Many students in Cameroon fail and keep failing not because they are lazy, nor because they are dull, but because they did not prepare well for their exams. Below I will give you the main methods of preparing for any exams in the advance level. These techniques may also be applicable to other examinations you may face and are based on experience and not research or what so ever.
1. Keep your health intact.
I imagine you did not expect this to be the first step. But think about it, if you enter an examination hall with a head ache you discover that your performance is affected so greatly no matter how intelligent you are or how hard you studied. That’s why the saying has changed from work hard to work smart. A smart person will know that his/her body is a weapon if the weapon has defects, the person is defenseless and very vulnerable. Therefore, in preparing for an examination avoid activities that can compromise your health and get treatment immediately any sign/symptoms emerge.
2. Make a PERSONAL Study-Plan and TEST the Plan.
Before we dive into how to plan, note that your plan will depend on your goals, if you aim high, your plans should be as such and if low your plans should also be as such
As you know not all fingers are the same. That goes same for students and also same for each and everyone’s method of studying. I am not going to be telling you to use a time table, or study hard and so on. They are people I know who have been studying hard quite alright but still fail while those who seem to be lazy make it. You may say, “No it’s because some people are naturally gifted” but that is not the case. It is because those who make it have consciously or unconsciously found for themselves a plan that works uniquely for them. It’s possible that a particular study method works for more than one person but it’s not always the case. Believe me this is what all I mean all first position takers in class do.
Okay so how do you make a plan and test it….
You have to find what best suites you. I am not saying you should choose lazy methods of studying and say you are following your plan NO!!!, Whatever plan you take it must produce good results if it doesn’t, change it. In finding your plan you have to ask you self questions like,
1. How do I interact in class?
How you interact in class has to do with if you understand better from the teacher or from your friends. Do you have a retentive memory and can keep what the teacher said, or you never understand what the teacher is saying no matter how hard you try?
2. How/when do I study and where do I study?
Some people find it comfortable to study during the early hours of the day (2 PM- 6 PM) others prefer midnight hours and so on.
Can you study in Noise, or in quite? Can you stand studying while others are playing? It all depends on you
3. How often do I need to revise?
4. Am I good in this subject or not?
There are subjects that you may be good at or have some knowledge on and don’t require you to put a lot of effort. .
There are so many things you can take in to consideration and then find what works for you.
Finding a plan or a routine is easy as anything you put into the plan is based on your personality as only you know yourself best. But Testing the plan is a different story.
Also read how to prepare for any job interview in Cameroon
3. Testing your plan
This can be done in many ways depending on the time you have. If you have enough time you could test your methods on a sequential test in school. But with limited time, you can test yourself with past questions and see how you will perform in a real examination situation. You can go ahead and ask the first in your class if he/she does this and you will be shocked. I know someone who failed his economics taste not because he was a dull student but simply because he wanted to see if he can pass only by listening to the lectures. And he failed woefully, so from there he changed his plan to something else.
4. Note and remember only RELEVANT MATERIAL.
In everything in this life there is what is trash and also what is considered vital. For example, you value your eye more than the one strand of hair on your body. If I told you to build a human being and you don’t put an eye, it won’t make any sense to me. But if you did not put just one strand of hair, I won’t even notice. I hope you are seeing where I am heading to with this. If you waste your valuable time on irrelevant material, you would be digging your own grave. It is therefore important to be able to recognize the relevant materials and also master them. There are somethings in studying that are just not worth the effort. Avoid spending much time on things that you know that in the best possible case you get a 1% of questions from that source during an examination, especially when you have relevant material which is uncovered and you have not yet mastered.
5. Presentation and Grammar
Make sure you present your work in a way an average person can read and understand. If you don’t do so, you will lose marks just because you were too lazy to shape your letters well, and you might even fail.
Avoid using words that you are not sure of or that you don’t even know the meaning of. This gives the examiner the impression that you are trying to gain marks by falsely impressing him and he will make sure he punishes you for that.
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