How to Prepare for Your Exams
Knowing you have an upcoming exam adds to your stress in your life. It doesn’t have to be that way but you just can’t help yourself. Let’s change that and reduce or even remove the stress. Let’s look at the how, when, where, what and why of how to prepare for your exams.
Prepare for Your Exam
In order to know how to prepare for your exam, you need to start with your study guide. Your study guide gives you all the information you are required to know to pass an exam.
Let’s look at the 5 W’s for preparing for your exams:
“How” – Organise Your Study Space
Having an organised space to study will give you enough space for all your textbooks but also limit the number of things that can distract you.
Which is always one of the biggest obstacles to overcome when you are trying to study. Besides that, it will help you not waste time looking for anything you might need to aid you in your quest to better yourself.
“When” – Start studying your course work early
The earlier you start studying the more relaxed you can be about the exam. Not to mention the more time you give yourself to understand the course material the better your understanding of the subject will be. Being prepared and organised will get you that pass mark.
“Where” – Time Management
Making a time management sheet or chart will help you stay on track with what course work to study and when. This will allow you to make provision for where you want to study and what arrangements you need to make to keep to your studies schedule. Having a time management sheet won’t make you feel overwhelmed as you give yourself enough time and can still have a social life.
“What” – Past Exam Papers, Tutors and Study Groups
Having exam packs when doing your final exam preparation is like owning gold. It gives you a feel for how the questions are asked and what questions they ask. It provides you with the opportunity to practice how to answer the questions. The other piece of gold that you can have is a tutor or study groups. These can go together and give you the opportunity to ask questions and do discussions. If you can, make use of these.
“Why” – Reduce Stress and Distractions
When you prepare for your exam stress can make you panic or make you have a panic attack. To prevent this from happening remove stress triggers in your life. Example: if you know that cramming stresses you out before an exam. You can use the tips above to remove that stress trigger and never have to cram again. Distractions like your cellphone and social media will hamper your efforts and need to be put aside. Use the allocated time to make sure you stay focused on the task at hand.
What Exams do You Write Doing Distance Learning Courses?
Taking exams is a necessary part of learning unless you are doing a short professional course that doesn’t require you to take an exam.
What that means is that those courses work on an accredited system. The system requires you to take some form of an exam even if it is a distance learning course you are doing. What are these exams?
National Certificate Exams
A National Certificate is made up of 3 levels (National Qualifications Framework) NQF 4, NQF 5, and NQF 6. Each NQF level has an exam at the end of each level to evaluate if you understood the course work. If you passed matric you can start with an NQF 4 National Certificate Course. To do an NQF 6 National Certificate Course you must have passed an NQF 5 course.
ICB Exams
ICB (Institute of Certified Bookkeepers) are also made up of 3 levels. Foundation, Intermediate, and Advanced level. Each of these levels consists of courses equivalent to the level they fall under and each course does an exam for evaluation purposes. To move to the next level like from Foundation to Intermediate you need to pass the Foundation exams. ICB covers courses related to Accounting and Business studies and you only need a Grade 10 report to study an ICB course.
