Exams 2021 Term 2 - how to prepare

Gershom Aitchison, host · [01:40]So if you have an exam or an assessment on a day, according to your timetable, you'll be reporting to your class at 7:30 to do a revision time, and that revision time will be active revision with your teacher. It's not going to be you sitting at home reading over or going through your work. I don't believe that's an active studying process. The whole point of that is to get your head focused in the game, any last little questions you may have, and then you'll take a break, come back to class, and start with the exam preparation and write in the exam or the assessment. So Mrs. Aitchison has put in 15 minutes of setup time, and that setup time is just to knock out some of the gremlins in the work, make sure the computers are all working, and more importantly, that you can show the teachers who are invigilating you that your workspace is clear of any notes or wall at home has not got all your study notes pinned up on it to assist you. Some of the assessment is going to be open book, but some of it is going to be closed book. So that's what the setup time is going to be used for. Then you're going to write your exam, and when you're finished, you'll be finished with the school day once you have uploaded the assessment or finished giving the teachers the assessment results that they're looking for. If you do not have an assessment scheduled for the day, that is an exam preparation day for you. It's a study day. You do not have to be in class, although I'm sure your teachers will be accessible to you if you need them by appointment. I think it's very important that you make sure your computer is turned on and working early in the morning. You know, Windows, typical thing of trying to update on a day when you have an exam, and it'll be 150 updates and two hours later. So make sure you set, you switched your computer on first thing in the morning, let it update, let it get working, check that the internet is working correctly and things like that too. It's very important to follow the teacher's instructions on how to submit the work on time and the work that you've done and the assessment work that you've done. It might be that they want you to take pictures of it or put it in your shared folder, I'm not sure. The teachers will give you that information. And then students with accommodations for scribes and readers, you will start your exam with your class while you're getting all the instructions, et cetera, and then you'll move over to your scribe or reader, and that'll be done separately and individually as well. So that's all the housekeeping for now.

Gershom Aitchison, host · [05:00]So in preparing for the assessment or exams that are coming up, I'm going to use the word recognize a lot in the next few points, and I'd like you to make some notes on this, because if you can recognize these points, I think you're going to be in a good place. So the first thing is recognize that the assessment and exam is an opportunity for you as a student to demonstrate your skills and knowledge and all the hard work that you've done since the beginning of the year, because you have put a lot of hard work in. The second thing is recognize that the effort you put in now into your study notes to your proof of preparation is going to help you at the end of the year so that you don't have to do a whole year's worth of summarizing and note-taking and things like that. The third thing is recognize that you are going to feel anxious and that you're going to feel stressed. It is appropriate. These are exams. They're assessments, and it tells me that they're important to you. Because they're important, you're going to feel stressed about it and anxious because you want to achieve well and you want to work well in these exams and assessment. The fourth thing is recognize when you are overstressed and you are overanxious, because that means that you're not well prepared and that you're not in control. And what you can do if you're feeling overstressed and anxious is to set your goals for your exams and assessments, set up a study timetable so that you can control of your time, exercise daily, sleep well, eat well and healthily, and ask for help from your peers or parents or teachers, depending on the help that you might need. The fifth thing is recognize that there are always going to be questions in the exam that you don't know the answer to. It's going to be one or two questions that you've never seen before and that you don't know. That is part of the process, and that's what cognitive three level application questions are all about. Recognize also that there are going to be a lot of questions that you do know the answers to, and those are the ones that you should do first, and bank your marks, and build your confidence, and feel comfortable with the exam. This is your opportunity to demonstrate your skills and knowledge.

Gershom Aitchison, host · [07:03]And then Mrs. Aitchison sent a very interesting article through, and it's a little bit different from the way that we normally approach things, in that it's about the ten bad habits of unsuccessful people, and it was in the Daily Maverick today. The author speaks about ten bad habits that he has recognized in people, and obviously there is the flip side of it, which we'll discuss too. So the first bad habit is people who are always distracted. In other words, people who are incapable of settling down and focusing for a period of time are an important task in getting the job done. The second one is people only talking the talk. In other words, they will tell everybody what they're planning on doing and what their goals are, but not actually setting down and actually doing the work. When you tell someone your goal and they acknowledge it, psychologists have found that it's called a social reality. The mind is kind of tricked into feeling that it's already done, and then because you felt that satisfaction, you're less motivated to do the actual hard work that is necessary. So when setting your goals and doing what you want to do, write them down because that's your contract with yourself, but keep them private and work towards them diligently. The third thing is spending time with the wrong people. In other words, people who are distracting you from what's important to you, people who may be negative, people who do not have your best interests at heart either, people who have their own agendas. The fourth thing is always focusing on the negative. There is a lot of things to be negative about all the time, and even more so now during COVID. But there are a lot of things to be really positive about too. I think the easiest way to make sure that we stay positive is when having a negative thought is just to recognize it and put it aside and try and find something positive to be appreciative of. Something that we can demonstrate or feel gratitude towards. The fifth thing is procrastinating. We all like to procrastinate. Find things to do instead of getting on with the real job. And I think, as we've discussed in study skills always, the only way to really get over procrastination is to get it done. And we set up a framework of getting the job done by creating our goals, setting up our study timetable, et cetera, et cetera, and demonstrating control.

Gershom Aitchison, host · [09:22]And number six, he says, not listening to other people. He says that being a good listener is an important part of you understanding people and feeling empathetic, but it also means that you need to learn to trust yourself. You don't have to listen to other people's advice, other people's negativity. Learn to trust your own ideas on where you want to go. The seventh thing is giving in to laziness. Often when we start out with something that's exciting and novel and new, we give it a lot of energy, and once the momentum gets going, we then lie back and don't get on with the work. So once you've got the job going, once you've got into what you need to do, especially after one or two good exams, keep the momentum going. Don't give in to your laziness after the initial success. The eighth thing he speaks about is not being curious. In other words, not enjoying what you're studying, not enjoying the opportunities of learning and what that actually brings to you. The ninth thing is not being a nice person. If you don't know what a nice person is, it's very likely that you're the jerk and not the other people. Being nice and kind to people is important, especially when we're feeling stressed and anxious, we often lash out. It also means that when you're kind to other people, you're more likely to be kind to yourself as well. And the last thing he says is people who give up. Everything is going to be tough. Often failure is in our paths. Being able to get up and persevere is very, very important in that process. So those are just a few hints. I'm going to go through them very quickly as a summary. Stay focused on the task. Keep your goals private, but write them down. Focus on the positive. Get it done. Trust yourself. Work hard. Be curious and enjoy your studying and learning. Be nice to the people around you and yourself, and have perseverance. Perseverance is very, very important. So that's my advice to all of you on how to prepare for assessment, how to look out for what's important, and what I'd like to say is enjoy this time. If you study well and you work hard, you're preparing yourself well for the end of the year, and there's a great feeling of gratification and a sense of doing a good job when you have walked out of those exams.