Term 3 has only just begun, but those students in their O Level and A Level years would have already started to feel the heat. What’s more, with the phasing out of mid-year exams in all schools, students now have one less exam to sit for before the year-end exams – bringing up the stakes for the final exam.
As your friends start going into “revision mode”, you may start to feel the pressure and wonder when’s the right time to start studying. And if you haven’t been studying effectively yet, you may also wonder how exactly you should study!
To help all of you who are gearing up for O Levels, A Levels, or your year-end exam, here’s some quick advice from us!
1. When should I start studying?
For major exams like O Levels and A Levels, we would say, MINIMALLY 2 months before. Most schools would have finished the syllabus and gone full-steam into revision anyway, so you would know when it’s time to focus on revision.
However, it also depends on your foundation and how many subjects you have to study. More subjects = start earlier. If you have been consistent in your revision, you may not need so much time to study all your content again. But if you haven’t caught up yet, you will need more time to revise everything from scratch.
Definitely DON’T wait until the last minute to cram. Make use of each class test and weighted assessment in school to revise properly – don’t neglect them just because the weightage is not high. Especially right now, putting in effort to study for your Term 3 tests will definitely ease your load when you are revising for your year-end exams!
2. How should I plan my revision timetable?
Different students have different approaches to planning their study timetable. Here are some tips and methods you can explore:
- Divide and conquer: Dig up the syllabus for each subject and list out all the topics you need to revise. Then divide up the topics according to the number of days you have left to study. By doing this, you have a rough estimate of how much you should be covering each day, and how many hours you need to spend each day.
- Focus on not more than 2 subjects per day. Switching between too many subjects will require your brain to work more to juggle between the different subjects. Doing 2 subjects a day allows you to go to something different when you get tired of one subject. You can vary them such that one is a more ‘reading-based’ subject like humanities, and one is a more ‘doing-based’ subject like math.
- Schedule breaks. No one can realistically study for 6 hours effectively without taking any breaks. Break your study session into shorter chunks so that you can go for breaks and come back feeling recharged. This will maximise your overall productivity!
- Aim for progress instead of hours. Set a target for each day or each chunk of study time, such as to finish summarising one chapter, or finish one mock paper. Do this instead of setting yourself targets like ‘I must study 6 hours today’. When you set study-related goals, you are more motivated to be productive, rather than just sitting there until the hours are up.
3. What should I do when I am studying?
Some people have no idea what they should be doing when studying. Others think they know, but they don’t really know what is effective. Here are some activities you should do at some point in your study plan:
- Revise the concepts. If you have any lingering questions about the content and concepts, be sure to consult your teacher or tutor. Revising concepts usually involves re-reading your textbook and notes, synthesising them by annotating them and summarising them. As some topics may be interconnected, it is also a good idea to draw up some mind maps to show the links between topics.
- Practice the skills: All subjects involve some answering skills, like knowing how to present your workings in math problems, or how to structure your essay for the languages. It’s not enough to just read about them – you need to spend time doing practice questions so that your brain muscles can remember and master those techniques.
- Review your work: A personalised study plan should take into account your own areas of strengths and weaknesses. Reviewing your past homework and exam papers will give you insights into which areas you are not so good at, or common mistakes you tend to make. Make a list of these problem areas and find ways to improve.
- Do mock exams: Exam nerves and poor time management are some of the top reasons why students don’t do well in exams, despite studying hard for it. As such, we can’t emphasise enough the importance of doing timed practices, simulating exam conditions as far as possible.
Conclusion
We’ve answered the when, how, and what about studying for your year-end or major exams. It may all seem daunting now, but the outcome will be worth it!
If you feel like you lack discipline or you will benefit from having more guidance, our tutors at Future Academy are also available to help you. Our role is to keep you on track, organise revisions, practices, and timed practices for you, as well as provide feedback and advice on areas you can improve on. In classes like our JC Physics Tuition or IP Math Tuition class, you will also be able to tap into your tutor’s years of experience and pick up tips and tricks for doing well in your various subjects.
With that, we wish all students all the best for preparing for your exams at the end of the year! Remember, it’s better to start early rather than late!