The Battle of Brains: Dealing with crowded exam timetables

Having just dealt with exams resembling fans at the concert in War Memorial Park: numerous and confined in a space, I’m left feeling accomplished . Now equipped with my mistakes and my best achievements, here’s what I’ve learned you’ll need:

A little myopia

Feel unprepared for a series of consecutive exams? You might feel the mounting pressure of underperforming on a series of deadlines or exams that don’t give you enough hours to feel at your best. One solution is to be a little shortsighted. Yes, I’ve found that a pretty useful way to get around the worries is to focus on the most pressing thing that needs to be focused on. Once you’ve built confidence in that one module’s content, you’re likely to be able to think more clearly.

Have your priorities straight

However, in some cases this can be overdone. If I have 3/4 of the content left to cover for an exam at the end of the week, but only 1/3 of the module left for the exam the day after, I’d spend a good few hours on the exam further away, and make sure I’m prioritising when planning for revision as per my strengths and weaknesses. Simultaneously, I have to make sure to avoid guilt about not revising for something coming up sooner. For example, I’d likely focus on revision for a 24 hour exam or an open book until the day before if I have done some previous revision. The same way, I would make sure I revised well before for any content heavy exams.

Mix it up

No one can understand the pain that comes with same day deadlines as much as a student dealing with various departments in their course. When the scheduling of various departments comes into play for exam timetables or the scheduling of deadlines, it is certain that there will be overlaps or closely placed deadlines and assessments. If the tasks come in different forms, say an essay and an exam, take this as a blessing in disguise. Regularly switching between tasks makes you less likely to start feeling counterproductive and bored when one piece of work becomes too tedious.

Take some shortcuts:

Especially when it comes to revision that needs to be done quickly, there are some ways to make your learning faster, and equally effective. They may not as thorough as your preferred method, but as I said before, priorities are crucial and time is the biggest priority when it comes to a tight schedule. This may vary as to your module’s structure and the type of content to be learned. When it comes to more quantitative information, I’ve found quick equation sheets and drawing the relevant graphs is useful. In more information packed lectures, isolating and fully grasping key words will improve overall understanding.

When going through a busy period such as this, understand yourself and your capability, but more importantly, your limits. Pushing yourself too much may end being more detrimental than not studying at all. Make sure you take relaxing, fulfilling breaks and keep your mental health in check. We’re nearing the end, you can do this!