Use Your Tests!
Let's say you get back your examination papers today - perhaps for mid-years, a prelim paper, or perhaps promos; alright, maybe it's just a common test - what do you do with the paper? For most students, they just chuck it aside feeling despair or elated with the results; more hardworking ones will probably try and look through the mistakes, see which are the parts they got wrong or calculate the total scores. After all, what done cannot be undone, better to move on to the next phase or life (ie. the next test or exam or subject).
So is that the right way of doing things? NO! Absolutely wrong! Every test, exam or any sort of controlled assessment are valuable experience and tools that you have to use to the fullest in education. The entire process of learning about the exam/test/quiz, taking the paper, getting the papers back and the emotions you experience from there are all points where you can learn about your abilities and come up with ways to overcome any problems you have with school work. Today, I'm going to teach you how you can 'Use Your Tests!'
Pre-Exam Preparation Work
A student who can't be bothered about school never knows when tests are coming; one who cares a bit simply notes the date; the type who bothers note the date, subject, possibly venue. Hardworking students will probably find out the topics covered in the test on top of that and store that information in some sort of planner or notebook. But we all want to strive to be smart students and what do we do? We note down all that information, record them in a planner, look out for free days prior to the test where we can invest some time studying, systematically plan out how are we going to cover all the topics that will be tested. We go an extra mile by coming up with a checklist containing the list of topics and a label stating how confident we are with that area of work and we proceed to write down specific task that we are going to undertake to improve ourselves. These specific task should be like this:
Read up page 46 to 54 of the 'World of Physics' textbook and work out all the example questions.
Check Lecture Notes for any unfilled blanks and ask Tommy what for the missing information.
Go through tutorial mistakes for 'Electromagnetism' and note down concepts that I'm still unclear with.
It's up to you to make a choice whether to do these or not based on how important you view the test/exam. More important is that you actually discipline yourself to carry out your 'To-Do List' since you've already spent the effort to pen these matters down. As you study you might decide that there are more things to do than you previously planned - you might decide to do more practice on an assessment book or go through a guidebook that your Mum just got for you. Go ahead as long as it doesn't interfere with what you have originally laid out for yourself.
The Exam
Just work on the exam paper as best as you can; as long as you feel you are adequately prepared, your stress levels should be acceptable. What we have done before the test is to prepare you in terms of knowledge tested and also to convince your mind that you've been working and there's thus no need to fear. Many people tend to be smart enough to handle test without much studying but they actually fail to convince themselves that they are adequately prepared; this causes them to fumble easily during the test and panic when they see foreign-looking terms on their papers.
Post-Exams & Results
Right after each exam, clear your mind and stop thinking about it until you get back your paper. This way, you don't allow an 'domino effect' in your mind (a description coined by Spiffy), where a single exam paper at the start occupies your mind so much that you lose focus and morale for the subsequent papers leading you to flunk the entire exam.
Once you get back your paper, the first thing you should be concerned about is not the scores itself but whether it has been calculated properly. Then analyze your paper. When I say analyze, I mean it. Look at the mistakes you have made, identify the reason for the mistakes. These reasons can usually be found in the following list:
Didn't know that was in the syllabus
Didn't study that part of the topic (Didn't know it's tested or didn't bother)
Studied the topic but forgot the concept on the spot
Understood the topic but unable to apply the concepts
Insufficient substantiation in explanations or unable to cover all the points needed in the question (problems associated with answering techniques)
Read or interpreted the question wrongly; questions might have been poorly phrased
Careless on your part
Jot down these reasons beside each of the questions you made mistake for. Apparently for every reason you got a question wrong, there's a logical and effective means of overcoming the problem. In some cases (like in the first point), the exam/test itself solves the problem. Now you know that particular knowledge is required in the syllabus. When you didn't study a topic because you didn't know it is going to be tested or can't be bothered, then you have to review your Pre-Exam preparation techniques.
When you studied but still got things wrong like in the 3rd, 4th and 5th point, it means that your studying methods, application and answering techniques are not correct. Attempt to correct them by asking around with your friends about how they managed to solve the questions and studied the concepts involved. Sometimes it's just about remembering things better but it can also be about understanding the theories from a fresh perspective.
In the last 2 cases, you can count yourself unlucky but it also means your examination techniques are not well established. Do more practice and look through questions as well as your answers carefully. Often we are angry with ourselves for such mistakes but then we can try and re-live that moment during the exam and ask ourselves if we could have avoided it. Perhaps it wasn't possible that time, but in future it'll not be the same. We are not saying that you must attain perfect score all the time; it's just that marks should never be wasted because of such trivia reasons. As far as possible, we want the test/exam to be an accurate assessment of your abilities and your efforts.
After all that analysis, come up with a plan to overcome all the flaws in your techniques and also learning so that you have a good head start for the challenges to come. This way, your tests/exams are not wasted even if you attained a trashy score. If your exams are just over, don't wait till you find out about the next test/exam before embarking on the methods I introduced, start right now by analyzing that paper you screwed up!