Idea 7- Revising for an Exam

Have an exam soon? Tomorrow? In three weeks? Too many things to revise? Too many different methods to try? Or not enough?
I have what you need, at least I think so.

My goal here is definitely not to put pressure on you. When you search for ways to study on the internet, or in a book, or anywhere, the answer that comes back is too often ill-suited. Because they tell you to do this, then that, then that, and if you count it will inevitably take you 10 days. Except you only have 3 left, and it’s a mess. And so it puts pressure on you.

I’ve fallen for that game quite a few times. Seeing the exam approaching, I start rereading the entire course from start to finish, extremely attentively. Sometimes I even get carried away and read the Wikipedia page of the great physicists related to the course. All of this just to realize after two days (it’s stupid, I only have three days to revise) that I don’t retain anything because I’m constantly thinking about something else. And although I thought I had time to do three past papers before the exam, it’s going to start getting complicated. So, boom, I start a past paper, only to realize that I have no idea how to do the exercises. So I look at the correction of the past paper, and I don’t understand anything. Then I retake the tutorial that I did in class, and I finally understand some things. But now, I only have tonight to revise, and it’s already 9 pm. So, I tell myself, okay, it’s not a big deal, I’ll make some summary sheets. That way I can read them while falling asleep and on the journey tomorrow. Except I’m hungry, so I’ll go eat. It’s 10:30 pm. I’ll watch an episode of a series and then I’ll make my summary sheets. 10 minutes per chapter for 10 chapters, after all, it will only take a little less than two hours. I’m good… It’s midnight, and I’ve made three summary sheets.

Is this a familiar situation?

So, the problem when trying to plan the work you think you’ll do before an exam is that you just think about it for 5 seconds before diving in headfirst (or procrastinating a little more before starting because there’s still time), and it often ends up looking like:

avec , et positifs.

STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP !

Panic should not play a role, except in extreme cases. ‘Anyway, it’s hopeless’ has a role to play, but only when it’s late, and it’s time to sleep. So, we should remove it from the equation because it will step in soon enough if problems arise. Realism should help determine the planned work correctly but has no place WITHIN the equation. And the remaining time should certainly factor in somewhere. The risk is, as in my case initially, spending hours and hours revising in vain things that don’t really help you because you’re not doing them at the right time, and you’re doing too much but not the essential.

Lets simplify, for better results:

There you go. That’s better. Let A be a simple positive constant. So, we’ll try to be almost as ambitious and plan almost as much work as we can afford, but never exceeding the reasonable limit, under the risk of messing up and falling back to equation (1)

Next, it’s essential to recognize, admit, and tolerate that the (remaining time) is a choice. It would be very inappropriate and dishonest of me to call you lazy if you start a day in advance. Well, actually, I allow myself to call you lazy if that’s the case, but it’s affectionate. So, (remaining time) is more representative of (time we’ve planned to work) – (time we know we’ll procrastinate).

In short, to try to simplify your preparation for your next exam, I’m attaching an Excel spreadsheet that summarizes what I think, noting that it occasionally refers to my previous articles. However, with a bit of imagination, you can probably understand what I’m talking about without having read them.

You’ll find a list of things to do in chronological order, but more importantly, a color code. Depending on the time you have left, you can choose a color, which corresponds to a set of tasks. Little time: Orange, just focus on redoing the first exercise of each tutorial related to the exam, that will be more than enough. If you have a bit more time: Light orange (obviously, now include the first exercise of each tutorial, plus the things you just added). Pale yellow… etc. Choose your color realistically (which implies not strictly following the number of days I give, they are just examples, and you’re smarter than that), then forget the rest. From now on, what you’re not going to do doesn’t matter anymore, because if you focus on the things to do within the color you’ve chosen, everything will go well. Just check the completed tasks and approach the exam in good spirits.

So, what will it be? Einstein’s armchair or last-minute panic?