How to Choose Questions to Study for Exams

Exam season is just around the corner and #students are starting to think about studying for #exams. There is a lot to cover in a short amount of time which means you need to be efficient with your exam studying. A phrase many of us have heard is “practice makes perfect” but what exactly should you practice? How do you choose questions to study for exams? We will cover a?exam tips?to ensure you are studying the right material to set you up for success during exams! #examprep

Choosing which units to focus on

During exams, you will have to study a lot of material from a lot of courses. The reality is that you cannot #study everything in detail. You must pick and choose what to study. Start with units that are going to be?weighted the most on the exam. Ask your #teacher for some hints on important units. A lot of exams are cumulative meaning they cover all the material from the entire course. There still might be specific units that will be more important on the exam. Next, pick units that you have the?most trouble with. You don’t want to waste time studying what you already know. Instead, focus on the important units that will take the most amount of time. Go back to your previous tests and quizzes and see which units were your worst. Sometimes you need to review pre-requisites before you can dive right into a unit. Study topics in order to make sure you have a solid foundation before moving on to more advanced topics.

Test yourself often

This is very important while you study for exams. You need to?test yourself closed book?to confirm you understand the material. Don’t get trapped into spending all of your time studying by reading notes, looking at solutions, or skimming over questions. You want to evaluate yourself before the exam so you get a sense of how you will do on the exam. Pick questions, solve them without looking at your notes, and then check the answers. This is a good way to figure out which units are your worst since a lot of time may have passed since you worked on that unit. After you do some studying (using your notes), try some more questions closed book and see if you are scoring better.

Review material before attempting questions

Before you attempt some practice questions, review your notes to ensure you understand definitions, concepts, procedures, and themes. Use active recall techniques (like blurting) to confirm your understanding rather than just reading through your notes. Everyone learns differently so use techniques that work for you. Some students retain a lot of information from reading, others need to listen, others need to rewrite their notes.?Try different techniques and see what works best for you.?If your notes are confusing, head over to YouTube and watch a couple videos to strengthen your understanding. Still having trouble? Consider working with an?online tutor?who can clear up any misconceptions and show you tricks to remember the information. The key here is to start and get help early so you can proceed with your exam studying. Review sample practice problems to ensure you can follow along before proceeding to the next step. Having trouble? Highlight those questions and get support from a peer, teacher, or #tutor.

Attempt practice problems

Once you are feeling confident in the material, try some practice problems! Again, you want to focus on the most important units and from there, the ones that are the most confusing to you. Pick questions in order of difficulty.?Start easy and progressively get harder.?Start with knowledge and understanding & communication questions, then application type questions, and finally thinking & problem solving questions. Try similar questions but prioritize?attempt a diverse set of questions.?You want to try lots of different questions to reduce the chances of being surprised on an exam. One of the worse feelings is seeing a question for the first time on an exam and not knowing where to being. By studying different type of questions, you will increase the odds of already seeing a similar question before you take the exam. Your textbook is a great resource for practice problems. Check out the chapter and unit review questions. However, you may want to consider other resources to get different questions. When you look back at your previous tests, were the questions consistent with the textbook? Or, where they very different and surprising. Use the answer to that question to help you decide where to get your practice questions. Ask your teacher for hints! Don’t be shy!

Master and then use interleaving

We recommend doing practice questions for each unit one at a time. This approach is easier because you know which concepts & techniques to use since you know which unit the questions are from. Start here and master the topics under each unit. Then, mix up different questions from different units to better mimic the exam. This approach is known as interleaving.?Interleaving?questions makes it harder because you first have to figure out which concept/technique to use and then apply it. Your exam will have a mix match of questions from different units so it is important to practice this way during your exam studying.

Use a tool to help you study for exams

Figuring out which questions to attempt to maximize your exam studying could be a lot of work!?MyHomeworkRewards?has made it super easy to study for exams by picking the right questions for you to study. We have lessons to help you study and master topics as well as an exam prep tool that interleaves all the questions in a unit or course. Students using MyHomeworkRewards also earn amazing rewards to top brands just for studying!?Register for free and earn while you learn.

Conclusions

Studying for exams can be very stressful. Unfortunately, no one teaches you how to do it effectively! In this post we give some exam tips for choosing questions to optimize your time studying. First, we need to know which units are the more important. Then, pick the hardest units that you have the most uncertainty about. Review your notes actively and practice questions within that unit until you master the topics. Then, use interleaving to mimic the exam format of random questions from the whole course. You can use a tool like MyHomeworkRewards to help pick the questions for you and give you awesome rewards to cool brands just for studying. Test yourself without looking at your notes to ensure you are grasping the material. Don’t forget to ask for help if you need it! A tutor can be a great resource to clear up any questions you have. Happy studying and good luck on exams!?

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