Cranendonck Coaching

Preparing for examinations can be a stressful time. If you start your preparation for the exams from day one in the course you will have a much easier time studying for exams. But what about those of us who wait until the last minute to study for exams? What is the best way for us to prepare when we have to cram?

The first step is to organize all the notes you have taken over the course and any other notes you can get a hold of. Also, if you can get ahold of some old exams that would be very helpful as well.

You might be able to find old exams, or at least examples of old questions by asking students who have taken the exam in the past. As a last resort you can always ask the teacher for examples of the types of questions that will likely be on the exam. Most teachers will try and be helpful and provide you with a few examples to study.

Since you only have a short amount of time to prepare for the exam you need to focus on major areas of the course where there is likely going to be the most questions asked. Avoid studying areas that were not talked about greatly in the lectures. Again, if you are having trouble deciding what areas to focus on, ask your teacher what are the major areas to focus on. They should at least give you a few pointers about where to study. You want to get the most points for your studying, and you get this by playing the odds of what are the most likely areas that will be on the exam.

Here it is a good idea to condense all the notes you have into key points, points that will likely appear to be on the exam or were heavily covered in lectures.

Spend most of your available time studying the condensed notes you have taken. The advantage of condensing your notes even further is you can read over them in a short amount of time, allowing you to go over them several times. Often times repetition is the best way to learn something. Also by having condensed notes you can quickly read through them one last time before entering the exam.

By focusing on the major areas of the exam and condensing your notes you can earn a lot of points for a short amount of studying. Cramming is not the best way to prepare for an exam, but sometimes you have to do it.