You read your books from cover to cover before the exam and you will pass! This is something a lot of people get wrong. Cramming and reading everything that you have ever been taught are likely to result in burnout, confusion and failure. There are some much better ways to success that can be done before and during an exam. A lot of whether you succeed or not, is down to technique, timing and strategy, not just about what you know.

When you revise before an exam, you have to be active in your revision, reading reams and reams is honestly useless. To imbed the information, you have to be using it. You need a pen in your hands physically solving the problems or writing notes as you go. You can just underline key points. These activities require you to think about what you are doing, where as reading only requires you to look. Looking does not mean that you have processed or understood. About 35 minutes is all your brain can take if revision and study is going to be effective. Then you need a few minutes break and then go again.

- Have a revision schedule and plan out what you are doing and when. Prioritise subjects or topics that you find more challenging but do not neglect completely what you are more secure with. Don’t be random as you will miss a lot. You must remember to plan for breaks.

You do have a finite time to prepare for an exam however, you still need to make time for things that you enjoy. Stopping everything that enjoy or is part of a normal routine will make you feel overwhelmed or resentful. This does not mean that you are shopping on a Saturday, out with friends on a Sunday and playing computer games until 3 am every night or morning of the week. A 3hr cinema trip on a Saturday every other week and playing 10 minutes of a computer game or having a chat in your study breaks are fine, more than that they are advisable.

- Have a designated study area without distractions.

- Look at mark schemes and examiner reports for the papers that you are revising from and look at what they say about how students answer the questions. Look at the good, the bad and the ugly answers that are available on the CAIE website. Questions are often repeated or at least the style or format. Looking at these reports will give you a very clear idea on expectations.

- Understand question formats and the key words and their demands.

- Have short notes or quotes posted around your room etc.

- Sleep well before an exam and have a routine that includes sleep times.

- Eat well, healthy foods - don’t however, eat a lot straight before an exam.

- Go to the bathroom before the exam you should not go during as if you are doing things properly, you won’t have time.

- Be organised, have the right equipment and a bottle of water.

- Be at least 15 minutes early to an exam.

- Work out before the exam how much time you have for each question by knowing the number of marks available.

- Underline the key words in a question during an exam and as you are answering refer back to it and make sure that you are answering the question being asked.

- Remember to show your working or planning and give both sides of the argument if it is a what extent or how far question. You have to say how it was and how it was not.

- If you cannot answer something, move on and come back to it at the end.

- Read your answers after you have written them, check yourselves.

- Take a deep breath and don’t panic as if you have prepared and stay on track answering the questions being asked, then you have it in the bag.