Whether you’ve just taken your first exam, midterms or your finals, I am going to tell you the one thing you should do before your next exam.
This one thing is called a Post Exam Review.
Download the Post Exam Review Cramsheet below to see why you failed your last exam
A Post Exam Review is an audit of where you currently stand with your exams and grades. It’s an honest look and reflection of what went wrong, what’s working and what’s not working with your study habits.
Doing this kind of a review isn’t just reserved for students who failed an exam or didn’t get the grade they expected. If you want to improve in any way, the easiest way to do so is to take a step back to self-assess and get some valuable feedback from your professors.
When you do this, you’ll be able to learn from the mistakes or study decisions you made during your last exam and make the necessary adjustments moving forward in your semester.
Download the Post Exam Review Cramsheet below to see why you failed your last exam
If you completely failed a class, you should absolutely perform a post-exam review for each of the exams you took in that class. Especially if you plan on retaking it. Obviously there was something about either the way you study, take notes or your test taking style that isn’t working in your favor. You want to avoid making the same mistakes when you retake the class.
If you want to do a post-exam review, I am going to teach you the types of questions you can ask yourself to get a better understanding of the factors that could play into the grades you are currently receiving on your exams.
In my personal experience, students make mistakes in 2 different areas.
- Lack of knowledge with the lecture material
- Lack of test taking skills
Questions to ask to find out if your weakness is knowing the lecture material.
- Did I read my textbook thoroughly?
- Where did the material for the questions come from the textbook or lecture?
- Where my notes detailed enough?
- Did I quiz myself to see if I actually knew the material?
- Did I need to know more detail or just big, main ideas?
- Did I study the right information?
- Did I know the information but not how to apply it to word problems, essays or scenarios, and case studies?
Questions to ask to find out if your weakness is test taking skills
- Was I overly tired when I went to take the exam and that affected my concentration?
- Did I rush through the exam?
- Did I take too long on each question so I wasn’t able to finish the exam?
- Did I misread or misunderstand the question?
- Did I fail to show all my work?
- Did I forget to review my answers?
There are a lot of factors that go into passing or failing and exam and if you’re really serious about doing the best that you can do, the only way that you’re going to get better is if every single time you have an exam you review it.
Download the Post Exam Review Cramsheet below to see why you failed your last exam
Take a look at what worked and what didn’t so that the next time around you can make some adjustments that will help you improve your grades.
Also, professors aren’t perfect. I’ve found many grading mistakes and have experienced many professors dropping questions that most of the students got wrong.
If you want to take this post-exam review to the “A” student level here’s what to do:
Schedule an office hour visit with your professor and do the post-exam review with them. Tell them what you did to study. Tell them when you started studying. Tell them how you took your notes. Then go through each question with them to see where the mistakes happened.
Then create your Academic Contingency Plan for when you’re, feeling unmotivated and uninspired or are struggling academically
My motto is, create a plan, then work your plan.
But what do you do when you’re working your plan and things are still falling to pieces?
You pull out your academic contingency plan.
What’s an academic contingency plan?
It’s Plan B.
Plan B is your back up plan. It’s the plan to use when you’re struggling academically, emotionally and physically and just cannot get it together.
What should be included in your academic contingency plan?
A list of all of the campus resources and go to strategies that you can use to prevent a mental breakdown, make sure you feel like you’re accomplishing something with your life and not fail your classes.
What you have to remember as a student is that you’re never alone. Whenever you run into any kind of trouble, don’t be afraid to seek out help. There’s always someone willing to listen or assist you through whatever struggle it is you’re currently going through.
Don’t ever let the fear of being judged or embarrassment be the thing that stands in the way of you and your greatness. Lot’s of students go through rough patches and lots of students come out on the other side with an incredible comeback story that helps them land jobs and write amazing grad school admission essays.
Here are some examples of the campus resources that should be in your contingency plan:
- Academic Services and workshops
- Professor’s office hours
- Career Services
- Campus Library
- Tutoring
- Writing Center
- Financial Aid office
- Personal Counseling Center
What you can expect and how do you use some of these resources if you don’t know where to begin?
This video goes into detail on the 5 resources that will have the biggest impact on your college experience both academically and personally.
How often to use campus resources based on what point in the semester you’re in:
Tutoring: 1-2x weekly all semester long if you’re struggling in a class. 2-3x pre week if you’re really struggling and need to bring your grade up fast.
Office hours: 1x/week to 1-2x per month. 1x/week is recommended for students who are really struggling.
Writing Center: 1 month, 2 week, 1 week, 3 days before your paper assignment is due
Personal Counseling: Anytime and as often as you and the counselor deem it’s necessary. If you’re feeling like you’re too much in your head, you’re experiencing any signs anxiety, confusion or depression is a great opportunity to reach out to a mental health professional.
Not sure how to make the most of on-campus tutoring and writing centers, this video shows you how.
Master my Three Step Study Routine Protocol which naturally builds into your study routine a method for you to test whether or not you actually know what you’re supposed to know.
- Step #1: Acquire the information that you’re going to be tested on. This is done through lecture, readings, tutoring, homework or online resources.
- Step #2: Test to make sure that you actually learned, understood and can apply the information that you just acquired and are supposed to know. This is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of your studying process.
This is how you move from feeling like you know the information to knowing that you know the information because now you’re forcing yourself to prove if you can intellectually talk about this concept. Can you answer multiple choice questions about it? Can you write a short essay without having visual prompts or a book to reference?
Until you try to apply the information in the same way you’re going to be asked to apply it on the test, you cannot say that you actually know the information.
The reason why most students only “feel” like the know the information is because they completely skip step 2 of the studying protocol.
The best ways to test yourself is by answering the end of chapter questions, by asking your professor for a study guide/practice exam, studying with a partner and having them ask you questions, trying to verbalize the information out loud without looking at your notes. Trying to write as much as you can about the subject from your notes or completing problem sets from old homework or a workbook.
When you run into an issue where you can’t recall or you’re giving the wrong response, you don’t know it well enough. You’ve successfully identified a knowledge gap and at that point, you need to move to step 3 of the study protocol.
- Step #3: Fill in the knowledge gaps. Which means to go and relearn the information. Go and get some help trying to understand it. When you go through this 3 step study protocol, you’re figuring out what you know and you’re making sure that before the exam, you go and you learn everything that you’ve identified that you didn’t know. SO that everything that could get you into trouble on the exam is eliminated and you can without a doubt say that you’re prepared for the exam.
If you follow this 3 Step Study Protocol, you’ll always know whether you’re ready to ace the exam.
What to do if your constant procrastination is hindering your success?
Procrastination comes down to managing our thinking and emotions which drive our actions, and our actions create results.
If getting yourself to work on reading assignments or start early on papers is hard for you, it’s probably because of a thought you keep repeating to yourself that is generating a feeling of discomfort which causes you to avoid it.
If you want to begin tackling the procrastination monster, you have to begin by diving deep into the thinking that’s causing your procrastination in the first place.
What’s going on internally? What are you thinking about the reading, the paper or the calculus problems?
- Are you thinking that it’s too hard for you?
- Are you thinking you’re going to get a low grade anyway?
- Are you thinking that it’s going to take up too much time?
- Are you thinking that you don’t know where to start and you don’t want to do it wrong?
How are those thoughts making you feel about yourself, about the work, about college?
We’re naturally built to avoid or run away from feelings of discomfort and often we run away by distracting ourselves with things that cause us pleasure. (i.e napping, watching tv, hanging with friends)
The true reason we procrastinate is that we don’t want to feel or deal with those feelings of discomfort until we’re forced to. Until we reach a point where avoiding it causes more displeasure than getting it done. (i.e the paper is due tomorrow and you’ll fail if you don’t hand it in)
Good luck bringing your grades up! I promise you that if you do this work, if you take the post-exam review process seriously and make the needed corrections going forward, your grade will go up for the next exam.