Tips on How to Survive the Exam Season五條小妙招，助你考試通關(guān)

⊙ By Rose

翻譯：范婕

Prepare Yourself

My first tip is to prepare yourself for revising. Let me explain what I mean by this.

During the semester, you’re going to take a lot of notes and you go to the lectures, and these are the first steps in the learning process. Now,at the end of the week, gather all the notes you took during the week and run through your notes quickly. While doing this, constantly ask yourself, “Do I understand what I am reading?” If yes, great. If not, you have a lot of time left to understand before the exams take place. You can ask a friend, a teacher, you can look it up on the Internet or go to a library. This takes a little effort, but the results are great.

There are two big advantages. You understand everything before the exam period starts, so you don’t have to bother other people with your questions during this stressful time, and the second pro is that you have seen the material before you start revising, so you’ll probably remember some things, and it makes revising easier.

Switch between Different Types of Revision

My second tip is to plan different types of revision in order to study more efficiently. Even if you are motivated to study, everyone gets bored after a couple of hours of studying. We get distracted[分心]or we get tired no matter how smart or motivated we are. Something that really helps is to plan different types of active studying while revising. You switch between useful study methods so you won’t get bored and it’s easier to study fora longer period of time. You can, for example, study using flashcards for an hour, then work on the summary for an hour, then have lunch, etc.

Make the Facts More Relatable

One thing that can really help you to memorize your study material more easily is to make the facts more relatable. There are many different ways to do so. I’m going to give you two examples and the first one is to create vivid images while studying. This can be really helpful for studying history, for example. Try to imagine how the events took place.This allows you to remember certain details more accurately. The second method, especially for learning new words: Try to make yourself familiar with new words by looking for words that look alike in other languages.For example, the word “necessary” in English looks a lot like the word“nécessaire” in French.

Teach and Learn Outside of the Classroom

Tip number 4: Teach and learn outside of the classroom. In my experience, teaching is the most efficient way of studying. By explaining the study material to yourself or to someone else, you will remember the material a lot better, and, most importantly, you will understand everything you explain. Look for a study buddy or small study group, and discuss everything you have studied before the exam. The idea is to sit down and take turns explaining certain topics of the study material.

There are two ways you can benefit from this: one, being the teacher; and two, being the student. While being the teacher,you get a great opportunity to explain what you have learned; and while being the student, you hear the study material from another perspective which you can learn from.

Test Yourself with Past Papers

My last tip is to test yourself. At the end of the whole study process, you must be able to perform during the exam.One way to really prepare yourself to do that is to do past papers and to do them properly. Sometimes the teacher gives you past papers you can use, but, if they don’t, you can find exercises for nearly every subject on the Internet. Use those to your advantage. Time yourself, don’t cheat, and act as if

it were your real exam. After you’ve finished, take a short break and then mark your own past paper. Make sure to be tough on yourself. Pay attention to small mistakes so you don’t have to make those during your real exam, and revise the part you didn’t do well on until you can’t get it wrong any more.

參考譯文

提前做準(zhǔn)備

我的第一條小妙招是提前做好復(fù)習(xí)準(zhǔn)備，下面我來具體說說這點。

在整個學(xué)期里，你要去上課，做大量筆記，這是學(xué)習(xí)過程中的第一步。到了周末，把一周來所做的筆記歸攏起來，快速瀏覽一遍，邊瀏覽邊問自己：“正在閱讀的這些內(nèi)容，我真的懂了嗎？”如果答案是肯定的，那自然很好；如果答案是否定的，那么在考試到來之前，你還有大量時間去把知識點學(xué)好，可以向老師、朋友請教，還可以在網(wǎng)上或者去圖書館查閱資料。這些事情做起來是有點勞神費力，卻能讓你受益匪淺。

這樣做有兩個好處。第一是讓你在考試期開始前就把知識點消化好，那樣就不用在每個人都“壓力山大”的時期再去勞煩他們?yōu)槟愦鹨山饣?；第二個好處是，早在真正開始復(fù)習(xí)之前，你就一直接觸課程資料，對一部分知識點可能已經(jīng)有印象了，這會讓后面的復(fù)習(xí)過程變得更容易。

變換不同的復(fù)習(xí)方法

小妙招之二是安排不同的復(fù)習(xí)方法，讓學(xué)習(xí)更為高效。即使你很有學(xué)習(xí)動力，學(xué)了幾個小時后也會感到厭倦；無論多么聰明、多么有動力的人，學(xué)著學(xué)著都會分心，會感到疲倦。安排多種有效的學(xué)習(xí)方法，在復(fù)習(xí)的時候是很有幫助的。在行之有效的各種學(xué)習(xí)方法之間來回變換，你就不會感到無趣厭煩，而且更容易投入到較長時間的學(xué)習(xí)中。比如用抽認卡學(xué)習(xí)一個小時，寫摘要一個小時，接著吃午餐，等等。

讓知識點更具關(guān)聯(lián)性

讓知識點更具關(guān)聯(lián)性，這是能有效幫助你輕松記憶所學(xué)內(nèi)容的一個辦法，具體的操作形式多種多樣，我來舉兩個例子吧。第一，學(xué)習(xí)的時候，在頭腦中生成生動的畫面。這對歷史之類科目的學(xué)習(xí)就非常有幫助。想象一下歷史事件發(fā)生的過程，此種方法能讓你更準(zhǔn)確地記住一些細節(jié)。第二個例子主要針對新詞語的學(xué)習(xí)，具體做法是在其他語言中尋找與新詞匯相似的詞匯，讓自己對新詞熟悉起來，例如英語中的“necessary”就和法語中的“nécessaire”很相似。

走出課堂，教學(xué)并舉

小妙招之四是課堂外的教與學(xué)。以我個人的經(jīng)驗來說，講課是最有效的習(xí)得方法。通過對自己或他人闡述學(xué)習(xí)內(nèi)容，你會對所學(xué)內(nèi)容記得更牢，最重要的是，你會把所闡述的東西都理解清楚。找一個學(xué)習(xí)伙伴或者加入一個學(xué)習(xí)小組，在考試之前把自己學(xué)到的東西跟大家一起討論，關(guān)鍵是要一起坐下來，輪流發(fā)言，就學(xué)習(xí)內(nèi)容展開話題討論。

在此過程中，你能從兩個方面受益：一方面，成為施教者；另一方面，成為受教者。作為施教者，你獲得了一次闡述所學(xué)知識的好機會；作為受教者，你從另一個角度審聽知識點，他山之石，可以攻玉。

做真題，進行自我測試

最后一條小妙招是進行自我測試。經(jīng)過整個學(xué)期的學(xué)習(xí)，最后你必須在考場上好好發(fā)揮，而要讓自己真正做到有備無患，其中一個方法就是做往屆考試的真題，并且要認真完成。有時候，老師會給學(xué)生派發(fā)真題試卷，但如果他們沒有這樣做，你也可以在網(wǎng)上找到幾乎每個學(xué)科的練習(xí)題，讓自己從中受益。做試題的時候，要記好時間，不要弄虛作假，要像對待真正的考試一樣。做完以后，短暫休息一下，然后給自己的試卷打分。務(wù)必要對自己嚴格些，注意那些小錯誤，避免實戰(zhàn)的時候再犯。如果還有地方?jīng)]做好，就要繼續(xù)復(fù)習(xí)，直到不會再犯錯為止。