Dreamer

How to plan your time during your exams is a topic that I am sure it crossed your mind at least once.

For many of us, once May is here so are exams, or almost here. I start mine Saturday (9th).

I am not a straight A’s person, but I have pretty good grades. I have a scholarship based on my grades now, and somehow, I am pretty proud of my “work” since 1st grade until now.

I also love having fun, spending time with friends, going out (when I was able to do it), with fewer words, I want to learn new things, have good grades and also have time to enjoy other things.

I am a just a lil’ “Lets shove everything in the night before, straight into my head” kind of person.

Sometimes it’s working, sometimes it doesn’t, this is why I try to organise my time better, so I won’t be overwhelmed by tasks. Well, this and the fact that it’s not quite healthy or good for your mood. (Trust my words)

This is why I prefer planning my time during exams and this post is gonna tell you how to do it, if you are in need of something like this, or maybe you try to improve yourself, whatever (5 min read with possibile good outcome out of this text, even if you are a student or not, even if you are just procrastinating or really trying to find some usefull tips, I think it is worth keep reading it).

Many factors have to be considered when it comes to either pass or fail an exam.

Me, for example if I had a fight with someone I really care about when I have to study, well I won’t be able to concentrate as I should so my results are dimmed.

On the other hand, if I had a good day, my focus on the topic will increase.

Other factors that can pay a big role on your studying process might be sleep, eating habits, health, stress, other tasks, so you should pay attention to them.

Personally, first thing I do when it comes to exams is my study plan. Yep, I plan my study process. How?

Well, I make a list with all my exams by date, for example:

• E1-9 mai
• E2-11 mai
• E3-14 mai
• E4-17 mai
• E5-19 mai
• E6-21 mai
• E7-24 mai

Next step is to analyze diferent factors like difficulty, what I have to do for that exam, proper way to learn that topic (you can’t read math or paint sports, some things require specific way to learn them. Obvious for everyone? Not so much). Another factors might be time, as well as your expectation.

I rank my exams difficulty with 5 degrees:

• Meh- Exams where I only have to be present to pass (Sometimes it happens)
• Easy – Few things to learn
• Medium – Few or many things to learn but things are not really new, maybe a good structure of materials, things that I have an interest in etc.
• Hard – Not quite logic information or things that have to be known exactly ( a law for example)
• Please help -Logic or not, a lot of info, many details, must be known word-by-word

You can use these degrees or your own, as long as you won’t underestimate or overestimate any exam. This step should be also fun and make you smile (even if you want to cry).

When it comes to my exams, all of them are theoretical not practical, so I won’t have to practice anything.

My exams are either written or verbal/oral (this is year mostly verbal).

I choose how I study based on 2 big things:

• topic
• difficulty

Also, my process might be a sum of different actions or just one from the list below

• underlining
• reading
• talking with class mates
• learning word-by-word
• practicing
• drawing
• writing

Until here, mostly I have analyzed all the factors that exams imply, after this I start planning things for real.

I have my list with exams, their difficulty and I did choosed the best way to pass my exam. Now it’s time to set my goal!

Either that I just want to pass an exam or to get an A, this thing it’s as important as other simply because you don’t need same amount of time for both.

Next step here is to set a timeline for study. Depending on how much time you actually have for one exam and how much time do you have for all finals.

When you start planning this thing remember that you can properly focus around 4 hours a day. (This doesn’t mean that you should only study 4 hours for a 500 pg exams if you have just one day for it)

Also, try to have in mind those factors that I was talking about at first (health, stress, fights, etc) because they tend to have a huge impact on your mood and desire to accomplish your study-goals.

For example, when I have an easy exam before a more difficult one, I try to squeeze before that easy exam, at least underlining (a simple task that can take hours, without learning too much at the moment, but it is helpful and time-saving when you actually start reading) before that easy exam.

Another important thing for me is that I can’t learn word-by-word 5 days before. Why? Because this kind of study for me equals forgetting more than 50% by the end of the week, so I prefer to read many times and, when it comes to learning word-by-word, I prefer the day before, maybe 2 days before.

Well, this is how I plan my time during finals!

Also, in Planning section-printable you can find a free exam planner template like mine (below) that you can use.

I hope that it will help at least one of you!

Crissu