The 5 biggest mistakes I made while studying

Usually I prefer to talk about what I did well when I was studying, but like all students my study process wasn't perfect either. But that’s what studying is all about — learning and improving, just like any other learnt skill. And the upside is that now I can share what I would do differently now with you and your teen!

Let's get to it. Here are the 5 biggest mistakes I made while studying:

1. Spent too much time writing notes

What? You can write too many notes?? Well in a way, yes. True — writing study notes is usually a big part of exam study, even the biggest part for a lot of students. However, there is a tendency — and I were absolutely guilty of this — to rely too heavily on writing study notes, treating it as the most important part of the exam study process.

Why was this a negative?

Because while making study notes is a great technique for improving understanding and memory retention, what it’s less helpful for is practising answering exam questions.

And let's remind ourselves — what is the exam going to require your teen to do? CORRECT — answer exam questions! Not recreate their study notes.

Too often I missed out on precious exam marks because I wasn’t fully equipped to answer the really tough questions that threw me, even though I had studied the underlying topic. Even if your teen is cramming I would still strongly recommend that they leave time to answer some practice exam questions before their real exams.

2. Not enough past exams

As I have said many times before past exams are a treasure trove for any student preparing for exams. They're as close to a crystal ball as you can get your hands on before an exam.

Past exams tell you what type of questions are likely to be asked, the range of difficulty of questions, the format of the exam, and how long the exam is likely to be.

And yet there's a tendency for students to overlook past exams. They often bury themselves in their study notes, trying to cram as much information into their brains as possible.

Again — to overlook the value of completing at least one past exam before the real exam is an error. Having a brain stuffed full of information can become counterproductive if you haven’t practiced applying that knowledge to exam questions.

I used to try and complete at least two past exams before an exam, but now I think I would have been better served doing more, or at least using them more while I was making my study notes so that I was preparing for the types of questions likely to be asked.

Another tip — even if your teen is really struggling with their exam study — encourage them to complete a past exam under exam conditions. This means setting a timer for the length of time the real exam will be, no headphones, pretending it’s the real thing. This dress rehearsal will be invaluable time spent.

3. Didn't consider the exam paper enough

The third thing I tended to overlook was the exam paper itself.

Once the exam study period started, off I went — study study study. But again, why was I doing all of this study? To sit an exam! Aha! That’s why I would have made life easier for myself if I had dedicated some study time to thinking about the exam I was doing all of this study for.

The questions shIould have asked myself: Roughly how long is the exam going to be? How many questions? Essay questions? Multi-choice? Short answer? A mixture?! How many marks is each question worth? 1 mark each? It depends on the difficulty? Will I have planning time in the exam before writing time?

I cannot overstate the benefits of thinking about these questions before the exam. In fact, way before the exam ideally because the answers will affect how your teen needs to prepare for their exam. For instance, a 100% multi-choice exam will be very different to an exam based entirely on essay questions. Knowing what awaits you is KEY to being well prepared and to making sure all of that hard work pays off.

4. Didn't plan exam time enough

It's impossible to rank these five mistakes in order of importance — they all affect the success of an exam hugely. But this one holds a special place because underestimating it, like we sometimes did, can result in exam catastrophes — like not finishing an exam.

So how can your teen plan their exam time?

Thankfully it's actually simple. For every exam your teen will know in advance how many questions the exam will contain (at least roughly, eg 100 multi-choice, or 3 essays), and how long they will have to complete the exam. Therefore, figuring out approximately how long they have to spend on each question is mostly a process of simple math — length of exam divided by the number of questions.

If the questions are weighted differently, with some questions worth more marks than others then this needs to factor into the amount of time your teen spends on each question. For instance if an essay is worth 50% of the exam grade, then half of the exam time should be spent on the essay, with the rest of the time divvied up among the other questions.

I was sometimes in a frenzied panic to finish my exams because I didn't plan my exam time enough in advance, and/or didn't STICK to my time allocations.

5. Didn't take time to process

As I’ve mentioned above I too fell into the trap of furiously ploughing through my books in a well-intentioned but flawed effort to understand and remember as much information as possible.

Looking back I wish that for the last 15 minutes or so of a study session I had stopped writing, stopped reading, and just sat and had a good ol' think.

This would have helped ‘file’ what I had just learnt into my memory, would have enhanced my understanding of what I had studied by thinking about it freely and in my own time, and it would have helped to realise what I DIDN'T actually understand well enough yet.

Top students get good grades because they understand their subjects really well. They have the ability to take the knowledge they have and apply it to answer difficult exam questions. You can only achieve this level of understanding by taking the time to consciously think about what you’re studying. Rote learning won't cut it.

Important lessons learned

These are five mistakes that, looking back, I can see would have had a measurable impact on my grades. True, they didn't impact enough to stop me getting good grades overall, but it would have been helpful for someone to have pointed out these oversights to me when I was at high school. I hope I can do that for your teen now!

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