HOW TO STUDY FOR IGCSE EXAMINATIONS

STUDY STUDY STUDY!!!!!!!!!

INTRO:

So I'm pretty sure that I hadn't mentioned this before but I'm currently a form 4 student and so this means that I'm writing my IGCSE exams this year. In fact, I actually wrote some of my exams in the May-June period. When I got back to school I noticed how exams affected a lot of people, e.g, my stream mates.

In this episode of FEELS.INC, I'll be talking about my experience with the pressure and stress of exams.

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MY STORY

To be honest with you, exams are hella stressful, especially the ones that determine your future and if your gonna be successful in life or not.

So in around October 2021, I decided, well actually my tutors decided that ill be able to write the exams for chemistry physics maths and biology IGCSE in June. At first, I was horrified but then I just decided to do it since everyone had faith in me and thought I could do it. It took me a lot of convincing and well the day for registration came. When I registered in January 2022, it hadn't yet hit me that I was writing my exams in like 4 months. As usual, I continued studying and studying while I was going to school at the same time (oh and my teachers did not even know that I was writing their subjects in may). The April holiday came and that is when I started feeling the pressure from my family and my tutors and especially myself. The fact that I had to pass and specifically have A -A*s made me work like a maniac. Like any average child in an environment that ranked your importance due to academic excellence, I started panicking and I went through i time when I just did not want to take care of myself at all. Time went by and I went to my first exam which was chemistry. At the time when I was waiting to get into the examination room, it hit me hard that I was actually doing it And I couldn't run away I had to face it as it was.

A month and a half passed by and I immediately went back to school and is swear I was so demotivated and so much work had to be done to keep the peace and keep a good relationship with my teachers. Yes, sure some of them understood but then at the same time they wanted ALL of their work done and submitted. I was soo tired and sleep-deprived. The number of questions about 'how the exams went and people asking me if I had passed did not make it any better. I essentially went to school because that is what my mother wanted and I did my work half-heartedly intending to just get a mark that was 50% and above. In short, my performance dropped for the rest of June and I did not care at all.

July 4th came and that was the beginning of our school's midterm examinations. I had to put myself together, even though I developed I don't care and I'm gonna do what's best for myself attitude. So these exams are meant for the teachers and headmaster of a school to see if their students are ready for the October-November examinations, so the pressure was on. I went back to becoming sleep deprived and studied again. For me, this was very scary because well, the results that I get for the midterm exams would most probably be the results that I get on the 18th of August. At the end of this exam season, I did not care at all, I just cared about the subjects I hadn't written in May. When our papers were done getting marked, there came a season where our headmaster started announcing people's marks and sending the people who failed to 4-24hr punishments at the school farm depending on the level of failure. This made a lot of people in my stream realise that we had to work and we had a long way to go to gain success. The school became depressing and everyone was anxious. Now we are left with our October exams.

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When you grow up in an environment where your importance in a family or school is determined by how well you perform at school, a mindset of wanting to become the best in a class develops. Well, there's nothing wrong with that, it improves us as people, but then it becomes somewhat very toxic. for example, this thing about midterm exams affects a lot of people, especially if you don't perform at your best. We have to take in mind that these are not the final examinations and that they are just a reflection of where we need to put more effort into and improve before the finals. A lot of people don't understand this, especially parents, guardians, teachers and anyone else who just wants excellence from us. It's a starting point and the time left is there for us to many focus on our weak spots along with improving and maintaining our strong areas.

HOW TO STUDY AND PREPARE📚

It is always best to have a study timetable. It created a form of routine for you and it makes you develop some form of stability and consistency. In the timetable make sure to devote most of your time to the weak areas but not neglect your strong areas.

Make sure that you do some past papers for the subject that you are studying. If you are doing Cambridge, you can get past papers online at papacambridge.com and other websites where Cambridge past papers are found, along with the marking scheme. This is known as active recall. This method has this name because it makes you recall the information that you would have kept. You do this active not passively. It assists the brain in engraving the information in your head and improves the memory of the specific topic being studied. This method of studying has a problem at well. Due to the easily accessible marking schemes on the web, people usually just go on the marking scheme and jot down the answer whenever a hard question pops up. This does nothing to you and doesn't improve your skills since you are passively jotting down the correct answer rather than writing down the wrong answer in your head and then letter correcting the wrong answer and replacing it with the correct one. A lot of o people also tend to cram the marking schemes. We need to remember that the exams that are being written in the future will not have a making scheme. It will only be you and your head and so you need to train yourself to think efficiently and fast enough for the exams. It is also best to time yourself while doing this to improve your speed and make sure that you have enough time to revise your work and not rush to finish the exam.

Developing a reading culture is also very important. Now taking a break after a heavy exam season is not a crime, put them in the time of relaxation, at least devote 1-2hrs to studying, even one topic. Since a habit has gone out of your system it is hard to take it back, since after all an activity only becomes a habit once it is done every day for 21 days. This has been almost a month. To not wats e anytime, it is just best to maintain the reading culture that we had developed at school. If you don't have a reading culture start as soon as possible ;).

One of the most effective methods of retaining information is sharing it with peers. Making study groups with friends is a very good idea since it creates a safe and friendly environment for people to learn to correct each other and improve their knowledge. Working together and succeeding together as a group brings more satisfaction than one being at the top in that friend group and the rest lagging behind.

Celebrating success as a group is way better than storing your happiness in your heart because you will be comforting your other friends who have failed.

This other point is not as appealing to people, not even myself, but it is very helpful. When you do not understand a concept and friends seem to not be able to clearly describe it to you, go and look for assistance from your teacher. It is their job in the first place. It is always best to effectively use your teacher before you write exams because your results also affect their reputation at the school and in the educational sector of the country. They will do their best to assist you and make sure that you grasp the idea fully and precisely. This can only happen when you see where you need assistance. Yes, some of them may be intimidating but then we need to keep in mind that they want the best for us.

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Thank you for coming on FEELS.INC to view today's episode <3

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