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NCEA Exam Preparation - Student advice
NCEA Exam Prep Advice from Students
Eight Tips to Ace Your Exams by Academic Mentoring Sensei and Exam Ninja, Josh Peacocke
1. Quality, not quantity Regular study is key. ‘Quality not Quantity’ does not just apply for writing. Go back to your previous study session to improve your memory, or create good efficient flashcards.
2. Spread your study out Spread out your study over multiple days, this not only gives you breaks but also will let you remember what you studied better.
3. Remove distractions Your brain has a limited amount of concentration, so eliminate distractions rather than ‘I just won’t look at my phone’. Get out of your room or the house to make sure you spend the time studying.
4. Repetition is good Don’t be afraid to repeat practice tests you have already done. Going for them again will help you fix minor mistakes you typically would gloss over. Try to aim for a perfect score on these.
5. Have time-specific study times Have a fixed amount of time to study as a goal rather than an amount of study. 1-hour sessions are what I go with, whether this is for just one subject or small catch-ups for all.
6. Flash Cards Flashcards are an excellent way to memorise and understand key ideas, but make sure you are using them correctly. If you have a word on one side and definition on the other, flip the cards around sometimes. Services like ankiweb (https://apps.ankiweb. net/) are excellent at making and dealing flashcards for strong memorization.
7. Bed time ‘All nighters’ will make your exam experience worse, so rather than finishing one more practice test, get some water and sleep at a regular time.
8. Get help in your race against time Time is your enemy with study, so rather make conscious decisions about how you spend it. Tutorials are available for science and math, and Academic Coaching is available for working out problems with students. . . . . 1. Take advantage of morning tutorials/lunchtime tutoring. These are an easy way to fit in extra study and they take place in distraction-free environments with teachers around to answer questions, which is super helpful.
2. Be realistic about what you can achieve in a week. It’s easier to come up with a long to-do list or strict timetable than it is to stick to it, so I find setting a reasonable study goal important. This means that I might aim to do a practice exam and go through flashcards for a subject one day rather than setting out to study the subject for several hours. Doing this means that I don’t focus as much on all the tasks I haven’t completed which helps with motivation in the long run as well.
3. Try study methods that make you actively think. Sometimes I find myself rewriting notes for a subject neatly as “study”, but doing this doesn’t really help to learn content. I find going through flashcards and trying past exam papers to help with
understanding a topic much better.
Amy McAulay. Year 12
. . . .
1. Pay attention in class Just like every other person, I do not enjoy doing homework. I aim to minimise the amount of learning I have to do at home by doing it in class. I honestly believe that the best way to ensure you pass is simply to show up, pay attention, and do the activities given by your teacher. Avoiding work and talking to your friends in class means that you are wasting the most effective study time you have. Make good use of your teachers knowledge and ensure you ask questions to fill holes in your knowledge.
2. Academic Coaching Our school mentoring committee provides help for students of all year levels for a wide range of subjects during lunch times 2-3 times a week.
3. Schedule regular times The best way to actually get around to doing some study is to set aside time every week for your study. Make these times the same every week so that you get into the same weekly habits and you are more likely to remember. The amounts of time you set aside is also very important. Too little time and you will not get enough achieved, too much time and not only will you be less motivated to actually sit down and do the work, but you will completely drain yourself if you actually get around to sitting it out. Maybe set yourself an hour on Saturday morning and an hour on Sunday afternoon.
4. Drink water Once you have your schedule and the time has come to do some work, drink some water. The worst thing you can do is give yourself a headache because you are overusing your brain and you haven’t had a drink. Also, keep a water bottle nearby.
5. Eliminate distractions This seems obvious, but is the most crucial part to ensuring you are able to focus for an extended period of time. Place your phone in another room and forget that it exists.
6. Find the right material Personally I find that doing practise exam questions is by far the most effective way of studying. Also, make sure that no matter what material you have, mark everything you do. Go back and find out what went wrong and learn how to get the correct answer.
Harry Parkes, Year 12 . . . .
1. Set up an environment where you have resources within reach. This helps to keep the flow when studying. Getting up to dig your English book out of your school bag in the middle of your study session proves to be very disruptive, especially when you are already comfortable at your desk with a blanket strategically wrapped around you. Having a hot or cold drink also helps to give you short periods of time to enjoy a momentary sip, this will help to keep you sustained for the length of time you will be sitting stationary (also a few snacks are good!). Make sure to set a time that you will revise each subject but don’t expect yourself to be interested in your biology paper for three hours straight. Remember to take breaks!
2. Make use of NZQA resources! These are great because they give you student exemplars of how to pass the standard with options of achieved, merit and excellence answers. Structuring your practice exams off these helps to memorise what type of information the question wants in the answer. You can also refer to the marking schedule when completing practice questions to make sure these guidelines are met.
3. Write notes! Writing notes is an effective way of reinforcing what you have learnt over the topic. Writing down everything that is most relevant and using examples to then annotate and explain makes them easier to understand later. Also, colour coding these makes it much more interesting and helps with recognition of the information. These notes can then be condensed from say five pages down to one, which can then be reinforced by reading repeatedly.
From this, you could also make flash cards or post it notes to look at when you have short intervals of time spare. Doing this will visually reinforce your learning.
4. Place note cards around your house. Doing this will force you to read your notes while completing everyday tasks. Stick one on your toothbrush, your hairbrush, your cat, or anywhere that is guaranteed to be seen within your household.
5. Your classmates are also a good avenue for tips. Help each other out, what you may be struggling with they could be an expert at and vice versa. They may have a different take on an explanation that you could just click with!
6. As soon as you don’t know something, take a note and ask about it! There is no point in being confused about something when you have an awesome teacher to ask the question in class, or before class. Clarifying until you get it is important for understanding something in the correct way.
7. Print out a calendar and map out a plan of what subject to study and when. Make sure you don’t leave studying too close to exams or internals. Cramming the week before is stressful and you will simply run out of time!
Rachel Dunn, Year 12
1. It’s okay to be task focused. For me, an hourby-hour study timetable for exams just doesn’t work, it just makes me stressed about how much time I am spending on things and I hate leaving things incomplete. I prefer to create a todo list for this reason and it also makes me feel more productive when I can visually see the things that I have completed. I feel like all of my teachers were raving about how study timetables are the only way to go last year, but I quickly found out that it was not for me. I felt like I was studying ‘wrong’ for a lot of the year, however, I don’t think there really is a wrong way if you are still improving your knowledge.
2. Morning tutorials and academic coaching!!!! Mr McDermid’s math tutorials are awesome because they really force you to spend some time practicing the work (esp when you’d rather die than do calculus homework, like me). They are 3 days a week, all year round and so they’re a really great way to solidify knowledge throughout the year. The same with the science tutorials, though they are a little bit more intimidating and are only on around during mocks and exams. They are best if you come in with a question and so it forces you to learn where your gaps are. Academic coaching is also a great resource and less intimidating than asking help from teachers.
3. Don’t procrastinate internals. Much easier said than done, but in the long run is SO beneficial.
4. Drop the study guilt. It’s not uncool to study or to want to do well. There isn’t a perfect way to study - figure out what works for you and roll with it.
