It is important to go into an examination feeling confident about your chances of your success, as worrying about the potential for failure is just a waste of energy.
Sometimes, it can be difficult to remain confident at the time of your exam draws nearer, especially if you feel under-prepared, and the exam is on a subject or topic that you’re not particularly confident about.
That is why you have to ensure you give yourself enough time beforehand to ensure you do a sufficient amount of preparation for the exam.
1) If you give yourself enough time to go through your notes several times, you will be able to discover if there are some gaps in your notes where you missed lectures or lessons, or you’ve forgotten to do the reading for a particular week.
You will be able to go to your friends and ask to borrow their notes or ask your tutor for help; you can look for books and journals in the library to read which should help you learn about a topic more thoroughly.
You can then focus on drilling essential facts and figures into your head by reading, taking notes on your notes, asking questions of yourself, and practicing past exam papers.
2) It is important that you know what the exam is going to involve; how long it’s going to take; what the layout of the paper will be; and what sorts of questions will be asked.
If you practice some past exam papers, you will be able to work out how long you should spend on each question, and you will feel more comfortable about organizing your time once you’re actually sitting the exam paper for this year.
You are less likely to panic when you turn over your exam paper if you have some idea of what to expect.
3) The only way you can really boost your confidence before an exam is to ensure you’ve prepared enough, but you also need to remind yourself that exams are not the be-all and end-all of life.
Although you want to achieve a decent result after spending weeks, if not months, revising, you don’t need any additional pressure on yourself to perform, which is why it is helpful to remember that if the exam is a complete disaster, there is always the option to re-sit it.
If you have revised thoroughly and know what to expect from the exam, you shouldn’t have to worry about re-sitting it, though, and so you will be able to go into your exam feeling confident and come out having achieved what you’re capable of.