The National Senior Certificate exams’ countdown clock on the Department of Basic Education’s website shows that the Class of 2019 will sit down to their last school exams in about 60 days.
Nola Payne, Head of Faculty: Information and Communications Technology at The Independent Institute of Education, shared the following tips to help learners use their time affectively:
Review your old exam papers
Determining where you did well and where you went wrong during the penultimate matric exams can be a great confidence booster. Focusing on and mastering those sections of work which proved problematic during the prelims means that you are concentrating on material that is very likely to arise during the final exams, and for which you will now be well prepared when it does.
Complete previous year’s examinations
Completing past exam papers is one of the best and most efficient ways to prepare for exams. The reason is because you apply what you have learned, you replicate the time constraints you will encounter during the actual exams. You get used to different formats of questions, and ultimately gain a more thorough insight into your work than what you would have achieved through simple reading and re-reading of textbooks. Check the WCED’s website or your local library for these exam papers.
Map the questions asked to the work covered in class and textbooks
When revising, whether by reviewing classwork, textbooks, completing past papers or looking at prelim exam papers, take note of which questions are asked time and time again. There is an excellent chance these questions will be making their appearance in your own final exams, albeit potentially in a different format, so ensure that you pay extra attention to them.
Look at sections and questions you had difficulty with
If you constantly find yourself struggling with specific questions or sections of work, and if these consistently arose in previous papers, it is time to do the hard work and face down the challenge. Compile a document for each subject, summarizing the hardest to conquer sections, and keep this close by at all times. Go back to it over and over, and in two months’ time you will be much more confident when faced with previously problematic work.
“Start today on the steps and you will be reaping the rewards of being confidently prepared when you step into the exam room in October,” Payne says.
