Dear Parents,
If anyone asks us what we fear most when we were students, many of us would probably scream the word ‘EXAMINATIONS!’. We should still be able to recall the awful memories of sleepless nights and endless studying during our examination period very vividly.
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As parents, you probably strive to provide the most conducive environment for your children during their examination period because you are able to relate the stress your little ones are experiencing with yourself. However, such preparations are in vain if your studious children are not able to properly manage their time during their respective papers!
Poor time management during examinations can affect their overall performances. This will cause all the effort put in by your children to be in vain.
We are here to share with you 3 incredibly helpful tips in allowing your children to have better management of their time. These tips will improve upon their performance during exam!
Tip 1: Understand The Structure Of Your Paper
Do your children understand the format of their papers? Do they know the number and types of questions they are required to answer?
All these may seem obvious to all but you will be surprised that some students are still clueless about this.
Please also note that the structure of the paper your children will be sitting for may not be the same as past year’s one! There are cases where there may be a change of syllabus or examination format. This is unlikely but it is always better to be safe than to be sorry!
Hence, remind your children to double check with their school teachers regarding this! This allows your children to understand the format of their paper. This enables them to be able to efficiently plan their time and roughly gauge how much time they will require to complete the paper if it is easy or difficult.
In addition, during the examination itself, when your children is unsure of the given instructions, discourage them from assuming. Your children should seek clarification with the invigilators to prevent any unnecessary loss of marks.
Tip 2: Attempting Time Trials
After confirming that the structure of the examination is the same as previous years, your children should start doing past years’ papers and other school’s preliminary papers.
However, simply attempting these papers is insufficient. Your children should learn to attempt these papers under time constraint to get a “feel” of what they are going to experience during the “real” examination.
This also allows your children to be more prepared for their upcoming examinations and reinforce the content they have learnt. Practice makes perfect and practising can instil confidence within your children!
Tip 3: Devise a Plan to Divide Your Time
When sitting for examinations, one of students’ main fear is the lack of time to complete all the questions! Not being able to complete the paper is brought about by failure in devising a proper plan when approaching the paper.
When We Fail To Plan, We Plan To Fail.
When examinations begin, always encourage your children to skim through their examination paper! This allows your children to have a rough idea of the difficulty of the paper. This process should not take longer than 2 minutes as the purpose is simply to gauge the feasibility of certain questions. With such information in mind, your children will then be able to generate an accurate time management plan!
Encourage your children to approach the paper in this way:
1) Complete simple questions first!
These questions are seen as a ‘give away’ because they allow your children to gain marks from it easily. Hence, these questions should be completed first. Do not dedicate too much time to such questions as it should be completed as quickly as possible.
2) Next, attempt questions which require more time to complete!
These questions are probably questions which your children have not encountered before. Hence, they require critical thinking and a certain degree of application skills. Thus, it is more likely that more time is needed for completing these questions. Mark these questions with an asterisk on the side and only revisit them when the simpler questions have been completed.
3) Lastly, check your work!
This step should be done last but it should always be compulsory nevertheless, especially when a student has additional time! It is important to check your work during an examination! Many students fail to see the importance of this step and only regret after receiving their grades back. Hence, it is important for your children to be able to plan time for revising through the paper after completing it in order to minimise loss of marks through careless mistakes.
In conclusion…
Practising good time management during an examination is essential.
Having the ability to answer all the questions during the examination should be every student’s top priority because even if the answer provided is not entirely correct, there is a chance that method marks will still be issued! Hence, by attempting ALL questions, I firmly believe that a student’s marks will be maximised.
Lastly, having a good night’s rest the day before an examination will allow your children to function in optimal condition for the paper. Late-night study should be discouraged as such measures prove to be counter-productive. This only increases the level of stress within your children. In addition, sleep deprivation prevents your children to be able to think clearly during examinations! As such, allow your children to be have enough sleep.
We have shared with you our useful tips in improving your children’s time management during their examinations! Please also ensure that your children is in the right physical condition for the examination!
We wish your children all the best in their upcoming examinations!
