Study skills
Study support
Note: Check the exam preparation workshops available on your campus
Like sport, exams require knowledge, skills, practice and a positive attitude. Having the right attitude towards your study is very important. Your goal is to perform at your peak on exam day.
Being well prepared boosts confidence. Preparing well means starting early in the semester, having clear goals and organising your time. All this will help you to develop a positive attitude and to perform at your best.
Part of having the right attitude also means coming to terms with the fear of not doing so well. Negative self-talk, such as, ‘My life will be ruined if I fail’ will not help you. Instead, try to imagine that you are in the exam situation and feeling confident and terrific. Success!
If you want more information about developing a positive attitude, and strategies for relaxing and controlling anxiety, have a look at the resource called Exam confidence.
To clarify your long-term goals ask yourself why you are doing this course and what you want to achieve. This then leads to more medium and short-term goals. For example, if you decide that you are doing a management course because you want to set up your own business (a long-term goal), your medium term goal might be successful completion of a particular unit or assessment task. Your short-term goal might be to summarise a topic in preparation for an exam.
More information on goal setting
Being organised and managing your time is crucial, and having a timetable is particularly important as exams approach. Although revision should start early in the semester, it’s never too late to start.
Use a semester planner to map out what tasks have to be completed in a semester. You need to be sure of the important dates when assignments are due and when your exams are to be held. You could also include major personal events in your life that will impact on your studies, such as weddings, holidays and so on.
Next, consider what your commitments might be in an average week. These would include work, sleep and family commitments. Don’t forget to allow for hobbies and recreational activities. Over the semester, you should allow an average of ten hours a week for each subject you are studying.
You need to consider what tasks are most appropriate for each of the times you have available. For example, reading a difficult text might best be done when you are mentally alert. Leave simpler tasks to study periods when you work less effectively. For each study session, ask yourself what you want to achieve.
Our resource Organising and time management skills discusses planning and structuring your time in more detail.
There are principles of effective learning that apply to revision. You need to commit information from your short-term memory to your long-term memory. In order to do this you must revisit your material many times. You also need to be actively engaged with your material in committing it to memory - just reading or highlighting material is too passive for effective recall.
We remember best the things that are meaningful for us. So, always place what you are studying within the overall context of the subject. Become familiar with the unit outline early in the semester. Try to develop an overview of the subject from your study guide and identify the patterns and structures in the subject.
Start with the aim and try to visualise your unit as a concept tree. See the topic of each week as a branch that breaks down further into questions and issues so you can see how sub-topics are interrelated. Some people find it easier to recall information if it is depicted in a visual way.
If you regularly review throughout the semester, by exam time much of the memory work will have been done. Clearly, getting information into your long-term memory will take time, so start early. Leaving all your revision to the end of the semester means that you will cram. Information will only go only into short-term memory and will be forgotten.
Psychologists have studied how people remember (and forget!) things; some of their findings can be of use to us. Research has shown that we can recall only about 20% of new information within 24 hours of learning it but this goes up to 60-80% if we review the information within 24 hours.
Download copies of old exam papers, if available for your unit, from the Deakin Library website, to get an idea of the types of questions usually asked. Finally, practise answering exam questions under realistic time constraints so you become familiar with how you’ll have to perform on the day.
Lecturers comment that when students do not do well in essay exams it is because they do not answer the question, and their answers are not well structured.
When answering essay questions you are usually expected to provide more than just the facts. You may also have to give an opinion, develop an idea, or discuss a position. You need to explain your ideas clearly and produce specific examples.
Before writing, make a quick plan, as you would for an assignment essay.
It is important to:
The chance of getting an answer correct by guessing is not very high. Your best strategy is to know your material well.
Here are some suggestions to help you raise your score.
These exams can be a trap because they can lull you into a false sense of security. You need to be thoroughly prepared. You don’t have time to read your textbook in the exam nor to find new information. Texts can be a handicap unless you know your way around them very well. Be very familiar with the texts and know where to find sections that you will need to refer to. Coloured post-it stickers are very useful for this purpose.
Have a good breakfast; exams do not have coffee breaks. Wear comfortable clothes. The weather is changeable and the exam room may not be heated or cooled. Check that you have several pens and everything else you are allowed to bring with you into the exam.
Re-read your summaries, but don’t try to cram new information. Leave home in plenty of time so that you will arrive early and avoid last minute panic. Expect to feel a little nervous; nobody is immune from exam anxiety. Some adrenalin can be useful if it can be channelled into a drive to get you through an event.
Plan the amount of time you will spend on each question. The time should be proportional to the allocated marks. For example, if a question is worth 30% of the marks, you should allocate 30% of your time.
Decide on the order in which you will answer questions, making sure that you don’t leave compulsory questions until the end. Answer easier questions first as these will boost your confidence and may even allow you to pick up some extra time that you can spend on more difficult questions.
Attempt every question. If you run out of time, make notes. Write simply and clearly.
Remember that it’s normal to feel some stress about exams, but if it gets out of hand, stress can interfere with effective study. The resource Preventing stress suggests techniques to manage stress and cope with anxiety.
Farrugia, D, Lee, R, Gilchrist, R, Kumar, M & Broadstock, H 2001, Essay writing: understanding the process, 2nd edn, Deakin University, Geelong, Vic.
Gilchrist, R Farrugia, D 1998, Exam preparation kit: a guide for distance education students, Deakin University, Geelong, Vic.
