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Board exams: 10 tips to revise better
Try out these cool new strategies and make the most of your revision time ahead of the exam.
Exam time. Maybe there is enough study done, maybe not.
The idea is to max the performance, and revision has a potent impact on the performance we register.
Here are ten proven tips that will give you ample time to prepare and revise before your board exams.
1. Start from scratch
Doing everything, from scratch easily takes 10-15 days.
You don't have that much time before an exam, esp. if you have 4-6 exams over 2-3 weeks.
So the only way is to refer to condensed notes.
Take an A3 sheet or a big chart, and compile all key formulae, terms etc on it.
Scan this chart many times in your run up to the exam.
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2. Test your memory
Now that you've scanned your chart, why not make the whole chart again, from memory.
Writing, pressuring mind to come up with details, helps anchor all stuff deep and solid.
This may take 2-3 hours, but this exercise is extremely beneficial.
3. Speak
You know what, take any term or formula, and try speaking on that for a minute or even 30 seconds.
Do this speaking for 10 terms/ formulae -- what do you realise?
It exerts pressure, it makes you confront your depth of grasp on the issues.
In case any term is not clear, you can review it from your book.
Keep on trying this speaking on 10-15 items at a trot, many time in the day (waiting, watching TV, driving).
4. 100 items on your list
You shall discover that every exam has around 50-150 items that form the entire syllabi, so to say.
Your chart should have these 100 items listed.
You can go to Glossary of the subject to identify these 100 items.
You can go to index at back of a good book, to better identify this list of 100 items.
In fact this way, whichever word you aren't clear on, you can cross-reference the page of the book that item appears on and get it brushed up.
5. Sprint
This may sound crazy, but some guys out there have tried this.
Run 50 metres, return as fast, and then speak on 4-5 terms/ formulae someone throws at you.
No time to catch breath -- just rattle off as asked.
Maybe it is the unnaturalness of the setting or what, things begin to stay stuck in mind more easy.
6. Revisit the toughies
Over the period of preparation, always keep on recording the tough difficult questions you encounter.
Over revision, special time should be allocated to revising these.
This aces you up and allows facing the tough questions set on the exam you would sit through.
7. Warm-up
On the day of the exam, it is useful to try a 10-15 minute not seen before mock exam, some 2-3 hours prior to the commencement of the actual exam.
This is just to loosen the mental muscles.
Do not, repeat, do not evaluate your right or wrong on this warm-up.
Take it in a fun mode.
8. Try a novel
Distraction is probably the nicest way to get primed up for an exam.
Too much of exam based content makes life monotonous and brain cells tired.
It is always a good idea to pick a novel, a thriller preferably, 2-3 days before an exam, and looking at your mood, browse 2-5 pages at a time.
Never more. The idea is to keep the mind in a state of mild tease.
Enter the exam whence the novel had not been completed, you can always finish it over after the exam.
Magical things happen this way to your neural networks.
9. Form your own questions
This exercise is truly worth it, in case you are really focused on excelling on your exam.
It entails setting up your own version of a full exam paper.
You study the expected format/ pattern.
You choose most fitting questions from here and there, of course after adapting them with due changes.
You make your own creative questions.
In case you are short of time, making a small part of the full exam paper also helps immensely.
10. Exchange
You can swap the paper you set with a friend's and try each other's mock exams.
Great fun.
Maybe a few questions are wrongly designed, but that's ok.
After all you aren't a professional in exam framing.
Believe me, the happiness you get on cracking your friend's set is heavenly.
Naturally, you would be keyed up with all these initiatives, and surely score well on the exam you take.