Mayday! How to still do well in exams when your teen has left studying until the last minute

You told yourself this semester would be different. You told yourself, this semester I'm going to keep up with my school work and start studying for exams super early.

So relatable right? We all procrastinate. So many students start off the year with the best of intentions, but before they know it, exams are a few weeks away and there's SO MUCH to study in a short amount of time.

If this is your teen right now, no need to despair. They may not have given themselves enough time to prepare for their exams to the very best of their ability, but there's still time. They just need to use it wisely.

The sections below set out how I would tackle studying if I was short on time.

Focus on the key topics

This is something your teen should do whenever you're studying, but it's particularly important when they don't have as much time as they would like.

Your teen’s exams will of course contain some questions designed to be difficult, designed to make them think, some even designed to be answered well by only the top students. But the majority of questions that come up in an exam will likely be based on content your teen has covered well in class.

For example, an Algebra exam is going to include questions involving quadratic equations. A Cell Biology exam is going to include questions involving cell division processes (mitosis, meiosis). Whatever the subject, while your teen is studying they should be able to identify what topics are the key topics of that subject.

These key topics are the ones your teen should focus their efforts on, probably exclusively, when they don’t have enough time to study everything. When your teen is short on study time they don't have the luxury of studying peripheral topics and extraneous details. They need to focus on the topics that are going to pull in the most marks, and the bulk of marks in an exam come from demonstrating that you have a solid understanding of the key topics.

So before your teen starts a study session I would help them to make sure that they’re studying a key topic.

Attempt at least one past exam

Past exams, or practice exams, usually contain questions very similar to the questions that will come up in this year’s exams, so they are an incredibly important resource.

If your teen is studying under time pressure, it may be tempting to just try and cram in as much information into their brain as possible, and to feel like it's not a priority to attempt practice exams when they think they just need to keep on studying. But this is actually counterproductive.

Students who get good grades do well, at least in part, because they know how to APPLY what they have studied to questions. Applying the knowledge that you have to a question is actually a separate skill to just knowing information. You can know a lot of information, but if you haven't looked at any past exams or questions, your teen might be thrown by the way a question is framed, or not understand what a question wants them to say if they haven't tried to answer them before. Exam questions don’t just ask, hey tell us what you know about photosynthesis, they ask things like, Explain the process of photosynthesis including discussion of the cellular structures involved. They're designed to get you to respond to a particular proposition, or take a point of view, or adapt what you know to fit a particular situation.

The take home message here — encourage your teen to set aside time to try at least one past or practice exam to give them the opportunity to practice applying what they’re studying. The time they spend practising applying what they’ve been studying will help them prepare for their exam much more than just cramming in as much as they can.

Don't waste time on 'pretty stuff'

When you leave yourself plenty of time to prepare for exams you've got time up your sleeve to dedicate to study tasks that are helpful to your study, but not crucial.

If your teen hasn’t started studying in time and they’re under max time pressure, they do not have this luxury.

If your teen would normally like to colour code parts of their study notes, I suggest they keep the coloured pens to a minimum and focus on tasks that are really necessary to pass.

If they would ideally like to create beautiful neat flow charts — that might not be the best use of their time. If they would have liked to make a pretty study timetable — a quick hand-drawn list of the crucial topics they need to cover should probably take its place.

The reality is, when you're cramming, your study doesn't need to be pretty — it needs to be smart. I suggest your teen doesn’t waste their precious time on tasks that are 'nice-to-do' tasks. If they need to draw a diagram to help them understand something, then by all means they should do that. I’m just saying they probably don’t have time to make a Picasso of it.

The bottom line when you've got no time

As you can no doubt see the common thread among all of these points is that when your teen is short on time it’s even more important than normal to use their time wisely. This doesn't mean trying to cram for absolutely everything they could be asked about in the exam. It means they have to be even smarter about how they use their time. And finally — if they feel overwhelmed and like they’re never going to get through it, what they need to do is to make a plan by focusing on these points.

Best of luck and thanks for reading.

Clare

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