This is a vital part of success in NCEA as each subject has 1-3 externally assessed standards which you will do twice**, once in the mock examinations your school holds and again in the NCEA examinations at the end of the year in November. Here are my suggestions for studying and how to overcome problems such as procrastination and anxiety.

For mock exams:

1. Do the hard yards for your mock exams. These are as important as your NCEA exams, even more so if you are at level 1 and these are the first NCEA style exams you will be doing. By preparing as hard as you can for these exams, you are also preparing yourself for success in the November exams. Not only will these results count if you are too sick to sit the actual exams, but these are also the results that are counted for top in subject and other awards. If you are aiming for an award, these are very important exams.

2. Organise notes into subject piles. The first thing you will want to do is organize your notes into subject piles and then again by standards. This can be done by having a filing draw with different sections for each subject and then dividers for the different standards, or you can get a folder for each subject and use that to separate them, using dividers to separate standards. Organization is very important. It keeps all your notes in one place and puts everything you need together so that we you start to study, everything will be set and ready to go and you will not be tempted to distract yourself by tidying things and organizing.
For NCEA science, I recommend going to the No Brain Too Small website which has many subject resources to help you study including flashcards and overviews that you can print out and study from.

3. Find the right study space. Your study space needs to be quiet, silent is best as these will be the conditions you will sit your exams in. Have plenty of space to spread out your books and work. If the work you are doing requires a computer but you don’t have a laptop or tablet, then you will need to have sufficient space around the computer. Make sure that the room with your computer in is quiet, away from distractions such as family members, roads, the TV etc. It is much easier to find a study space if you have a laptop as you can move throughout the house. Again, you will need to find a space away from family members and noise. Do not use your bed as your study space. Although this might work during the year, for exam study, you need hard surfaces and a chair as you will be studying for extended amounts of time and will need to have the right posture, one that can only be achieved by a proper seat. Spending long amounts of time in your bed will also affect your sleep at night as you will be telling your brain that your bead is for studying and thinking and being awake rather than sleeping.

4. Identify areas. Once you have organized your material and found a place to work, go through your books and end of topic tests to see the parts of each standard you need to work on. Write all of these down in a notebook so that you can prioritize your time accordingly. No Brain Too Small also has collated questions and answers from previous NCEA papers for particular topics within a standard which are extremely useful to practice on if you struggle in one area.

5. Read and process notes. Once you know the areas you need to spend the most time on, go through all of your notes, rewriting and summarizing them into revision sheets or flowcharts as you go. Flowcharts are great if you need to be able to link things to one another or need to identify particular things such as different types of chemical reactions. Revision sheets just need to be one or two A4 pieces of paper that have essential things that you tend to forget on them. These can then be turned into your own flashcards of things that you need to remember. Read them over a couple of times a day and you will be surprised at how much you remember. It is important that you re-watch any films you will be discussing and reread the written texts you have studied during the year to familiarise yourself with the sequence of events. Write down important quotes and draw flow diagrams showing the development of characters, ideas and how this it relates to societies around the world/ why it is important.

6. Download past papers. The NZQA has the past papers for each of the externally assessed standards for the past 3-4 years with the answers and reports which focus on common errors and reminders. Download all of these onto your computer or print them off at school. By doing the practice examinations, you will familiarise yourself with what is required for achieved, merit and excellence and what layout the exam will be in as well as how much depth you need to go in to achieve at the different levels. Mock exams are designed to reflect the NCEA format and will contain similar questions.

7. Take breaks. As important as it is for you to study, you need to take breaks. After every 20-30 minute study session, take a ten minute break. After another study session of 20-30 minutes, take a 20 minute break, preferably involving fresh air and exercise such as a walk on the beach or around the block, or simply by playing with your dog outside. Don’t forget to take meal breaks, and have time to unwind at the end of the day by doing something you enjoy like watching TV or playing a game or binge watching your favourite YouTubers.

8. Do, don’t think. Everyone suffers from the evil that is procrastination which can be very harmful to our grades. The best way to overcome this is to do without thinking about doing it. Command yourself to study without using your thoughts as you would to lift your arm or walk. If we tell ourselves to move our arm by actually forming the words in our head nothing happens, however, when we unconsciously tell ourselves to do it, our arm moves. The same works for studying, if we try to tell ourselves that we have to study, we won’t do it. Instead of trying to convince yourself into doing it, simply do it. Hide all things that you want to do instead of studying. Placing things like your laptop, phone and TV remote as far away from you as possible will help you to keep yourself from reaching for them. Preferably put them upstairs if you have a double storey house, or in another room. This works well if you’re lazy and the effort of having to get the object will stop you from wanting it and you can study instead. Another way to stop procrastination is to have someone else study with you. That way you can keep each other focused and on task (threats of physical violence often work, as do promises of food afterwards).

9. Reward yourself for studying. Give yourself a reward at the end of the day for studying. This could be watching a movie, watching a YouTube video while you take your lunch break, and even a day to do whatever you want if you have the time and are confident enough in your studying. If you have good self-control, you can even reward yourself with food as long as you’re not tempted to eat it all in one go and then have no other rewards.

10. Think positively and imagine yourself achieving your goals. I mentioned this as part of my prep for the start of the year but it also applies to your exams. Instead of dwelling on thoughts that you don’t know enough or that you’re going to mess up, think about how well you’re going to do and visualize yourself in the exam getting everything down and answering all the questions. Remember that you can only do your best, whether that is an achieved or a merit, you can only do what you can do. We’re not superheroes. So focus on what you can do instead of what you can’t do. If you can only answer two of the three questions in an hour, then maybe you should just answer the merit and excellence parts of it so that you can get all three questions done in time. If you can’t answer questions using complex calculations, spend more time on the questions you can answer. Do what you can, ignore what you can’t.

11. In the exam, decide which order you want to do the standards in. I suggest starting with the one you can do the fastest, which is generally the one you feel most confident doing. For essays, I recommend planning them immediately and then doing the standard you are most confident in. This will give you more time to do the other standards than the suggested hour and will boost your confidence in answering the others. If you have time at the end, reread your answers and check for errors in calculations. Try not to leave before the 3 hours is up; use all of the time you possible have to get the best results. Remember you will not be able to come back into the exam room once you leave. Again it is better to cover all of your bases and be safe than to miss something and remember it as soon as you walk out of the exam room only 45 minutes in.

For NCEA exams:

1. Set goals. Think about how well you did in the mocks and how well you want to do in the NCEA exams. If you did as well as you hoped, then you will only need to do minimal revision. However, if you know that you can improve, create goals for the steps you need to take to achieve the grade you want and the grade that you deserve. Goals should be achievable but challenging and small. It is better to set lots of small goals that you accomplish each day than to have a big goal that you never seem to succeed in. Decide what grade you want and make small goals as stepping stones to get there, such as more revision or focusing on a particular part etc.

2. Identify areas of concern. Based on the results from the mock exams you will have clear areas where you need to improve. Use these and your list from when you studied for the mocks, to see where you need to put in more effort for the November exams. Focus on these areas in particular when studying and get additional help from teachers, friends, siblings or parents to help make improvements.

3. Make a study timetable. After you have prioritized which subjects you need to focus on, you can make a study timetable for when you go on exam leave and for the time in-between your exams. Don’t leave everything to the night before. Study for a little bit each day so that you have a better chance of remembering everything you need to. Remember to include breaks, like you did when you prepared for the mocks, and give yourself time slots to have your rewards for studying.

4. Study in groups. Like I mentioned before, studying with others can help to stop procrastination as well as offers several different opinions and point of views on topics. You can share knowledge with each other, test one another, ask questions and offer advice and help. Helping others and explaining things to others helps to clarify your own thinking. A teacher of mine once said that if you couldn’t explain something to someone else, then you didn’t understand it completely. Try explaining things to one another and see if you understand it.

5. The night before an exam, especially the first one, can be panicky and send you to the verge of insanity. Trust me, been there done that. For one of my English exams, I was so nervous that I planned ten essays and went through an entire 100 page refill the night before, only to decide that I hated all of the essays in the morning and go through the whole process again. But it doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be a mad rush to get as much knowledge into your head as possible. Memorization is achieved through repetition. Cramming doesn’t work. If you have followed my tips up until now, then you shouldn’t cram the night before, instead go through your notes one last time just before you fall asleep, focusing on the areas you are concerned with. Make sure you got plenty of exercise and go to bed at a reasonable time so that you fall asleep quickly and don’t stay up all night filled with worry and anxiety.

6. On the day of the exam, eat a very good breakfast and don’t drink coffee if it is a morning exam, even if you spent the whole night cramming (which you definitely should not do). Coffee will just make you want to go to the bathroom a lot more. Try to drink anything else in the last hour or two before the exam and go to the bathroom about 20 minutes before entering your exam. Revision on the day of the exam is important. Take one or two sheets of paper with you to school with a list of important things that you need to remember. This could be a possible essay plan, a list of formulae, a flowchart or just some key points. While you wait for your exam, read over these, test your friends on them and mentally prepare yourself for the exam. It is also important to not freak out or work yourself up before entering the exam. You want to go in there calm and ready. To do this, remember to visualize yourself succeeding and doing well. Remember that you can only do what you are capable of doing. Try to answer as much as you can to the extent that you can. Again, decide which paper you want to do first. I start with the one that I am most confident in or the one that I enjoy answering the most which is usually the one that I do the fastest. If you have to write one or more essays in your exam, I recommend planning those out in the first 5-10 minutes then going on to do the one you feel most confident with. Drink water slowly during the exam so you don’t feel faint or get a headache, but not too quickly or you will need to waste your valuable time to go to the bathroom.

7. After the exam, forget about what was in it. Write down your thoughts and feelings if you have to, but get it out of your head. There is nothing you can do once you leave that room. Instead, focus on your next exam.

** For art and technology subjects such as textiles, graphic design, photography etc, etc, there isn’t an exam. Instead, externally assessed standards are done in class under the supervision of your teacher and then packaged and sent away to get marked by NZQA. For these subjects I recommend the following:

1. Keep ahead of your work. Do as much as you can in class and stick to the teacher’s schedule, even taking it home to complete if allowed. This is important as all work is usually required to be sent away around the 1st of November. You don’t want to have to complete a year’s worth of work in two weeks. Not only will it mean added stress onto your pre-exam stress, but it will also take away valuable time that you could use to study for other subjects that have exams. It will also mean that the quality of your work suffers and you are more likely to get a low grade. Try to work efficiently and cleanly and take good care of your work so you don’t have to waste time doing it again.

2. Make sure you know exactly what is needed for each grade. Depending on the subject, different techniques will need to be used to get different grades. For Art practical, taking an abstract, deep thinking approach will get you the higher grades whereas for Design and Visual Communication (graphic design), showing detail views of your drawings and incorporating reasons and alternative designs will get you the better grades. Make sure you know what is required to get the grade you want so that you can do your work to that level.

3. Get your teacher’s input. They are there to help you and help develop your ideas. Ask them for assistance if you are struggling and ask them how you can make your work better. This will benefit you immensely.

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A full NCEA guide covering general study advice as well as ways to improve academic achievement all year round, mainly for NCEA level 1 but applicable to Level 2 and 3.

NCEA Guide to Studying