Being in secondary school, I want to tell you that while it’s great craic, big school isn’t all fun and games! You get homework on weekends… and that really sucks! But there’s only one thing worse than homework on weekends… TESTS. *Scary music*
So, you’re thinking, “What’s the big deal? Junior Cert. and Leaving Cert. are the only things that actually matter! Chill!
BUT YOU’RE WRONG.
Christmas/summer tests are actually scary stuff. My summer tests aren’t until May, and I’m already freaking out! So here are my handy tips:
- DON’T LEAVE YOUR STUDYING UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE. Never. Ever. Leave. Your. Studying. Until. The. Last. Minute. You will be up late, frantically going over Geography (Geography! Oh, hell no!), cursing and muttering, “S***! WHY, oh WHY did I not study before! Do a little bit every night.
- Make out study notes. Keep them brief, like bullet points. And put them in your own words! There is no point in writing something down from your schoolbooks that you don’t have a clue about.
- When you’ve printed out your study notes, look over them and highlight key points. That way, when you’re revising them, those are the things that will jump out at you.
- Put all your notes in a folder, but for the love and honour of all that’s holy, don’t jumble them all together. Put German notes together, Latin notes together, English notes together. You get the idea.
- Revise your notes whenever you get a chance. You never know when your teacher might give you a pop quiz.
- Research has proven that the best way of learning something is to teach it to someone else. So memorise your notes, and then give your parents a lesson on what you’ve learned! Or your brother. Or your sister. Or your dog. (Whatever you do, don’t try to teach it to your cat. Apparently my English teacher tried that out when she was younger and the cat ran away.)
- Find your way of studying. Some people like to draw pictures. Some people like to record their notes. It depends.
- Keep a study journal. That way you can record what you learned. Don’t just put, “I studied History for an hour and a half.” Put something like, “I learned about the reasoning behind World War 2 and looked at why Hitler was so strongly xenophobic.” Just an example.
I hope I helped you out! Comments? Questions? Ideas?
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