Wondering how to make the most of the week leading up to your exams? Here are five helpful tips for that crucial week.

Prioritise Your Health

The most important thing that you should be doing in the final week is looking after yourself and prioritising your mental and physical health. You have come so far now, and you don’t want your body to falter at the time you need the most strength.

Make sure you are eating healthy food and staying hydrated. You may not feel like you have time to exercise, but even a short walk can help clear your head and keep yourself energised. Sleep is also so important during this week – aim to get at least 8 hours a night, to ensure that you are well rested to take your exams. Yes, that means no cramming until 2am!

Avoid Learning New Content

It is very difficult to absorb new content so close to an exam. By the final week, your goal should be to have a solid grasp of your entire syllabus. It’s okay if you don’t know things in too much depth, however, you should avoid learning new topics entirely. This will decrease your confidence heading into the exam! Rather, you should use this week to apply all the topics you have learnt through practise questions.

As such, you should make sure you are constantly revising during the term, so you have a decent idea of all the topics come exam time.

Revise Your Mistakes

One useful thing to do during this last week is to go over any commonly made mistakes. You might have kept a ‘mistakes log’ to help with this.

Doing this will refresh your memory on concepts that you may not be confident with, but also gives you time to do some extra revision on such areas.

Look Over Past Exams and Your Syllabus

Hopefully, by the final week you would have completed numerous past exams. Now is the perfect opportunity to revisit them, especially if it's been a while. Focus on the exam structure and understanding the types of questions where you made mistakes.

You may also have a few exams that you haven’t had time to complete. You should avoid doing these exams too close to the actual day if you think it will tire you out. Instead, you can flip through them and think about responses to the questions in your head. Then, if there’s any questions you don’t know how to do, try it properly and review the solutions.

You should also go through your syllabus (if you have one) and make sure you know everything from it. You don’t want to get all panicked on exam day if someone mentions a topic that you have completely forgotten about!

Think About Your Exam Strategy and Prepare for Exam Day

There is no worse feeling than realising that your ID card is missing, your pens are out of ink, and you don’t own an eraser the night before your exam. Therefore, it is vital that you get your supplies organised during this final week.

Go over your permitted materials and ensure that you have everything. Typically, you will require a clear pencil case and water bottle. Double-check that your calculator is in working order and be sure to have spare batteries on hand for it.

You should also double check your exam details, including the date, time, and venue. Additionally, make sure to plan and organise your transportation arrangements accordingly. 

At the end of the day, it important that you trust the work you have put into the preparing for your exams. There is no point in bringing upon additional stress to yourself now. Best of luck!