Category Archives: Exam tips

Short and sweet guidance

Appy Christmas – Apps for learning

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appsIt’s always interesting writing a Blog in the holidays, maybe it’s because you have more time than normal so think you should come up with something different, dare I say original. The reality is that when you have such a large canvas on which to think, you can’t think of anything!
The answer is to narrow it down, give yourself something specific to think about. So whilst staring at my ipad for inspiration, I stopped thinking about “everything”, focused on what was on my ipad and then it happened, an idea… ..Why not write about the apps I use most and how you might use them to improve your studying, so here goes.

It’s not about the technology stupid
First a disclaimer, although technology can be all absorbing, learning is a human quality, technology in many circumstances only makes learning more convenient, you still have to work at it. What it does do is provide you with the ability to study when you want and where you want. Time that would be wasted waiting for or actually on a train/bus etc can be much more effectively used learning. How good would it be if you had finished studying before you got home?

Google CalendarGoogle calendar – Helps plan your studies
I have written before about the importance of timetables and calendars. Sitting down and planning what you will study and when not only helps you become more organised it is essential for setting targets and challenges. And remember target setting is key to motivation.

Evernote Evernote – Organise and store notes
I am finding that I am using Evernote more and more. It is in effect a cloud based folder system. Consider setting up a folder for each subject you are studying. Then within each subject folder you can type notes, attach PDF’s, photos, maybe of places/objects/people relevant to that subject. You can even attach video. And if you want to collaborate with others just share the link. Maybe have a folder for revision with the questions you want to attempt linked via PDF, comment on what you found difficult and share with your friends. Evernote has so many uses.

PenultimatePenultimate – for making hand written notes and drawing mind maps
If you prefer to write rather than type, penultimate is for you, although I don’t think there is an android version at the moment. It is part of the Evernote family and links with Evernote so is easy to use. It is just like a paper based note book with a front cover showing the subject, page numbers and has a nice page turning feel. Unlike a paper based note book however, you can change the paper, plain/lined etc, save your work, add photos, and share with others. It also has a very clever way of making sure your hand when resting on the screen does not interfere with what you are writing.

Put simply it’s the best handwriting software I have come across, and comes close to replacing paper, close but not just yet….

DropboxDropbox – for file storage, back up and file sharing
Many of you will already be familiar with dropbox, it is free simple to use cloud based storage. Dropbox is great for saving/backing up all your files. This means that as long as you can get electronic versions of your text books and question banks you will be able to have them with you anywhere…

And you can share folders with friends.

Adobe ReaderAdobe reader – keep all PDF notes in one place and you can write on them!
This is just for Adobe PDF’s but as most documents can be turned into a PDF format that should not be a problem. Imagine having your notes in a PDF file, opening them up wherever you are and then updating them either by typing or writing on top of the PDF. You can also make margin notes that open up in a speech bubble, little reminders of what you were thinking, or additional work you need to look at.

Explain-EverythingExplain everything – become a teacher and teach yourself
Explain everything is a white board that you can add in pictures, shapes etc, and then the really clever part, record what you are doing in a high quality video. What makes this so good is how easy it is to use.

This would be ideal for working through a question, talking out loud explaining your thoughts (Explain everything will record your voice and your white board actions) and then when you get to the part that is difficult or simply don’t understand, ask your question out loud….? Then send the Mp4 file to your tutor/teacher or study colleagues for an answer. Unfortunately as with Penultimate I don t think there is an android version just yet.

twitterTwitter – limitless knowledge and support
Twitter can get a bad press when it comes to studying, it can be very distracting! But if used properly it can be great. The key is to follow people that have answers to your problems or are like you. If you are studying accountancy for example you will find lots of tweets from experts providing you with up to date news and information often linking to more in depth guidance, websites/PDF’s etc. Twitter is the most up to date text book you can get.

Okay a word of warning; just make sure you are not too far ahead of you teachers and the exam. Also that the people you are following are credible.
The other use is to follow fellow students who are studying the same subjects as you, it can be very reassuring that you are not the only ones who doesn’t understand something.

The big secret to twitter is is very selective who you follow, delete people that are not helping and keep the list down to about 200.

Mobile
Most of these are accessible on all mobile devises and for me that is the real benefit of the technology.

Happy 2013 and more apps
Hope you are all having a good Xmas and here’s to 2013, what will be new this time next year I wonder?

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Seped rdeiang – speed verses comprehension

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Woody Allen on speed reading

I was asked recently by a student if there was anything they could do to speed up the way that they read. As a student there are many situations where it would be great if you could read more quickly.

Time for revision – Revision timetables

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As the month of March slips effortlessly away it is time for some of you to be thinking about revision, my daughter is, or should I say should be. For others the very word revision will help focus your attention and remind you that it is not too far away for you either. If only we had more time….or perhaps could better manage the time we have.

David Allen is a productivity consultant (great job title) and bestselling author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. He suggests that “‘Time management’ is a foolish idea,” “You don’t manage time. Have you ever mismanaged five minutes and come up with six? Or four-and-a-half? Time just is. Our actions are what we manage, during time.”

And if you think about it he‘s right, the amount of time you have is a matter of fact. So we just need to prioritise the tasks in that time dependant on what we want to achieve. To better organise your time it is a very good idea to have a study/revision timetable.

When to start

It is difficult to be prescriptive about when to start revision as it depends on many things: the length of the course, the level of complexity of the subject, the time you have before the exam and how many exams you are doing at any one time. But we do need a rough idea, so I am going to assume that revision has to start somewhere between two and six weeks before the exam. For some people, starting 2 weeks before the exam may sound early, but if you are studying more than one subject and or are working full time, when you actually break down the amount of hours you are revising, anything less than 2 weeks will be insufficient for an effective revision program. 

Revision timetable

There are many different ways in which you can draw up your timetable and I have included several examples below for you to print off and or download. One thing I would say is that the very process of creating your own time table will help you begin thinking about what it is you have to do, how long it will take etc. In fact you could say that your revision starts with your timetable.

Don’t forget Google calendar which I use a lot and it will sync to your mobile.

But what should you do in the time available?

In order to give you some idea what you should be doing in the time available I have produced a mock-up of a revision timetable showing various activities. It is based on the assumption that you have 6 weeks before the exam.

Key to activities

  • A – Produce an analysis of past exam papers so as to identify the key examinable areas
  • E – Find out if your examiner has produced any specific examiner guidance or any technical articles
  • N- Read through existing notes and make new revision notes based on the key examinable topics
  • P – Work through past exam questions from the key examinable areas
  • M – Take a mock exam
  • B – Take a break

The shaded areas are weekends and X denotes the actual exams. Week 5 and 6 assumes that you are not at work if of course you do work and so have a full day to devote to your revision. As you can see of the last 5 days 2 are taken up with mock exams and the last 3 are left blank. This is because there are two parts to revision.

The first is very much to do with making notes, practicing questions based on the key examinable topics and continuing to learn but in a much more focused way than on tuition. Equally, what you are learning is far more about application, how the topic will be examined rather than what the topic is about.

The second is more about recognising that there will be some topics that you won’t be able to master in the time you have left and others that you have mastered but can’t remember some of the key prompts, definitions or formats. In this second period, we need to start committing things to memory.

Not related to time but…

I came across these videos by Dr Stephen Chew a professor of physiology at Samford University, Birmingham Alabama. They are a series of 5 videos about how to get the most out of studying. Not only are they interesting but they include some very helpful tips and hints as to how you can become more time  efficient with your studying.

Video 1 Beliefs that make you fail …or succeed

Video 2 what students should know about how people learn?

Video 3 cognitive principles for optimizing learning

Video 4 putting principle for learning into practice

Video 5 I blew the exam now what

Enjoy and let me leave you with this thought “For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.” anon

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Exam results – what to do if you fail!

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August is an interesting month, for some it is the time to take a well earned holiday and so de-stress for others it is the month in which the exam results drop through the letter box or inbox and so a time to get stressed.

I have taken the easier of these two options and so have been on holiday, which for me is always a chance to read a couple of books. One of them was called Talent is overrated by Geof Colvin, senior editor for Fortune magazine. In the book Geof puts forward some interesting arguments as to the role talent plays in the success of people who by many would be considered exceptional, even gifted. He argues not so much that innate talent does not exist, more that successful people, those at the top of their respective tree, Tiger Woods (okay not personally – but he is still a great golfer) Warren Buffet, Bill Gates for example have other qualities, they worked hard, and practised a lot…..

Greatness does not come from DNA but from practice and perseverance honed over decades. The key is how you practice, how you analyse the results of your progress and learn from your mistakes.

What has this got to do with exam failure?

If you looked around your class and picked the best, brightest, most talented students, I bet they passed their exams. And the reason you failed was because you are not good enough, you are not talented!

Well here is the bad news, what Geof Colvin and in fairness many others have found is that it is often not down to talent, it is down to hard work and practice, and we are all capable of that. If you believe that your poor exam results were because of your lack of innate abilitiy then you are wrong. You are in fact creating what is called a fixed mindset, you begin to believe that you can’t affect your performance and so don’t try. What’s more it’s not all that good to believe you are naturally talented. Research has proven that if you believe that you do well because you are talented, when faced with failure you are more likely to give up. If you believe that you did well because of hard work and then you fail, you carry on but just work harder next time.

So what should you do?

Geof goes on to say that it is not just practice that matters but how you practice, you need to practice deliberately. He calls it deliberate practice and it should;

  • Be designed to improve performance
  • Be repeated a lot
  • Enable you to get feedback continuously
  • Be highly demanding mentally
  • Not be much fun

But what satisfies the above criteria…….. yes practicing using past exam questions. So if you were not successful in your exams, find out when you can re-sit then;

1. Take a deep breath, get out your notes from last time and draw a mind map or review the one you did for revision, sometimes it’s best to make a fresh start. This will remind you of what you have to cover and get you thinking about the subject again.

2.  Analyse the past exam questions (including the last exam) and find out what is examined the most then identify the areas you need to improve.

3. Start to practice these past questions using the answers for feedback, and no it may not be much fun but then you now that.

Failure – the only way to learn

Here is a great video by a guy called Derek Sivers, Derek is a professional musician and founder of a company called CD baby in the US. He makes an argument as to why we need failure because it is a major factor in how we learn and grow.

Final thought

I know at the moment that failing an exam can feel like the biggest disappointment in the world and that it may seem that your career is over before it really got started. But it is what you do next that really matters

As Michael Jordon once said “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying”

Inspirational true story…Never give up!

Congratulations on failing from one failure to another…

Sorry is not good enough – Exam paper mistakes

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9 exam paper errorsExams seem to be in the news a lot these days, unfortunately often for the wrong reasons. This month we were told of at least six errors on exam papers sat by students studying A-level, AS-level and GCSEs taken in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The errors were on questions with marks ranging from 1 to 11 and effect 90,000 students. In fact it is hard to keep up; only yesterday there was news of another possible three mistakes, bringing the new total to nine!

The examining bodies have said they were sorry and that they would take into account the errors when they come to mark the paper, ensuring that no students would be disadvantaged as a result. Firstly an apology is not good enough, it should not happen in the first place and secondly they can’t “take into account” the full impact of the mistakes. And it looks like David Cameron agrees……

Now of course everyone makes mistakes, but when the consequences are as important as this there should be a system in place to ensure they are spotted. That system should include having an examiner, an assessor and a sitter. This is in addition to the normal proofing and arithmetic checks. The examiner writes the paper, and presumably checks it, the assessor also checks the paper, ensuring the wording is clear and that what is being asked is within the syllabus and technically correct. The sitter should then attempt the paper under exam conditions, to make sure that it can be completed in the time available. If these processes are followed it would seem almost impossible for a mistake to be made, I wonder what went wrong?

Equally it is not possible for the examining body to ensure that no student is disadvantaged. What can they do, be generous with the marks for any attempts made?  What if the student looked at the question tried to do it, panicked and as a result wasted valuable time, making little or no attempt at the rest of that question, there is in effect nothing to mark. What can you do in these circumstances; just add on say 5 marks!

How can you take into account the student who raced through the second question because they spent so much time on the first and made mistakes due to the time pressure, add on another 5 marks!

And what about the student who looked at this question, lost their confidence and so failed to complete the paper, add another 5 marks!

Listen to this confident student describe the impact of a mistake in the exam.

And he got no reply…..

What to do if there is a mistake

There is however some good news, you can still give yourself the best chance of passing if you apply some simple exam techniques.

1. Stick to the mark allocation – if it is a 10 mark question then only spend 18 minutes on it, 1.8 marks per minute for a three hour exam. So even if you cannot answer the question because of a mistake on the paper you will not be wasting time that could be better used on the next question.

2. Don’t think you have to get everything exactly right. Your objective is to pass the exam with the highest mark, so you may have to accept that you will not get 100%. And of course getting 100% correct is impossible when the examining body has put down the wrong information! Do your best and move on.

3. Make assumptions – read the exam question slowly, underline the key points and if it doesn’t make sense clarify what you think it is saying by stating your assumptions. Then answer the question in accordance with your assumptions.

4. Don’t bother asking if you think there is a mistake. There is little point asking in the exam if there is a mistake on the paper. The invigilators on the day are unlikely to be subject experts and so will do nothing. Let others put their hand up and ask, you should keep your head down and get on with answering the question.

Remember exams are more than tests of knowledge and they are not always fair, but they are equal, everyone in the exam room is faced with the same examiners mistake. How you deal with those mistakes however can make all the difference….

Another TED lecture worth watching

And finally I have another TED lecture for you to watch. It is presented by Sir Ken Robinson who gives a very interesting talk on what he describes as a crisis in our education system – personalised learning not standardised/production driven learning.

Okay kids – Just remember always sit a mock exam

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Always sit a mock exam

Rolf Harris has had a very varied career, musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter, television personality and passionate advocate of sitting a mock exam. Okay I made that last one up but Rolf did make a very good point in an interview that I think illustrates one of the main benefits of sitting a mock exam.

In his early days Rolf used to paint on a huge canvass using wallpaper brushes and rollers, and it was in front of a live TV audience with only a 5 minute slot. Many years later in an interview he was asked why he practised painting the same thing over and over again, “after all Rolf you are a very good artist” said the interviewer, Rolf replied, “yes I can paint, but I am not practising to improve my painting, I am practising to make sure I finish on time, this is live television I have to finish at exactly the right time, that’s what I am trying to learn.”

And the same applies to mock exams, you’re not sitting a mock to find out what mark you’re going to get, that’s just the by product, you’re doing it to make sure you will finish on time. Knowing all the answers is no good if you run out of time….

Reasons to sit a mock exam:

1. Practice at leaving questions and moving on. Leaving a question you can do but have spent too much time on is easier said than done, remember there are often easier marks in the first 5 minutes of the next question than in the previous one. If you sit a mock exam you can practice leaving questions, sticking exactly to the time indicated by the marks in the question.

2. It’s an opportunity – I like to think of exams as opportunities to improve, they help identify what you need to improve to be better next time. This means the more mocks you sit the better you get!

3. Helps manage ignorance – There will certainly be questions in the exam that you won’t be able to do, where you don’t know the answer. Managing ignorance is a higher level skill, it is the ability to have a go, give it your best shot, even if you don’t know, just use your common sense. You may be very surprised at your mark. Only when you sit a mock will you really force yourself to have a go.

4. Gives you an indication of the topics that you are good at and the ones you aren’t. Sometimes you think you know something but when it comes to it, like in a mock you don’t.  Don’t worry there will still be time after the mock to brush up on those “think you know areas” areas.

5. Can help you deal better with stress. If you sit a mock exam it can feel like the real thing, but it isn’t. So if you panic and lose time as a result it doesn’t matter. It gives you a chance to think how you would deal with that situation should it arise again.

The best reason

But the best part of sitting a mock exam is if the mock you sit turns out to be very similar to the real thing. What would your chances of passing be then! Mocks should always be written with an eye on what might come up.

What it is not

On the whole a mock exam is not meant to predict success or failure although many people think of it like this, only the real exam matters. So why not give it a go and sit a mock exam this time, what have you got to lose.

And finally no mention would be complete of Rolf without a chance to watch Rolf sing Two little boys. Nothing to do with exams but a classic….

The De Vinci code – Mind Mapping to pass exams

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Leonardo de Vinci was one of the first people to link words and pictures, using their combination to help with both learning and creativity. It also left behind a permanent record of what he had been thinking that could be used as a reminder for him and others, a set of notes!

Leonardo died in 1519 and it was not until the late 1960’s when Tony Buzan refined the technique and gave it a name “Mind Mapping. “

What is a mind Map?

According to Tony Buzan, mind maps are an expression of radiant thinking and a natural function of the human mind, a powerful graphical technique which provides a universal key to unlocking the potential of the brain. A nice description but I am not sure I understand what they are just from that.

In the context of making notes, I would define a mind map as a way of recording key words that, unlike linear notes, start with a central theme that is often an image, and have content that radiates out from this central theme like branches from a tree. They should be colourful and the note maker should use their imagination in drawing the map, bringing in images and showing connections in any way they wish.

How to draw a mind map

There are and should be few rules to mind mapping as the individual should bring as much of him or herself to the process as possible. But there are some guidelines.

1. In the centre of your paper, draw a square, a circle, or an image that will help you focus on the core issue of the mind map. Inside it, write the name of the subject or topic you are studying. It is probably best to have the paper in landscape rather than portrait.

2. What are the main points or substantial topics that relate to your central theme? Draw branches from the circle, like branches from a tree, to these sub topics. Print the key words on these branches, use block capitals if your writing is not so neat. You can also use geometric shapes for these new areas, or sketch a small picture. Why not do both?

3. The structure will broadly follow the key words that you highlighted from the text. You may, however, find that some of the topics or key words lead you to make connections that at first you did not see. Make the associations and don’t be afraid to re-draw the mind map if it gets a little messy.

4. Begin branching off into smaller but related topics. Think fast! Your mind may work best in 5-7 minute intense periods. Using different coloured pens to show the relationship between separate yet related topics can be very powerful. You can use symbols as well as pictures if that seems to come more naturally.

5. Mind maps work to a great degree because of your choice of keywords and the fact that they are short and to the point. Don’t feel that you have to expand on these; you don’t.

6. Let your thoughts and imagination go wild when it comes to the images. Although a mind map is logical and so requires you to use the left side of your brain, it also requires the use of colours and images, both of which involve large amounts of right side brain activity. Don’t worry about how good at drawing you are. You don’t need to be particularly good at art; it just needs to be legible and only to you.

Check this out  it is a really helpful and practical guide to using mind maps to make and organise notes.

If you want to hear Tony Buzan talk about mind maps, just click on the link to the right of this page in the Blogroll.

I personally find mind maps one of the most effective learning and exam tools I have ever come across. A map is much more than a simple note taking technique used to record content. It presents that content in such a way that aids learning. You will recognise how topics inter-relate and so begin to understand the subject, not just remember it. It is also, as the name suggests, a map: it shows you the whole subject, not just one part of it, so that you can see where you need to go next. And, like a map, you can take many different routes to get to your destination and, in so doing, learn more about the subject. It is also ideal for revision and is much easier to review than traditional notes largely because of the pictures

Try something new today

Some people say that mind mapping does not work for them and that may be true. But I think that if you had never been to school and were trying to learn or solve a problem, as Leonardo discovered all those years ago you would more than likely draw pictures and link those pictures with words than record your thoughts in a black and white linear format, so give it a go.

An accountancy student blogs about her experience using mind maps to help her pass exams.

 A general blog about mind mapping

Exam stress – or is it your stress

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There have been a few interesting stories in the news recently that I thought might warrant a blog, not least the results of research undertaken by Roi Cohen Kadosh, a cognitive neuroscientist from Oxford University. He has discovered that if you administer a small electrical charge to the brain it may enhance your ability to process numbers for up to 6 months. But don’t go sticking your fingers into electric sockets just yet. The research is at its early stages and may be more helpful for people with dyscalculia (problems with numbers as dyslexia is for words) rather than not being able to understand calculus.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11692799

Something closer to home was an on-line presentation I gave last week entitled Exam Confidence. Part of the presentation specifically deals with exam stress, something that many students may be experiencing just at the moment as they begin to realise the November and December exams are just around the corner. The first thing to say is that to feel stressed is a perfectly natural reaction; it is the result of being faced with a challenge that initially at least, looks impossible to overcome. The body’s natural reaction to this is to increase your heart beat and get you ready to hit something or run, the fight/flight principle.  Now a few million years ago this was helpful, but in an exam room….

 Who’s voice is it?

The feeling of stress can be instant or creep up on you over time, but something you may want to think about is, that it is not the object or the event that is creating the stress, it can’t be. It is the way that you look at it and what you think it means. Imagine that you are in the exam hall and you turn over the exam paper, the room is quiet, and you can sense the tension. You look at the question and your first thoughts are that you can’t do it. The little voice inside your head begins to shout YOU CANT DO THIS, YOU WILL FAIL , and IF YOU FAIL YOU WILL NEVER EVER EVER PASS…..YOU ARE A FAILURE

 It‘s not the question that is shouting, it‘s you, and what you say to yourself makes a huge difference to how you feel and the level of stress you will experience.

 Now of course the truth might be that you can’t do it, but the problem with stress is that it will paralyse the logical part of your mind. In these circumstances you are programmed to fight or run, not think. So you need some strategies to cope, to reduce the stress, so that you can at least begin to think about what you can do rather than what you can’t.

 Some coping strategies

1 Recognise that it is your voice and that by changing what you say will change the way you feel. Think more positively, say okay I can’t do this but what can I do?

2 Take a deep breath, look around the room, say to yourself, if I can’t do this then I bet no one else can.

3 Reframe what you see, this is just one question, not the entire exam.

4 Think about the bigger picture, this is just an exam, you can always sit it again, it is not life or death.

5 Focus your attention elsewhere by doing something you can do, no matter how small, a question that only has 5 marks perhaps.

 I may do more on how to cope with stress in future blogs but for now I will leave you with the wise words of psychologist and philosopher William James.

The greatest weapon again stress is our ability to choose one thought over another

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To pass an exam – do an exam

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To ride a bike - Ride a bike

Although the debate around the value of examinations (testing) is set to continue, new research from Kent State University in the US suggests that examinations aid learning by making the brain develop more efficient ways of storing information. Dr. Katherine Rawson, associate professor in Kent State’s Department of Psychology, and former Kent State graduate student Mary Pyc published their research findings in the Oct. 15, 2010, issue of the journal Science. 

“Taking practice tests – particularly ones that involve attempting to recall something from memory – can drastically increase the likelihood that you’ll be able to remember that information again later,” Rawson said. 

In the article titled “Why Testing Improves Memory: Mediator Effectiveness Hypothesis,” Rawson and Pyc reported an experiment indicating that at least one reason why testing is good for memory is that testing supports the use of more effective encoding strategies. In particular the brain comes up with mental keywords – called mediators – which trigger memories which they would not do when studying only.

 I have to say that this comes as no surprise to me nor would it to any student or anyone who has ever read a book on memory techniques.   It does however add some significant evidence to support the use of testing or mock examinations as a means of preparation for the real thing.

 To pass examinations you require much more than just memory techniques, and in many ways all this research* has done is show that you can recall certain words far more easily if you link them via another word, the mediator, and then test to find out if you can in fact remember them. But because you can’t pass an exam without remembering what you have learned it does mean that by spending a little more time in encoding the information and by testing yourself afterwards you must improve your chances of passing.

 To my mind the research still has some way to go in recognising the other benefits of doing practice exams or tests, and I should add looking at the answers. For example do they not give a very clear indication of the standard required, provide focus as to what is important and what is not, give a concise summary of key parts of the syllabus, show how the knowledge should be applied in the context of the question and improve your level of concentration knowing that you will be tested latter, I could go on.

 How does this help – some tips

 When trying to get something into your head, don’t just read it, although reading is a method of learning, it is not very effective when it comes to remembering. Reading is largely an auditory process; you say the words in your head. Ever heard the saying “I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand”. At the same time as reading, underline the key words and make notes with those key words. The very process of extracting them from the text will help. Next you need to remember those key words, well why not link them with a story (A mediator) or with single words as illustrated in the study. There are several memory techniques that use the principle of association to link words, check out the “stack and link and number rhyme” systems. See video below for an example of how to use the number rhyme system.

 And then of course you need to test yourself and your ability to recall those key words afterwards.

 So be in confident and inspired that what you new has now been proven and that  tests are not just about finding out if you will pass or fail the exam, they are an integral and vital part of the learning process, and that’s a fact.

 *In the research they asked students to remember Swahili-English word pairs, such as ‘wingu – cloud and use a mediator (wingu’ sounds like ‘wing’ – the mediator, birds have wings and fly in the ‘clouds) to link the two.

For more thoughts on what this means – click 

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What does passing your last exam feel like?

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Passing your last exam?

The blogs on this site are mostly about what I think given the events that take place in the world of education and learning.

So I thought for a change you might like to hear what other people think, specifically students who have just found out they have passed what they believe will be their last exam ever.

I sent out a simple questionnaire to a few students who had just passed their accountancy finals. What I was particularly interested in was, were there any strategies these successful students used or words of wisdom they may have that we could all learn from.

The answers below are not from any one individual and I have amended and interpreted their comments to provide some generic learnings. And just as way of background, most of the final level accountancy students in this straw poll were aged between 23 and 33, are in full time employment with jobs that carry responsibilities that have to be balanced with the demands of studying.

1. Do you think all of the hard work you put in was worth it?

Yes, It was worth it because of the understanding I gained of how business works. I have genuinely learned skills and new ways of thinking from studying at this level and I know that it has played a part in my ability to successfully take on a management role at work.

Definitely worth it, when looking for my last job I’d hit that glass ceiling because I was missing the qualification. I found it hard to get interviews for the level of job I was after. Also if it had been simple to pass without putting in the work, would I have really valued it, so I do feel a sense of achievement and euphoria.

2. What was it that motivated you?

I knew that if I wanted to progress further in accountancy and in my career having a professional qualification would be invaluable. When looking for jobs I had seen how my colleagues and others had progressed into better jobs with higher pay and I thought, if I want this then I would need to qualify. There were many times I felt like just throwing in the towel (let’s just say my record for passing exams is not that great!) but I knew that perseverance would pay off, that each exam I would pass would take me nearer to my goal and eventually I would see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I just kept saying to myself this time I can do it, and one day I will have no more exams, I have come this far and to quit now would be mad.

I always knew I wanted to work with numbers and my dad used to be an FD, so I suppose part of me did it to prove something to him, but I also wanted to expand my knowledge and further improve my CV. I witnessed people having the opportunity to learn and not taking it, I felt sorry for those people that were happy not to grow. I just knew I didn’t want to fall into that category.

I continued because I found I was quite good at it actually! And I like a challenge! I couldn’t start and not finish – I need closure!

3. Did you ever think you would not pass?

I didn’t ever think I would not pass as I don’t see myself as a quitter, quite the opposite, I take things as a challenge, it gives me an even greater hunger to want something more when I know it is difficult for me to achieve. I knew eventually I would pass, but it would just take me longer and would be harder for me to achieve than other students.

I was getting to that point where I did wonder if I’d ever get there, but knew that I needed to get it done, otherwise I’d always be thinking ‘what if?’ I know I would have regretted giving up.

No – is that big-headed of me?! I’m confident and have always been quite good at learning.

4. Did you think you had passed?

I really did not know, I did a self assessment and I knew that I would be on the border and boy was I, it could have gone either way.

I’m still shocked that I passed it this time, as I still believe that I had produced much better pieces of work before, just not what the examiner was after obviously.

5. Describe how you feel just now?

Relief, no more studying ever again, proud finished at last

Proud, thankful, relieved, however a little deflated (fireworks didn’t go off in my honour).

Relieved and a little lost!

What does this tell us about passing exams?

Motivation
What I found most interesting about the responses, was how important motivation is when it comes to exam success. Firstly, you have to be motivated, you have to want something. This might be a desire to learn, to give yourself opportunities and further your career or to prove something to yourself or others. Secondly you need to stay motivated. You need to find ways of maintaining that motivation for long periods of time, several years in fact. This motivation was maintained in many different ways.

Having Powerful beliefs

• Beliefs that you will pass….eventually
• Beliefs that you are good at something
• Beliefs that if something is difficult it means it is worthwhile

Talking to yourself. Tell yourself that you can do it and that to quit would be mad

Enjoying the challenge, think of exams as being a challenge that you will overcome

Not wanting to have regrets, when you look back, not wishing that you had taken those opportunities

Motivation by fear
As for how they felt, about passing. Relief was the word used most, and relief is a word that suggests that students are motivated more by the fear of failing than the rewards of success.

You thought it was all over – well not yet
And finally a thank you to all of the students who responded and some good news. In 2005 Bernard Herzberg, who lives in east Finchley, north London, started his second masters degree in African economics and literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. The good news is that at the time he was Britain’s oldest student, he was 96, so never say it’s your last exam….

The E word – the book about how to pass exams

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E for Exam


I have to say that I feel a little self conscious writing about a book that I have written, yet it has taken up such a large part of my life for the last four years, I cannot let its publication go without saying something.

The E word is a book about exams and how to pass them, and part of my motivation to write it came from the simple observation that success or failure in the exam room was becoming increasingly important. Increasingly important because unlike in the past, when there were jobs and opportunities available regardless of your academic record, this was not the case anymore.
My daughter was 11 at the time and was just about to sit her first really important set of exams. It seemed then and is becoming a reality that this was the start for her of 10 to 15 years, perhaps even longer, of sitting exams! That is a huge chunk out of someone’s life, and for my daughter and many others it was also the first time that her success and failure would be so ruthlessly measured.

There was also this somewhat elitist attitude to rank people in accordance with their exam record, pass and you are in the club, fail and you are not. And from there it gets worse; people begin to plan out your whole life based on what you did on a piece of paper for 3 hours. In some instance elevating you to the highest position, with comments like “he/she will go far”, “very bright, they have a great future ahead”, which is fantastic, but not so motivational if they say “not cut out for an academic career”, “not really bright enough”. It was as if the exam result was a crystal ball that people stared into to predict your destiny.

And based on what, the performance in an exam, and the result you get…….

This is not an argument to change the system nor am I suggesting that we do not need exams; it just brought home to me the importance of passing and the implications of failing.

But I had another motive; my job is to get accountancy students through their final level professional exams. To do this we use a whole raft of techniques that together with a lot of hard work by the students had proved very successful over many years. I was convinced that the techniques we used at this level could be of benefit to anyone who has to sit an exam. So I thought I would write them down and find out.

Run Forest run
Although not explicit in the book, there is a theme on which it is based and one that is important to me. In the film Forest Gump, Forest, the main character (Tom Hanks) is born with learning difficulties, he has an IQ of only 75 (90-110 is normal) yet despite this he manages to excel and ultimately achieve success, because of hard work, determination, clarity in his objectives, oh and with a little luck.

And that’s what this book is about, anyone can be successful, you have to play with the cards you have been dealt. To pass exams, intelligence (whatever that means) is just one factor. Everyone has it in them to pass, you just need the right mental attitude, knowledge of how the exam system works and techniques that will improve your performance.

And if you don’t have them, then buy the book………please

Available for £10.00 from all good book stores, or by following the link to Kaplan publishing

Just in case you forget the many ways that you can eat shrimp
Bubba: Anyway, like I was sayin’, shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There, uh, shrimp kabobs, shrimp creole… shrimp gumbo, panfried, deep fried, stir fried. There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp… shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich… that’s, that’s about it.

Thanks for the memories – principles of memory

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What do you think this is?

This evening I will once again be delivering a live webinar on exam techniques and how to learn more effectively by using exam questions as a guide, Exam focused learning. The event ends with the suggestion that having produced a set of notes from which you can then begin to revise, you should commit this material to memory.

So I thought I would devote this blog to looking at what I call the principles of memory. These aren’t memory techniques in themselves but overriding principles that form the basis of most if not all memory techniques.

Principle one – It’s all about input
The first principle of memory is how you record (input) the information in the first place. Put the information in, in the right way and you will remember it, the wrong way and you won’t.

Firstly, get into the right mood
The way you feel, your emotional state, the mood you are in all create powerful ways of encoding information. Take for example the classic memory question: can you remember where you were when Kennedy was shot? Or more recent events: when the Twin Towers collapsed or when Princess Diana or Michal Jackson died? The reason you tend to remember these events is partly because it was unexpected, something you never imagined possible, it probably changed your mood to one of shock or surprise.

From a practical exam point of view, the best mood to be in when studying is curiosity. The more curious you are about something the more likely you are to remember it afterwards.

Secondly, use your imagination – exaggerate
Something that is imagined is, by definition, not real: it is made up, created by you and can be an image, a sound, a smell a taste or a feeling. For most people, an imagined event will probably be visual, you will see it or auditory you will hear it. We have a much greater ability to recall events if we play a part in their original construction. The event should be large, loud and unusual, do not go for something that is ordinary, ordinary is never easy to remember.

Lastly, use your senses
As all information is fed into the brain through the senses, as a result it should come as no surprise that they play an important part in what we can remember. They are effectively the input system. The combination and use of as many of your senses as possible will help create a unique event and the more unique the event, the easier it will be to remember. Although you have many senses the most powerful forms of input are your ability to visualise and to hear.

Principle two – Association and organisation

The second principle, the information you want to remember needs to be organised and associated. Although you may remember something in the form of a visual image or sound, it will become increasingly difficult to retrieve that image unless it is stored in your memory in an organised and structured way. One of the best ways of storing images is to associate them with something that you already remember. For example, it is far easier to remember the name of certain trees if you imagine a tree with branches and on each of the branches you hang the name of the different types of trees.

Almost all of the memory techniques use some form of association in order to create the memory.

Principle three – Repetition

And lastly we are back to repetition. Unfortunately there is no substitute for going over something again and again and again. All methods of input will benefit from some form of reinforcement by repeating the process.

In Summary

In order to create a memory, you need a sequence of events. Firstly, you need to input the information in the most suitable way. This might be by using images or sounds. Make sure you are in the right mood or state when you do this, and the more you exaggerate the event the more likely you will be to remember it later. But creating a powerful memory using images or sounds is only part of the process. Think of the memory as a piece of paper. Yes, you have recorded the information, but you now need to make sure it is filed away so that you will be able to find it. This is why you need to organize the memory: it needs to be labelled and, where possible, associated with some existing information. And, finally, go over the process several times just to reinforce it.

Oh and just in case you were curious, the picture above is of a neuron and it is when one neuron connects with another that a memory is created. The more you repeat something the more powerful the connection and so is the memory.

This is an extract from my book the E word (E for exam) that should be on the book shelves in the next few months.