at university i implemented a six step system that i used for every single one of my exams
in my second and third year i never had to pull an all-nighter and i never had to
cram all my studying in the night before an exam because i had a system in place that prevented
that from happening in fact i'd even go as far as saying pretty much all of my exams were relatively
stress-free i went into the exam hall pretty calm because i was well prepared and i was confident i
would do well i had confidence that the system that i had implemented would work for me again
this time just like it did the exam before and the exam before that and the system involves starting
off very broad at the beginning it's more about carrying out background research but keeping it
fun is so important that when you first start a new module you keep it fun and there's techniques
you can implement to do this that i explain later on in the video so at the beginning of the module
your studying starts off researching a broad area of the subject but as we work through the semester
the research area gets smaller and smaller until we arrive at the very last stage of the system
which is the revision stage and this is where you focus your studying on a very narrow
research area essentially you're only studying specifically for what you're predicting will
come up in the exam and the week before the exam is extremely important if you're aiming to achieve
incredibly high grades so it's essential that you use your time during this week ultra efficiently
so make sure you stick around to the end of the video because that's by far the most important
part step one download past papers i talk about them quite often on this channel but i bring them
up so much because they really are an incredibly useful revision tool so the first step of the six
step system is at the beginning of the year i'd download the exam pass papers on my course some
subjects there would be past papers going back six or seven years but other subjects they would only
have the last year's past paper and i did this the first thing at the beginning of the semester
for two reasons firstly i could scan through them all and kind of see what topics would be taught
and secondly it would ensure that i would have all the past papers downloaded and printed off ready
for when i started my revision in a few months and i can't stress how important this first step is
if you have access to exam past papers it was one of my biggest mistakes at high school
not using past papers in my revision strategy so don't make the same mistakes that i did
step 2 carry out background research on the new subject this stage of the system can be quite fun
let's say the module you're just starting at the beginning of the semester is macroeconomics your
aim is to get a general idea of what the subject is about while at the same time growing your
curiosity and hopefully sparking more interest in the subject so we're keeping the research
area relatively broad and most importantly at this stage we're not opening any thick boring textbooks
at this stage we stick to more interesting forms of media such as documentaries youtube videos and
podcasts and it's important that you keep it interesting the idea being that it sparks more
inspiration and interest in your subject matter so for example if your subject is macroeconomics
then you might watch documentaries on netflix such as panic the untold story of the 2008
financial crisis trump's trade war or dream empire china's real estate bubbles all incredibly good
documentaries and so what i particularly like about documentaries is that it brings alive
a subject that textbooks and even lectures they just can't do they are one of the most fun ways to
learn new information we're far more likely to pay attention to a one-hour documentary than listen to
a one-hour lecture right they also allow you to develop a more well-rounded base of knowledge
rather than focusing in on just one area and that's why documentaries are really useful at this
early stage and i talk more in depth about this in the transform your grades in 30 days course
that i'm launching on the 29th of march and as of this video more than 1 000 students have already
enrolled onto the waiting list and those students will be getting a 50 discount from the limited
promotional launch offer so don't miss out click the link in the description for more information
it's a 30-day course that i created because i realized that so many of you are watching my
videos but not actually implementing what you're learning and so i designed the course specifically
to help you implement what i teach you to level up your studying and completely transform your grades
and i personally hold you accountable you'll get personal support and guidance from me click on
the link in description for more information step three study every day now that we passed
the introductory stages of the new module we get to the main part so if you think of it like this
there are three parts to a module we first have the introduction period of the module then we have
the main body and then the exam period and right at the beginning of the module it's important
that you start studying with 100 commitment right from day one a lot of students at the beginning of
their course they don't study that much and then in the middle of their course they'll increase
their studying a bit more and then at the end of the course when it comes to exam period
that's when they fully commit to their studying and go all out but at least in my opinion it's
a very inefficient and stressful way of managing your studying so i encourage right from day one
to have a set number of hours to study for some people it might be five hours a day for
others it might be 10 hours a day whatever it is keep it consistent don't get complacent right at
the beginning of your course thinking the exams are ages away so you don't have to prepare for
them just yet right at the beginning of the course that's when you can get ahead of your studying and
start building that momentum up so when it comes to exam week you're not stressing out because
you've left all your studying until the last week instead you've managed your studying appropriately
and spread it out evenly across the last few weeks and months step four consolidation of notes
as we're progressing through the module we're now coming to the exam preparation period and at this
stage the idea is to collect all the notes you have taken when you're sitting through
your lectures and organize and consolidate them so you have everything you need ready for the
exam revision period and this step doesn't usually take that long anywhere from an hour to a few days
but it's a crucially important step and i'll tell you why every time you organize your notes you're
subconsciously doing the same thing with your brain you're reorganizing the information you've
learned from your lectures in your brain so you're reinforcing the important information into chunks
connecting it into your existing mental models and this makes the information faster to recall during
the exam period because you've packaged it all far more efficiently step 5 recap lecture slides
the lecture slides from your lectures often contain some of the most important
information in the module there's usually a reason why your lecturer has included specific pieces of
information into those lecture slides because he or she wants you to learn it right but why do they
want you to learn it often because there's a good chance that it will come up in the exam so in this
stage step five i download every single lecture slide and go through them and make sure that i
understood every single one often i download the lectures and print them off and make notes on the
printed off slides and make small annotations just to help with understanding them and as you can
see you're studying when the course began starting off relatively broad a large subject area but it's
getting narrower and narrower and the next step is the narrowest stage and also the most important
stage step six past papers go over past papers so you can understand what type of questions are
likely to come up now this is the narrowest part of the whole system in this period you should only
be focusing your studying on topics that you think are likely to come up in the exam and even more
specifically answering questions that you think might pop up in the exam so pretty much every part
of this step involves preparing you specifically for the exam you don't want to waste your time
studying things that probably won't come up in the exam and this step is the single most important
part of your exam preparation it's an example of the pareto principle where roughly eighty percent
of your results will come from twenty 20 of your actions so 80 of your final grade will be as a
result of 20 of your studying and this last period the time when you're practicing exam past papers
is the 20 of your studying that will make up 80 of your grades so it's absolutely imperative that
you use the week coming up to your exam or the two weeks coming up to your exam wisely and you don't
procrastinate and your studying is lasered in it's focused in on preparing specifically for potential
exam questions that might come up and there are several reasons why exam past papers are so
useful and why i would leave them to the last stage of the six step system to use them in my
exam preparation they help you understand the length of the exam they help you work
out how much time you have for each question they identify the style of exam questions for example
short answers multiple choice or essay questions you can practice exam techniques with them and
they help you identify key subject areas to focus on when you're revising and finally if you
practice past papers in exam conditions and mark them yourself you can identify the gaps in your
knowledge and where your weaknesses are so you know to focus your revision more in those areas
and if you are still struggling with distraction and procrastination when you should be studying
there's a link in the description where you can find out more about the transform your grades in
30 days course that will be launched on the 29th of march like i said more than 1 000 students have
already enrolled and there's a 30-day money-back guarantee so i'm carrying the risk completely
on my shoulders there's nothing to lose for you guys click on the link in the description to find
out more but only if you're ready and committed to levelling up your studying the course is not
a magic fix there's no magic pill that will completely fix all of your procrastination
problems without you putting in any effort it will take a lot of effort and it will take a lot of
hard work it's called the transform your grades in 30 days challenge for a reason because it's
going to be damn challenging but i'll be helping you and supporting you every step of the way once
again click on the link in the description and i look forward to working with you very shortly