How to gain 5 more marks the day before your exam

At ILS,

We believe effective revision gives students the opportunity to achieve their potential,

And their mindset, good or bad, decides their grade on the day of the exam.

I think students typically understand how important having the right mindset is,

But rarely know how to go about creating it.

And parents usually have a better idea of what to do,

But most teenagers don’t want to listen to their parents.

So below are 3 quick strategies,

Delivered by someone other than their parents,

That will get any teenager more marks,

Without having to do any extra work.

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PMA – With a twist

PMA stands for positive mental attitude,

And is something my grandpa first introduced me to.

Most teenagers have heard many people before me tell them that they should be saying “I can do this!” and “There’s no such word as can’t!”

And most teenagers are going to react in the same way I reacted when I heard this in my teenager years,

That’s cringy, I don’t need to say that.

So here’s my twist,

And it wont resonate with everyone.

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I made PMA competitive.

Lining up for the exam,

I would think,

“I would not want to be Billy right now,”

And if the exam was particularly difficult I’d think,

“Well, if I am finding this hard, Billy has not got a chance and the grade boundaries will then be lower.”

By using someone else as an inferior adversary it gave me that extra bit of motivation and focus.

I think this comes from the ‘If you say you are, you are’ category of thought.

If you say you are so superior to all of these other kids,

Billy is a symbol for all the students you am going to outperform,

Then you start acting like it.

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Food

I am not a nutritionist,

And whilst I will briefly mention three foods that are commonly considered to be beneficial before an exam,

That’s not really what I am interested in.

I am more interested in how this impacts parents,

Which I will mention below.

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My three foods to prioritise are:

Bananas

Berries

And a protein source.

Feel free to google yourself if you want to know why.

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As a parent however,

The battle can sometimes be how to convince your teenager to listen to your best judgement.

This is where you have to be tactical.

I would recommend addressing this point weeks prior to the exams,

And using the best persuasion tactic parents have at their disposal,

Bribery.

“If we agree the things you are going to eat during the exam period and you promise their wont be any fuss then you can do ‘X’ amount less revision or ‘X’ longer on your Xbox.”

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Additionally, watch out for the period in between two exams on the same day.

Often students are not prepared both nutritionally and mentally for how to manage themselves and then suffer the consequences.

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Sleep

I am slightly cheating the concept of this newsletter when I discuss sleep,

As my big point here is that a student needs a consistent wake up and sleep time for a good period prior to their exams starting,

Rather than just the 24 hoursbefore.

This is not an easy thing to do with all of the distractions out there,

But it is so important and people often make the mistake of thinking that it is just about duration rather than as much about consistency.

And the consistency of wake up times has to be lined up for when a student needs to wake up for their exams.

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I hope you all have a great week ahead,

Best wishes,

Joel