Although it is strongly recommended not to study the day before an exam , some latecomers will find it difficult to do otherwise. To best optimize this accelerated study session, here are some tips you can use to limit the breakage.
1/ Have the summaries ready to use
Make sure you have collected all the summaries of your courses beforehand . There’s no point in starting to ask your friends to get their summaries the day before. It wastes a lot of time for you and for them too. So, make sure you have asked for them before, or at least have put your own.
2/ Choose your team
You have two possible choices for studying the day before an exam. Either you get up very early and you work all day and then go to bed relatively early so that the material registers better in the brain. Either you decide to sleep all night and go directly to the exam to have the information still fresh in your head. It all depends on your working method.
3/ Go straight to the point
Skip the intros , usually you won’t be asked about it. Intros are often used to explain the why and how of course content. That’s not going to save your ass on exam day. Although knowing what we are talking about is still better.
4/ Look for sample questions
On the student Facebook groups of your school or your class, there are often heroes who act in the shadows and who take the time to write nice documents in which are the exam questions of the last year . It can be useful for you to find out how the teacher usually questions his students.
5/ Try to read the entire course
If you have time, try to re -read the entire course at least once . At that point, you can already select what will take the most time, what will be the most complicated to learn or simply the most important parts. But thanks to this first reading, you will also be able to know what you already know and therefore save time for the future.
6/ Take notes
After your first reading, bind your course again and take notes. Identify key words/concepts. Give short summaries of the concepts discussed using your own words and your own examples. It will help you memorize better.
7/ Use the internet
Sometimes some concepts are more difficult than others to remember. Sometimes more complex, sometimes less well explained. That’s why you can always use Google to search for simpler or more precise explanations of some notions that you would find difficult to print.
8/ Know your working method
Studying your entire course in depth the day before an exam is almost impossible. Finally, it all depends on the size of your course. To be as effective as possible, it is important that you know your working method: visual, written, audio… Adapt your learning to your method. If you are more visual, then focus on reading your course rather than writing it. If on the contrary you are more audio, record the course on your phone and listen to it over and over again. Other tips also exist to study more easily.
9/ Read your course to the end
Recite the concepts in your shower, at breakfast, in transport, before entering the room… In short, at each stage before your exam. It’s not always easy, especially if you’ve had a sleepless night, but you have to be brave! Tell yourself you’ll take a nap when you get home.
10/ Pray for it to pass
Studying the day before an exam, either it passes or it breaks. It is to be hoped that the questions/topics you have studied the best will fall on the exam. For that, only one thing to do: pray.
And if even after all this, it didn’t work. No pPour anique, you just have to accept the bad grades. Just make sure to plan ahead next time. Study as early as possible and stay motivated! Avoid procrastinating too, it is the enemy of the student. To help you, you can take a look at the video below.