This year the University of Aberdeen, like most other institutions, has decided to do online exams this year (for obvious reasons, please let´s not talk about it…).
I am sure many of you will also be thinking – How am I going to find the motivation to study for online exams? Exams for which I have an entire day to complete them, and that are “open-book”, i.e. I can use all of my lecture materials/notes/books/the internet etc.?!
I have been giving this quite a lot of thought recently – how I will motivate myself and how I will go about exam day. I have come up with a few ideas and thought I´d share them with you – in case you´re needing a bit of inspiration…
Contrary to how these things “normally” work, I will be starting with the most important point first – that way the rest will make more sense. So, let´s get straight into it!
How To Motivate Yourself To Study For Online Exams
1. Studying for the online exams as if they were “real” exams is the only way to get something out of this term…
Let´s start with the most important point first. I think that studying for the exams as if they were “real”, is the only way I will get something out of this term. Of course, I learnt a lot during lectures, labs and through continuous assessment, but the only way I will remember what I have learnt in six months, is if I do some good old-fashioned revision, more note-taking and lovely learning by heart. If I don´t do that, I am sure, come September, I won´t remember anything we learnt this term.
And as I am really interested in my course/what we´ve covered this year, and the whole reason for coming to university is to actually learn something, that in itself for me is motivation to study for these exams!
2. It´s not like I have anything else to do…
I don´t know if this necessarily deserves to be an entire point on this list, but for me, this is definitely a good reason to study for online exams.
With us all having to self-isolate, it´s not like I have many other things to do at the moment. At least studying is something useful and setting aside a few hours a day for studying will help me maintain some sort of structure/routine in my life. And having a daily routine that you can stick to is a very important thing to have right now.
3. You can be a bit more selective with studying…
If we were having “real” exams this term, I would definitely have spent a lot of time also revising topics that I dislike – just in case they came up in the exams and I didn´t like any of the other questions. With the exam being at home and having far more time to do it, I do feel like it is safe(r), to be more selective when studying (goodbye immunology!).
With the online exams, you can focus mainly on studying for questions on topics you like. Learning about things I actually enjoy and find interesting will motivate me to study them! And in the unlikely case that you hate the exam questions, you have time to look up some extra information to answer a different question you were less prepared for.
4. It Will Be A Lot Easier and Faster On The Day
If you actually study for online exams, you´ll be prepared for the questions you are given on the day. That will make answering them a lot easier and faster, and you won´t have to panic-look-up all the information you need.
That way, once you have opened the paper, it´ll be a lot faster to answer the questions. Then you can submit and then enjoy the rest of your day a lot sooner!
5. Make a Study Plan and Do a Little Every Day
I absolutely love lists – I love making lists and I love ticking things off of lists. I find making a list of all the things I want to do/read/learn etc. for the exam is kind of fun! And being able to score things off the list once I have done them motivates me to do them. It´s a win-win!
I am going to try and do a little bit of studying every day. I like to get up in the morning and be productive until lunch time, before giving myself the afternoon off.
6. Studying Can Be Fun
Studying can be fun – if you are doing the right thing. Of course, some things can be a bit of a nuisance to do, but, as I mentioned above, perhaps you can leave out the topics you don´t enjoy for these online exams.
What I find quite enjoyable and something that is a good tool to check your understanding is to draw diagrams. This is especially helpful if you are wanting to summarise a lot of information in a short period of time. Including some sort of diagram is highly recommended in medical science exams, so you could already draw out a few diagrams for certain topics ahead of the exams. And then you can just adapt them to the question and inserting them into your answer on the day of the exam.
How will I go about exam day?
For me, the best thing about the exam being open for 12 hours: I can start it at 9am. Many of my exams were initially scheduled for 12, 2 or 3pm – which I hate. I´d much rather get up early and get them over with.
So, for the online exams, what I am going to do is open the paper at 9 am and then give myself 90 minutes (like I would have had under normal circumstances) to answer the questions. I´ll write out the answers by hand (I much prefer that because I don´t like typing “under pressure”), which will give me a rough idea of how much I can write in that time. We´ve obviously been told not to write a lot more than we usually would, when we only have 45 minutes per question, so you won´t get a lot of extra marks for writing a 2000-word essay anyway.
I will try and do as much as I can from memory (which will hopefully do 99% of the job, like it would normally have to). After that, I will then have the possibility to double-check stuff as I am typing it up, adding a bit of extra info if necessary, and adapt and insert my diagrams I have already prepared or make a new one. And then hopefully I´ll be done by 12 and can enjoy the rest of my day!
I hope you guys have found this post useful and it has given you a few reasons to motivate yourself to study for online exams. If you have any additional ideas, let me know in the comments below!
More Uni Advice
Feel free to also check out my other posts, such as my Top 5 Tips for Revision Week and 5 Tips for Exam Day.
If you are new to the University of Aberdeen, check out my Reasons for Studying Medical Sciences in Aberdeen or my Guide to Student Accommodation.
