Unfriend Poor Grades with Early Exam Preparation
I started this series on Unfriending Poor Grades on the last edition of Student Groove by telling you that you have to unfriend poor grades by attending your lectures because being present for your lectures helps you really grasp what your lecturer is teaching better than the lecture notes. Today, I want you to do one more thing that will make poor grades your permanent enemy – start early exam preparation.
However, before I get into that, one truth I want you to bear in mind is that no matter how badly you have performed in the past you are not destined to be a poor performing student.
Don’t believe the lie that some people are born to be good students while others – like you – have failure as their destiny.
Even if nobody in your family or town has performed excellently in their exam before, it doesn’t mean you can’t be the first.
I’m not trying to motivate you to believe a lie. I am just telling you the truth that will free from academic failure.
Carry over is not in anybody’s gene; students bag it by their lifestyle between the beginning of the semester to exam.
You see, God designed your brain with the ability to hear or read something, store it in your brain and retrieve it when demand is placed on it. That’s the basis for your performance in an exam.
A proof of this is that you remember the gossip you had with people or your conversations with people even without having them say it again.
You and the best in your class have this ability; however, what makes the difference between you and the exceptional performer in your class is how you put your brain to use in between the time of storing information and retrieving it.
Your examination is a major event that determines your overall performance in school your while preparation for it is key to your success or failure.
Many people record poor grades because they started preparing for their exam late. You and I know that there is a proper time for every activity under the sun and the right time for your exam is when school starts NOT when the exam time table is released.
You see, in a semester or term, you have a number of courses to write exam on and each of them count in your overall performance. They are very important; no matter how small the unit load is.
Waiting till when exam time table is announced to start reading is actually waiting too late. Exam time table is released about a month or two weeks before the commencement of our exam.
Students who wait till that time get poorly prepared because instead of learning with a relaxed mind, they rush their course content with the hope of learning enough to just pass.
Unfortunately, they don’t even learn enough to pass and when they do, the best they get is just a weak pass. That’s why you have to stop that practice and start your preparation on time.
When your lecturer teaches in class, there are usually things that are not clear in the course content. This requires that you go for tutorial or ask someone for clarification; but you won’t have that luxury of time when you start your preparation very close to your exam.
That’s why those who wait till that time end up not learning enough to pass and failure becomes unavoidable.
Therefore, if your semester is just starting, start preparation for your exam by attending lectures and studying your lecture materials bit by bit as they are taught and released. And if you can, please use your course outline and study beyond your lecturer.
I understand that your failure to prepare on time may not be because you are an unserious student; but because you have other pressing issues to attend to such as hustling to raise your schools fees.
I understand your situation and it’s commendable that you took the bold step to hustle to pay your way through school instead of resigning to fate.
However, I want you to find a balance between your hustle and academic because if you hustle to get money for school fees; but end up getting poor grades, it’s almost like failure – you spend money without properly learning or getting good grades.
Try your best to read your lecture note after very lecture so that you can properly commit to memory what you have learnt and use what I call, Lecture Encoding Formula to ensure you can easily recall what you have read weeks and months after.
When you use this method, you will learn how to read your lectures after class and store them in your brain such that with a few keys you can recollect what the lectures is all about and write exam on them excellently.
One more thing you can do is to befriend those serious students who don’t need to hustle to pay their school fees and learn from them. They have all the time to study and read their courses.
Their iron will sharpen yours and give you better understanding of your course and readier to take on any exam question. (For more on this, please read my post, Same Admission; Different Mission)
Early preparation is not just about attending lectures and studying your notes regularly; it includes making needed efforts to understand your exam and examiner so as to ensure you satisfy them.
It will take me a long time to explain that one that’s why I want devout next edition of Student Groove to it. Please join me.
Meanwhile, I have experienced abysmal and shameful as well as excellent and glorious academic performance and I to draw lessons I have gleaned from my experiences and other people with similar experiences to raise an army of peak performing student.
If you think, this is for you, join our Facebook community, Peak Student Hub where you gain fresh insight on learning, excelling in your exam, being a balanced student and preparing for life after school.
