Relaxing for exams I

How would you like to go into the next exam feeling more relaxed and ready to go?

Want to find out how to get to this idyllic state? We'll have a look at how that may happen. It will take a few articles to go through but any one of these will give you ideas and help.

The thing about the brain is that it can work well under all conditions. It performs better as the conditions become more familiar. It performs better if it is not stressed too highly. It should come with a well rested body. It also performs better the more easily it can retrieve and use its vast storehouse of information. Ohhh. That sounds like a lot of pre-conditions. Luckily you can set this all up with not much, if any, more total effort than you currently use in the lead up to exams. So let's get going. Working towards best results at high school.

Personally, I think the best thing is to be ready well ahead of time. One of the absolute must do exam preparations is to go over the information you have covered on a regular basis. This does not mean you spend hours and hours each week on a single subject and multiply that up to get a huge total number of hours for all your subjects. You can sneak small portions of spare time. It will probably, but not necessarily save you a few hours when exam cram comes by. Sneak. Surreptitious study. Oh that sounds so cool. So how to get so cool? You need only to go over the material you met very soon after you meet it. Tidy it up. Your notes, I mean. Fix up the pages and numbers on the pages. Put important information into the back of your notebook. Read through the tidy notes twice. First time to refresh what you did and organise the bits you did  not understand. Second read through, comfortably this time because you know it and know where it is in your notes.

This will help store it in the same way you got it. In a tidy manner, ready for easy retrieval. How much time do you need? Little. You could do the information for one subject in much less than a lunch hour break. This could be the tidy up part as it does not need to be an area of calm and, if you get interrupted, you can get back onto it. You will get used to the timing you need very quickly. You do need to do the second run through quickly. Most lessons should only take a few minutes to review. Add some homework to this and you will be surprised how quickly you can get on top of your learning, ready for improvement in your grades and more success at school. Find time between classes, on the bus, at home, before you go out, in class down time such as when the teacher is absent. You get the idea. You will soon find your own ways to sneak time and increase your chance of success at school.

Go over each subject often in small doses, rather than wait until just before exams when stress and other demands on your brain and body start to snowball, and finding you need to do massive hours. You should be better prepared if you do small sections at a time over a long period rather that try to get it all done in one block. Your brain will be a bit scrambled from so many and so untidy pieces of work. Retrieval will be difficult in such unordered material.

OK, so you now have some repetitive structure happening to your learning. This will help you learn the information so it can be retained for longer and retrieved more easily. Make sure to go over all the work covered to date that will go on exams another two or three times. Constant brushing through each subject will truly enhance your learning as will some of the other ideas you can see in other posts to follow.