I AM running a series of articles on how to score high in exams. This is just my first offering, so watch out for more in the coming days.
You would know that it’s examination time when you see students photocopying notes or cramming to absorb one-quarter-of-a-school-year’s worth of lessons in ten subjects within just one night. Admit it, you must be one of them, too. Don’t worry, I also did that when I was a student, but I have realized early on that cramming just doesn’t work.
Granting that you failed to review your lessons ahead of time and you only have a few hours to attempt to re-learn the concepts that you must have forgotten, here’s one strategy you can do to maximize your time — without getting too exhausted.
(10+2)*5
No, that is not another algebraic expression you need to solve. But if you insist, that expression would give you 60. You know that an hour has 60 minutes in it and this strategy will help you make good use of your 60 minutes.
All you need to do is this:
- Divide your tasks into smaller parcels — You need to take things one by one. Stop thinking about the rest while you are doing one thing. That will help you get the right focus. Choose which task you want to start with. Don’t start with the most difficult as most people would suggest. Don’t start with the easiest either — save it for last.
- Get a stopwatch and do the (10+2)*5. You need a stopwatch and you need to follow the time schedule. You might be uncomfortable with it at first, but you’ll get used to it. Okay, do your first task for ten (10) minutes then take a two-minute break. Make sure you don’t skip your break. After the break, get back to work for another ten minutes and then take a break. If you do this five times, you wouldn’t notice that an hour has passed — a very productive hour, for that matter.
- Make it a habit. You can actually do the same in doing other tasks. Don’t spend too much time on Facebook. Just two minutes every after 10 minutes. You still wouldn’t be left behind. You can also eat some food during your break time. If you know the right food to eat, it will even help you effectively study your lessons.
You might want to try it out then share your experience by commenting on this post afterwards. I hope this would be of help to you. Good luck!
Ariel Lalisan
Ariel Lalisan is a physics teacher at Alabel National Science High School. He is an advocate of constructivism approach in education. He employs active learning and independent learning in his lessons, and, of course, a lot of technology integration. His goal is to produce students who can solve problems on their own using the concepts they learn in the classroom. Ariel Lalisan is a Google Certified Innovator (Google Teachers Academy Southeast Asia 2014) and a community leader at Google Educator Group Sarangani. He is a co-founder of SoCCSKSarGen and he won the Globe Media Excellence Blogger of the Year Award in 2015.
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