Video: 10 Simple, Practical, Effective Exam-Study Tips for High School Exams
Tried and tested by me over the course of a stupid number of exams.
Share this video with your teen so they can soak up 10 of my personal favourite exam-study techniques, and if you’d like to help and support your teen with the tips as well, all of the details are set out in the post below :)
1. Study in accordance with what the subject requires
Maths, Science, English, History — whatever subjects your teen is taking — they each require a different approach to studying.
For Maths, it all boils down to completing as many practice questions as it takes for each type of question becomes easy. Your teen doesn’t have time to sit and ponder how to do something in the exam; they need to recognise the type of problem and crack on with it.
For English and History and other essay-heavy subjects, practice essays are in order. Your teen needs to get comfortable writing essays that actually answer the essay questions and have structure.
The other thing your teen can practice for essay-based subjects is moulding what they know to answer different essay questions.
This was one of my favourite techniques at high school that I used for English and History. Of course you don’t know the exact essay questions you’ll be asked, but this technique allows you to mould what you know so that you can basically answer any essay question on the topics you’ve studied.
Science subjects generally require a mixture of exam-study techniques. Practice questions for the maths-like topics (e.g. balancing chemical equations, physics questions), and study notes for wrapping your head around the conceptual parts (e.g. what’s the difference between meiosis and mitosis?).
2. Speaking of study notes, what’s the deal? How do you make good notes?!
In spite of the fact that making study notes is usually the backbone of exam study, I don’t actually have many rules for how your teen should go about making them, because they need to make study notes in a way that works for THEM.
But how can you tell whether your study notes are working for you or not?
The purpose of study notes is to help you absorb, process, and retain information. So if your teen’s study notes are achieving that, then they’re working.
In saying that I have no rules, if your teen has so far only been making study notes and studying online, I still think there’s nothing more effective than writing study notes out manually, in your own words, in an exercise book with a pen.
There’s something about the tactile process of putting pen to paper that is so effective for helping students to absorb, process and retain everything they’re trying to stuff into their brain.
I don’t even care if your teen’s study space is messy; as long as it’s working for THEM.
3. Make an Exam Study Timetable for the rest of your exam study
It doesn’t matter whether exams are two months away or two days away, it’s never too late to take a moment to think about how you’re going to spend the rest of your study time.
Doing well in exams is, to an extent, a game, and getting good at games requires strategic thinking. Your teen needs to use their time wisely.
My main piece of advice for making an Exam Study Timetable is to be specific about it, and allocate specific time slots for studying specific topics.
This ensures that all of the important topics are covered off.
Extra-curricular activities and breaks should also be scheduled, as well as time to complete at least a couple of past exams.
Scheduling time in this way has the enormous benefit of being an absolute life saver for keeping stress levels down, because a timetable provides the comfort that you do actually have time to get through everything, you just need to stick to it.
What my Exam Study Timetable used to look like
4. For the love of all things sacred, don’t study everything
A targeted approach to exam study is what your teen should aim for.
Whatever that thing their teacher said once a couple of months ago, I don’t care about that.
What I do care about are all of the big meaty juicy topics they have been spending days if not weeks on in class throughout the year. Think photosynthesis, mitosis v meiosis, electrolysis, forces, algebraic equations, balancing chemical equations, the events leading up to WW1 etc.
These are the topics that are very likely to come up in their exams, and be worth the most marks.
Remember, exam study is all about strategy. This means your teen needs to spend the vast majority of their time engaged in high yield study. This means key topics, not peripheral topics.
5. Please please please look at some past exams
If I was to travel back in time to high school again (I’m good), one of the things I would change about my approach to study would be to do more past exams.
They are just the best. The next best thing after a crystal ball for telling your teen what the exam is likely to be like — what types of questions are likely to come up, how long the exam will probably be, how hard the questions might be.
Even if your teen is behind, IMHO they will be better off carving out time to attempt a couple of past exams in the week before an exam, rather than continuing to stuff information blindly into their brain.
This is because, not only do past exams provide a window to the future, they give teens an opportunity to practice APPLYING what they know to exam questions, which is actually a completely different skill to just knowing stuff.
I don’t want your teen to practice answering exam questions for the first time in the exam itself.
6. Don’t study all the time
Seriously, no one needs to do that. Even straight A students — if they even exist — don’t study all the time.
Your teen should keep going with dance practice, music practice, sports practice, and whatever else they usually have going on.
In fact, having a break from studying is actually productive. It frees up space in your brain to shove more information in! And, your teen will hopefully find that when they come back to tricky topics, they’re in a better position to give them another crack!
7. Get a study buddy
This isn’t the generic ‘study with a friend’ advice — this is a specific study technique, and one that I swear by for RECALL in the exam.
Once your teen thinks they have come to grips with a topic, I highly recommend they have a chat with a friend / classmate also taking that exam, and have a chat about those meaty juicy topics together.
This is incredibly helpful for two things:
Making you realise that you don’t actually understand something well enough yet. Best to find this out before the exam.
Creating a memory of the two of you discussing how something works that you can recall when you’re in the exam.
I used to do this with my study buddy at uni (now actually my husband, we met in BioSci101 lol), and I distinctly remember being in the exam the next day going omg I know this, we talked about it last night!
Now a couple of tips for when your teen is IN the actual exam…
8. Flick through the exam paper FIRST
I said above that exam study is about strategy. Well, so is the exam itself. Big time.
Your teen has a limited time, maybe 2-3 hours, to answer a tonne of questions, and answer them well.
That kind of time pressure requires a strategy to make sure your teen uses that precious time as wisely as possible.
To that end, it’s often a very good idea to flick through (or scroll through as the digital age may determine) the exam paper before answering any questions.
This strategy will prepare your teen for what’s ahead, and therefore allow them the opportunity to plan their time — how many questions are there? Where are the hard ones? Any unexpected contingencies to account for?
Your teen does not want to be that student who misses the last page of questions (there will be someone). And they don’t want to be surprised by a harder than expected question or surprise essay half way through.
This is a case of forewarned is forearmed.
9. Don’t necessarily answer the questions in the order they appear
That same time pressure in an exam means that your teen does not have time to dwell on hard questions for minutes on end.
Therefore, I strongly suggest that your teen starts to develop the habit in exams of answering the easier questions first and moving on if they get stuck on a hard question.
The achieves two things:
It makes sure your teen secures all of the easier marks. Worst case scenario in an exam is running out of time and not even getting to attempt questions that you would have answered easily.
It gives your teen’s brain time to ‘warm up’. Sitting an exam is like going for a run — you can feel sludgy at first, but once you push through the adrenaline kicks in and you get into a groove. In an exam, this is called the ‘exam zone’, and once your teen is in that zone they should find they can come back to the harder questions after they’ve answered the easier ones, and give them a good crack.
You can reassure your teen that they don’t need to answer every question in an exam to get a good mark. It is absolutely not the end of the world if they miss a few questions, or stuff up here and there. It’s the overall attempt that really counts.
10. Study in a way that works for YOU
I hate generic study advice, because it assumes that we should all study in the same way.
Well, we don’t! The study techniques that were my favourites might not necessarily work as well for your teen. And they might have tips that I haven’t even heard of, and that’s good!
What I want your teen to focus on in terms of big picture study goals is to figure out how to study in a way that works for THEM.
And that process — that method of studying for exams that is tried and tested to work for your teen — is what I call your Study System.
Developing their Study System will be a case of your teen figuring out what study techniques work for them, and which ones don’t seem to be effective.
It’s a process of trial and error that pays off big time, because once you figure out your Study System, you can repeat that process every time you have exams.
These are some of my favourite exam-study techniques, but there’s plenty more out there — what’s been working for your teen? What are they struggling with? What’s the study obstacle holding them back? Let’s talk it in the comments.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Clare x
