told you in the last two paras.

What's exam strategy you talked about previously?

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Well, formulating an exam strategy before any exam is very crucial. It acts as a blueprint/map: helping you to determine what is the best-fit way to implement what you have grasped. In my opinion, it is a prerequisite for any exam day. In order to decide how you are going to attempt any kind of exam varies from person to person that's why there is no fixed format that you have to follow. It is "you" who have to decide the "HOW" factor. However, I would still tell you the key parts that you may need to focus on: consider the given time, the format of the exam, arrangement of questions(types of questions) and variation of their difficulty. Divide your time according to the given marks of each question. It would be a bad idea if you are spending 15 minutes on a 5 marks question and 5 minutes on a 15 mark question. Read each question at least twice before attempting it, in order to make sure that you deliver what is being asked. Skip the question if you find it difficult to attempt, learn to move on to the next question, instead of sitting like an idiot and wasting your time on that single question. Try to start with the shorter questions or MCQs first, they will act as a source of warm-up for your mind and give you a kick start. Starting your exam from a question which carries more marks is totally a bad idea, even if you know the answer.

What should you do after you are done with your exam?

Don't listen to what others have to say. Classmates have the habit of discussing the answers after the exam is over. Answers are likely to vary because each student has attempted the exam according to their own understanding and calibre. If you know, that you have delivered your best, then it is totally useless to stress about it, just because your answer was different from others. This will only result in creating more mental disturbance and your performance in the next exam is likely to get ruined, so focus on the upcoming exam and forget the previous one.

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                                                         BEST OF LUCK!