“Hard work pays off”, “The key to success is hard work”, “Put more time in, maybe you’ll do better next time”. These are some of the top phrases you’d hear from teachers, parents, mentors, and even your peers when it comes to exam season. Yes, these phrases are true and should be believed in order to help guide you on a path to success. However, they’re not the only factors that are the keys to success. The key to success is building a strong mentality, and disorganization prevents that mentality from being generated and strengthened over time.
Think about a time where you had a handful of exams and projects due. This “time” of the semester may come around often, or not so often. But one thing we all have in common is the feeling of being anxious that you’ve forgotten about something, or feeling unprepared or less prepared for a certain subject in comparison to another. Or maybe, worst case scenario, you don’t feel prepared for any of the subjects at all. During this time of stress, there probably were many times where you thought to yourself, “maybe I should’ve kept track of everything”.
The reality and the truth is that organization is the only way to survive exam season and to build your mentality during these hard times per semester. As soon as you find out a certain date for a certain exam, write it down. Keep track of all of the due dates and exam dates in a document or on a piece of post it note that you’d refer to often. Keeping track of these dates and being aware of the dates that are coming nearer and nearer will help you organize a schedule and time block for strudying/preparing for certain exams in order. This will allow for you to not feel the burden of trying to cram in all of the year-long class notes the night before the exam. This method of cramming destroyes your mental mind-barrier of feeling prepared. The more you cram, the more anxious you get, leading to deteriorating your mentality as well as not performing well on your exams.
Another point to reiterate and highlight is that the more organized you are, the less surprises you’ll get. I’m sure there was a time where you were hit with a suddent shocker when your friend asked you how much you studied for your exam which is next period. What test? The test you forgot to write down. In order to prevent this suddent shocker and wave of anxiousness, obviously, the key is to stay organized. It is really effective to put together an effectful to-do list. Here is an example of a to-do list system that I follow and have been using to track my exams since a couple of years ago in Freshman year:
August 16, 2023 (Wednesday)
Personal Project: Begin Mood Board and write a journal entry for …
English: Draft out a PEAL paragraph to prepare for the analysis exam
Humanities: Complete the last few sections of Component #3
Another tactic of organization is to make a completely seperate document for listing out and keeping track of the dates for your upcoming exams. This is how my “exam prep” document looks:
Upcoming Due Dates or Assessements
8/22 = HL Lang&Lit Paper 1 (Check rubric, task sheet, etc on Google Classroom)
8/26 = SAT DAY (take glasses, admission ticket, ID, pencils, eraser, sharpener, water)
9/18 = ESS 1.1, 1.2, 2.5 Test
These are just a few of many ways you can keep track of your to-do list, these 2 just worked best for me, and therefore, I’ve been using these daily for the 3rd year now.
Although making these to-do lists and utilizing certain organization tactics does not guarantee a perfect score on your exams, it does guarantee taking a lot of weight off your shoulders, and re-buidling that mental mind-barrier. Having a strong mentality is a vital aspect to successful exam results. Building that mentality comes from the key of having strong organization skills. Therefore, it is highly recommended that these tips are taken into account as you prepare for the wave of assessments which are right around the corner.
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