Exam strategy 101: Part 2 - Morning of the exam

We are knees deep into mid-year exams so it’s the perfect time for instalment two of our Exam Strategy 101 series. In this episode we look at game day...

Part 2 : Morning of the exam

When it comes to the day of an exam all your senses will be peaking. I mean, you probably slept for only 20 minutes last night, freaking out because you couldn’t remember the quadratic equation. However, if you stick it out and focus on a few rules, there’s a way around all this. A way that gets you primed in minutes to kill that exam and snatch your dream mark.

1. Eat nice and early

Have a good breakfast and have it early. The earlier you wake up the earlier you switch on. It takes a while to get to 100% performance and you don’t want to be that kid who’s still waking up half-way through their English creative.

You also don’t want to be stuffing your face minutes before you head in. Any weird feelings going on whilst you’re in there is going to throw you off your game. Nerves mixed with a lot of food isn’t a good combination. Have a light nibble, like a chocolate bar or bread roll, and take a nice clear water bottle with you into the exam. That’s it.

2. Stick to routine

Try to keep your morning routine as familiar as possible. You don’t want to introduce the chance of something going wrong or being different. You want to stay away from any ‘funk.’

Try not to:

• Wake up much earlier or later than normal, because you’ll feel weird.
• Eat things you normally wouldn't because you don’t know how it’ll affect you.
• Change how you get to school. If you catch the bus, don’t all of sudden drive and open up the risk of getting stuck in traffic or spending 30mins looking for parking.

The best strategy is to keep things the same. Reduce the number of new decisions you need to make and you’ll keep stress and unpredictability low.

3. Quick revision

If you’ve got the time, why not flick open a video, scan your notes, or even write out that practise essay you think you’ll freak out on. Think of it like warming up before the big race. You wouldn’t go for a massive run without stretching first and getting in the swing of things.

The trick is to only do light and very quick revision, nothing too stressful. You don’t want to be doing a full practise paper now, nor do you want to be chugging through mass amounts of content. You just want to chill. It’s like your brain is limbering up.

4. Accept your fate (this one’s a biggie)

Once you get to school, you’ll probably cop the usual kids that think they’re going to fail (but will actually get 99) telling you about how stressed they are. There’ll be the usual banter about how little study everyone did (when really everyone was memorising notes until three in the morning). And of course the people that love talking about the hardest/weirdest/most obscure questions that they think will come up.

“Did you hear they’re going to ask us to do a poem instead of an essay this year!”

Sure buddy. But you’re not going to have a bar of it.

Have confidence that you studied and prepared the best you could for this exam. Have confidence you did the right things. Accept that you can’t do anything more at this point and block out any banter or chat that might throw you off your game or make you question yourself.

That’s why you’ve got to accept your fate and remove yourself from the hustle and bustle of all the kids who are losing their sh*t.

The secret is: at this point, everybody is going to get roughly the mark they deserve.

Our strategy is to separate yourself from the masses, plug in your headphones and just try to relax before heading into war. In part three we’ll look at what to do once you enter the exam hall. Game time.