My Exam Routine

Hello, Reader!

With exam season upon us, it’s hard to stay calm and focused. I remember the stress levels escalating- exponentially because you stress and then you stress about stressing and the work is not getting done because you’re too stressed to focus. I’ve been there. If you want my input on how to de-stress, check out my post about “Self Care During A Levels”. However, today’s post isn’t about how to de-stress during revision time, but rather how to not let stress affect your actual exam. Today, I’m sharing My Exam Routine i.e. how I went into every exam calm, collected and ready. 

The routine begins the night before an exam - especially if it’s a morning exam. This is where the last minute revision happens. Make sure to go over all the things you’re a little shaky on, but don’t overdo it. The “blurt” method is quite good for last-minute revision: you basically just take a piece of paper and write down - “blurt” - absolutely everything you know about a topic without looking at any other notes. Afterwards, you compare it with a textbook or your revision notes and check for gaps in the information! This way you can feel more confident about how much you actually know as well as find out exactly what’s still missing. Those gaps in your knowledge should be the last thing you go over before getting ready for bed, as that should be what sticks in your head the most- don’t waste your last evening before the exam reading over the information you already know. Of course, revision is not the only preparation you need to do for the exam: a big part of exam success is your mindset, which begins the night before. An example is getting everything ready for the morning, (clothes, bag, etc.) which can help it run more smoothly so you can focus on the exam. But, if you only do one thing, let it be getting enough sleep. Seriously, there’s nothing worse than being tired going into the exam, so do yourself a favour and go to sleep early. 

My exam mornings all started with a meditation for exam success. I always made sure I had fifteen minutes to spare in the morning to close my eyes and listen to a guided meditation: imagining the best possible scenario for the exam. This is all about the law of attraction which I talked about in my post about a positive mindset- if you envision something and believe it’s going to happen then it’s more likely to happen because of your mindset. Therefore, every morning I imagined lining up for the exam completely calm, coming into the exam hall, sitting down and opening the exam paper and knowing exactly how to answer each question then checking over my answers and easily spotting any mistakes I might have overlooked. This allowed me to forget about stress since I didn’t imagine anything I could stress about. It was genuinely the biggest thing that helped me with my exam mindset.

This may sound crazy but, on the day of the exam, you shouldn’t do any more revision for it. Only right before you go into the exam, it’s a good idea to read specific pieces of information that you easily forget, like a difficult formula or a complicated definition or a long quote. This is because whatever you go over right before the exam will be the only thing stuck in your head, so it’s good for tough to remember details when you’re confident in everything else. 

No matter how much you prepare and how much of a great mindset you create, exams are stressful and you deserve to treat yourself afterwards. Whether it is a relaxing afternoon with no work or a Creams with your buds, reward yourself for how hard you’ve worked. 

You’ve got this.

Love,

Agnes xo