Cheat Sheets: How to Secure More Marks In The Last Week of Exam Study

With exams just around the corner we know how stressful things can get…

Especially when you’ve got a number of teens at high school!

If this is a position you’re in at the moment – may the force be with you. Hopefully your teen is going OK and isn’t too stressed!

If they are panicking, we’ve got a tip for them to help remember much more in the last few days leading up to each exam.

Make a Cheat Sheet

No, we’re not saying your teen should smuggle in bits of paper into the exam!

A Cheat Sheet is something your teen should prepare in the last few days before each exam.

Its purpose is to help your teen remember things that are hard to remember.

Content such as facts, important peoples’ names, place names, subject-specific terminology, formulas, processes – all of those fun things!

Most students find it easier to remember more conceptual content – well, once they understand it that is. But there are parts in most subjects that require students to just know something.

Unfortunately, these things can usually only be rote learned, rather than inherently understood.

For example, as part of writing a history essay, your teen will need to back up what they say with evidence such as peoples’ and place names, dates, etc.

This stuff can be a pain to study because you just have to know  it!

Our solution? Create a Cheat Sheet.

So we want your teen to write down on a piece of paper all of these fact-type things they’ll need to know for their upcoming exam.

Any and all ‘facts’ that they can think of.

Then in any down time your teen has before the exam they need to read over their Cheat Sheet. Perhaps before they go to bed, when they’re having lunch, or even when they’re (not driving!) in the car.

The idea is that these tricky bits of information will soak in over the last few days before the exam.

We found it really helpful to go over our Cheat Sheet just before our exams too

Waiting outside an exam room is a horrible business.

We don’t recommend ever studying new information in this time – it’s way too late. What will be will be!

But looking over a Cheat Sheet will give your teen something to do, and let them consolidate all those nasty little facts they need to remember.

If they want to be really sneaky – as soon as they get into the exam room they can jot down the ones they always struggle to remember on the inside cover of their paper. When the time comes during the exam they need that bit of information, it’ll be right there staring them in the face.

Using colour in a Cheat Sheet helps some students – particularly visual learners, as they come to associate a certain fact with a specific colour. It’s worth giving this a go anyway irrespective of what your teen’s predominant learning style is.

If your teen does have exams just around the corner – best of luck to them! We hope that making Cheat Sheets is as effective for them as it was for us!

Image Credit: Dreamstime