Lucinda Becker - 14 Days to Exam Success

14 DAYS TO EXAM SUCCESS

POCKET STUDY SKILLS

Series Editor: Kate Williams, Oxford Brookes University, UK Illustrations by Sallie Godwin

For the time-pushed student, the Pocket Study Skills pack a lot of advice into a little book. Each guide focuses on a single crucial aspect of study giving you step-by-step guidance, handy tips and clear advice on how to approach the important areas which will continually be at the core of your studies.

Published

14 Days to Exam Success (2nd edn)

Analyzing a Case Study

Brilliant Writing Tips for Students

Completing Your PhD

Doing Research (2nd edn)

Getting Critical (2nd edn)

Managing Stress

Planning Your Dissertation (2nd edn)

Planning Your Essay (2nd edn)

Planning Your PhD

Posters and Presentations

Reading and Making Notes (2nd edn)

Referencing and Understanding Plagiarism (2nd edn)

Reflective Writing

Report Writing (2nd edn)

Science Study Skills

Studying with Dyslexia (2nd edn)

Success in Groupwork

Time Management

Wheres Your Argument?

Writing for University (2nd edn)

14 DAYS TO EXAM SUCCESS

SECOND EDITION

POCKET STUDY SKILLS

Lucinda Becker

Lucinda Becker, under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited, 2010, 201

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 610 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First edition 2010

Second edition 2018

First published 2010 by

PALGRAVE

Palgrave in the UK is an imprint of Springer Nature Limited,

registered in England, company number 785998, of 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW.

Palgrave is a registered trademark in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.

ISBN 9781352003710 paperback

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Contents

Getting started

What is the point of revision?

This might sound like a question with a ridiculously obvious answer: I am revising so that I will succeed in my exams. In fact, you will be doing much more than that as you work through this book, almost without knowing it. As you prepare for an exam using this guide, you will be making the very best use of your time by developing your skills, deepening your understanding, and learning to analyse a situation and express yourself (these last two are, of course, key to success in your future career).

By using this book, you have demonstrated that you are committed to achieving the best exam results you can in the time available to you. As you work through it, there are a few key principles to remember:

What you know is often less important than how effectively you use that knowledge.

By reworking and using material, as this guide suggests, you will be deepening your understanding, which means that you are not just remembering information, but learning as you revise.

Whenever you start to revise, there is always something you can do to improve your results and boost your learning.

However, knowing when to stop is also important your mind and body need rest.

Recognising your learning style, and the best revision techniques for you, will help you to develop as a student.

Understanding how different exams work is important knowing what is really being asked of you is crucial.

Smarter learning

You will notice that both learning and memorising are mentioned in this guide. As you are gearing up to exams, your primary focus, understandably, will be on memorising information and then using it in the most productive way in order to succeed. You will also, depending on the type of exam, be acquiring a set of skills that will help you in your future learning, as well as in the exam itself. On Day One we will be considering different sorts of exams and the skills you will need to succeed.

Making use of the information you have is the best way to recall it in an exam, but it is also a great way to learn. As you make plans, see patterns and reduce material to the essentials, you are making judgements that will not only be reinforcing the work you have already done on your course, but will also be helping you move forward. You will notice patterns you did not spot in the classroom or lecture hall, and you will see connections across courses and topics that could not have been clear to you earlier.

All of this will happen as we work through your revision together, but recognising this now, at the outset, will help you to maximise the long-term advantages to be gained from this experience. You do not have to see revision time as something separate that comes after your learning time. Instead, take a moment every now and then and think about what is happening to you there are smarter learning prompts to help you with this throughout the book.

In the fourteen days before your exams, you can make a huge difference. If you have longer than two weeks, you can take more time to complete each days task, but a fortnight will be enough time to marshal the facts and ideas and make use of them so that you improve your performance radically.

Take it steady: for each day there is a checklist of things to do, an extended section that covers a key aspect of exam preparation, and a page or so that offers you some extra help and support as you move forward. You will not need to produce a revision timetable this book does that for you but you will need to set aside time each day to work through the tasks set out here.

How to use this book

Success in exams is not just about what you know: it is also about how you use what you know. This book is designed to help you remember as much as you can, but also to use that knowledge in the most effective way.

Unplanned revision can be deathly dull, and that is not conducive to remembering what you need to recall in an exam. By following the plan for each day, you will keep your brain active and geared up to perform in the exams. By varying your tasks and actively using your knowledge, you will be in the best position possible as you move towards the exams.

You will notice that this guide relies on hard-copy work revision cards, hand-drawn plans and suchlike. This does not mean that you cannot produce some or all of this material in electronic form, but it comes with a warning: most of us recall information and patterns better if we can see them in our own handwriting, and the very act of writing something out is often a constructive part of the process of learning and memorising. However, if you know that you recall things more clearly on screen or in typewritten text, then use the method that works best for you.