1. Examinations – Get Ready – Exams Are Coming!
Tamara O’Connor and Laurie Lumsden
Student Counselling Service
Trinity College Dublin
Last modified April 2004

2. Objectives
Establish personalised active examination preparation strategies
Build self confidence

3. Know Yourself What are your exam concerns?
Why do you have these concerns?
What do you do well?
What could you do better?
Have friends developed strategies that you can use?
How do you manage your stress?

4. Examinations As an Event
Sport
Skills development
Fitness training
Strength
Stamina
Performance rehearsal
Academic performance
Learning new material
Revision
Understanding
Memory
Performance rehearsal

5. Get Organised. The keys to your personal best is preparation and control
Focus on the subjects you are sitting
Remove distractions
Mental
Social
Physical
Make a study program and daily timetable. Include subjects, study objectives, exercise, meals, social activity and sleep

6. Learn from the past
Get detailed information about what your exam paper looks like
Practice answering exam questions
Identify and revise topics you do not know well

7. Organise an Active Revision Program
Know your learning styles
Make revision fun
Use revision strategies where you move around
Draw pictures, maps, cartoons, diagrams, etc
Put key points around your walls
Teach “someone” else and ask them key questions (answer the questions yourself)
Listen to tapes or view video/DVD versions of the material
Make exam preparation a social occasion

8. Staying Focused
Concentrate on preparing answers to anticipated questions
Only look up new information when you identify something you do not know
Put most of your effort into material you DO NOT know well
Stop work when your mind does and change the approach you are using

9. Develop a Structure for Your Answers
Understand what is being asked
Only answer the QUESTION
Do not include material that is irrelevant to the QUESTION
Understand the format in which your answers are required
Practice and practice answering previous exam questions using the required format

10. Building Self Confidence
Your objective is to do your personal best
Think of exams as an opportunity for you to show what you know
Get familiar with the examination space
Exam outcomes are proportionate to the effort you put in
Set learning targets and rewards for yourself
Compare what you know now with what you knew at the beginning of the year

11. Managing Stress
Read up on stress and time management on
Establish habits that support concentration and examination preparation
Go to Luce Hall and get involved in stress management physical activity

12. Summary: The Keys to Your Personal Best
Preparation
Organisation
Intelligence/information
Active revision
Stay focused
Structure and content
Control
Manage your emotional and physical responses
Think positively