Studying & Exams Advice | It's Annie!

Hey Everyone,

It's the new year which means... TONNES OF MOCK EXAMS!!! The greatest part of school and Sixth Form....

I'm afraid that this post may not be too long as I obviously need to study (ahhhh). So, here are a few tips that I feel are good for studying or advice to make you not freak out so much:

1. Ask for help if you need it.

I'm not going to lie but until today I felt stupid for needing help from teachers (or even from other students); I felt like this because I'm in Sixth Form, I must be "very smart" so why don't I get it? Everyone is in the same boat (believe it or not), we've all had a major jump from GCSE where everyone has to be there, to choosing your subjects and wanting to be there - which automatically made me feel that I have to do well in all my subjects because I chose them.

WE'RE HUMAN!!!! We're not perfect at everything. Not everyone is good at exams - if you know me in person, you know how stressed out I get. Just today I got a Media Studies Test back (I ran out of time and couldn't answer the last two questions - I missed out on a potential 30 marks) and I saw I got 36%.... I was mortified to say the least; I want to go into a career of Media so you can imagine how embarrassed I was. To solve the solution? I decided that I want to do better in my mock next week, so just before writing this blog post, I emailed my Media Teacher for help. 

Whilst I did that, I emailed my English Teacher too to ask for extra resources to help with the terminology which I feel I could improve on. I feel like there is a big stigma for some people that you've gotten into Sixth Form or higher education so you must understand everything - like I said before we're all human, we're not perfect and we're not robots (hopefully) so if you feel embarrassed or anxious about asking for help: email your teacher, ask a friend or look online (there are so many resources out there!) so you don't have to ask in person and in front of the whole class.

2. Just Do It!!!!

(Sorry if you thought of the meme ahaha) But you can't do better if you don't study - I know I'm one for talking because I'm basically procrastinating right now (OOPS!!!) If you have problems with dealing with procrastination, do what I do (well, what I've found recently), get a website blocker; I've downloaded an add-on for my Google Chrome Browser where I can temporary block sites that I procrastinate on (e.g. EVERY SOCIAL MEDIA). The one I use is called "StayFocused" and I can say I want to block YouTube for 2 hours and it won't let me change the settings for it or anything once I accept (which is both good and bad). But it works!!!!

And the sooner you get it done, the better you feel about your knowledge for your exam that's coming up (and you'll feel very productive too :D ).

3. Try not to stress!

Trust me, I know the stress some people can put on you to do well in exams (including yourself) but it's one thing that makes me want to procrastinate - I forget about the exam = no stress, but it soon gets very stressful when the time of the exam comes. You will feel so good when you get a better mark than expected than a really unexpected bad mark (but really if you didn't study it's kinda expected). 

Timing for me is the worse, I write too much and too slowly in exams which stresses me out massively. But at the end of the day, it's just mocks - to see where you are at the moment so you CAN IMPROVE.

4. Do your best.

Ok, this is the same thing everyone says but it's true. Why don't try when you've got the potential to do really well. There are great studying videos on YouTube to tell you how to organise you time and how to actually study; so when you procrastinate, do it effectively (aha) which leads to you being really productive.

I hope that these tips helped you! I guess I better go study now *reluctantly types this line*. You probably should too if you have exams or even homework ahaha.

Thanks for reading!

Annie Xxx