TAMMY STRICKLANDused 'mind maps' to help her gain nine As in her mocks – and says she has earned €5,000 selling her study plans. Here are her exam tips
Tammy Strickland, a 17-year-old student at Mount Sackville Secondary School, in Chapelizod in Dublin, used mind maps to help her get nine As in her mock exams. (Illness got in the way of her Junior Cert).
The maps are pictorial representations of subjects: a central word or idea in the middle of the map has branches developing the theme outwards like a tree. She uses colours, typefaces and lines to help fix the picture in her head.
She says she has earned €5,000 selling the study aids through her website, JuniorCertMindmaps.com.
How to beat stress
* Get some exercise each day to get rid of tension. Don’t do any sort of strenuous or particularly draining sports activities before studying. Walking is more relaxing and doesn’t require as much effort.
* Don’t get caught up in mind games about your expected exam results. Focus on doing the best you can. That is all that matters.
* Be organised, deciding before you start each study session what you want to get out of it.
* Use a structured approach to learning, so that you can see your progress. I have used mind mapping, a system developed by the psychology writer Tony Buzan, as an effective way to summarise lots of detail so I don’t have to read my textbooks at exam time. I memorise the maps’ logical structures, and I can visualise the mind maps whenever I need to.
* Fit things you enjoy into your daily routines, so you don’t get caught up in negative thinking. You may feel that studying for long periods every day is a priority, but remember that balance is essential to a good study plan.
When you’re studying
* If you haven’t tried flashcards or mind maps as an aid to memory, try using them now.
* Consider using mnemonics to help you remember detail. Whether it is a rhyme, phrase or even a song, these quirky techniques are an excellent way to recall parts of a topic. They are easy to make up and can make study time more enjoyable. Here’s an example for remembering the order of the planets from the sun. “My very easy method: just set up nine planets” helps you remember Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. (Although bear in mind that Pluto is so tiny – it’s smaller than the moon – that in 2006 it was reclassified and is no longer officially a planet of our solar system; instead it is a “dwarf planet”.)
* Highlight keywords or buzzwords that will help you remember essays or other text. If you can recall these words in an exam, they should trigger memories of previous lessons on that topic, making it easier to write answers. Trying to memorise and regurgitate complete essays can be an impossible task and wastes valuable time that you could invest else.
* At the end of your study session, close both the book and your eyes and silently do a mind scan, to remind you of everything you have learned. It may also help to write down the information after your period of silent reflection. This is particularly useful for maths, as you may need to learn equations or theorems off by heart.
Reward yourself for productive study sessions.
* Forget about everything other than the tasks you have set yourself for each study session.
* Plan by way of goals and not time. It is not useful to say to yourself that you are going to be sitting there for four or five hours. Focus on goals for each study session.
* Don’t set yourself impossible goals, as this sets you up for failure.
* Chunk it down: break each subject into manageable chunks that you can easily digest in the final three or four weeks before your exams.
* Focus on the here and now. The past does not matter, and the future hasn’t happened yet – so why worry about it?
Time is of the essence
* Schedule your study session. It will be much more effective if you plan it.
* Be disciplined. Don’t run over time on some subjects at the expense of others.
* Use shorthand notes, flashcards or mind maps and avoid going back to read textbooks.
* Study while you are fresh. Don’t wait until you are sleepy to quit.
* Do practical exam questions to test yourself. This can be a great confidence booster. But only spend the amount of time on them that you are allowed in the exam.
* During the exams, allow yourself only the allotted time for each question and then move on. You will get more marks for attempting every question than you will get for giving just one or two perfect answers.
In the final weeks
Mind maps are a shorthand for all the material covered in the textbooks and in class. They are a pretty good summary of all you need to know to get excellent exam results. As they are visual they are easy to remember for the vast majority of students. If you have left it too late to start mind mapping, you could consider looking at the ones I have created online. There are free samples in 10 subjects, so you can check if they work for you before deciding if you think they’re worth buying.
How I prepared for my exams The Junior Cert subject by subject:
ENGLISH
* I used flashcards to revise the larger areas, like poetry and character analysis in the texts. For poetry, my main study was constructing a mind map that displayed all of the poets my class had covered and connecting them to different themes and techniques. I wrote the most important lines out on small flashcards – quoting to support an answer is vital. For the novel and studied drama I wrote out shorthand summaries of every character and scene of conflict in both works and then applied them to a mind map. Using flashcards, I made sure to note the most important quotes that I would have to remember and refer to in the exam.
* In other areas, like functional writing and media studies, I placed all of the formats and language tones I had learned and put them into categories in a mind map. For example, when I was revising the different forms of letter-writing I constructed a “letters” mind map. Each branch contained shorthand notes about the different types of letters and the vital parts of their structure and language. Every branch about layout was made up of a fixed number of points; that way I knew when I was in my exam that I needed to include a fixed number of layout features to get the marks.
* Many answers are about interpretation. It is vital to glance back at previously attempted questions and see where you went wrong and where you succeeded.
In short:
– Write shorthand notes and pointers on the styles, layouts and language you need.
– Write important quotes on flashcards and revise regularly.
– Write shorthand notes on important characters or conflicts in studied texts in formats like mind maps.
– Where possible, attempt exam questions in the allotted times, as this is always a struggle in this subject.
– When writing, use varied and interesting language.
MATHS
The main part of my study for maths was to rewrite my notes, often on to mind maps, then attempt questions from my book and eventually work my way up to exam questions. When it came to things like important formulae or theorems, my studying technique involved writing out the coursework with the book open, then closing it, taking out a blank sheet of paper and writing it out again. Depending on the topic, I sometimes wrote out short formulae on flashcards and revised them daily.
In short:
– Attempt as many questions as possible on each topic, to let your revision cover you from all angles.
– Write complicated formulae on to flashcards and revise regularly.
– Rewrite notes and make them as structured as possible (maybe with the use of mind maps).
– Keep writing out things like theorems over and over until they sink in; incorporate this into a regular routine of study.
– Time yourself at each question and make sure you are spending no more than 15-20 minutes on each question.
IRISH
Irish is broken into two sections: a listening test and a writing test. To help with the listening exam, you should either listen to the previous year’s aural tests on CD or watch TG4 or Nuacht RTÉ. I tried out both methods, especially coming up to exam time. With the written paper I made sure to revise grammar by writing out all the rules of verbs on a mind map. For my studied poetry and stories I again constructed a large mind map, linking themes to writers and highlighting the phrasing I needed to earn more marks. I wrote quotes on flashcards and revised them regularly, as well as browsing through previous questions and learning from mistakes.
In short:
– Revise as much grammar as possible, as a huge amount of marks depend on your accuracy.
– For studied texts, learn important phrasing by writing it out and revising again and again. Also write significant quotes on flashcards.
– For the short story and letter areas of the papers, try not to learn long pieces off by heart. Instead write out, under headings, broad phrasing that you could apply to many situations.
– Listen to past-paper aural tests, as well as Irish programs, to prepare for the aural test.
– Look through previous exam questions you have attempted and see where you went wrong. Learn from your mistakes.
FRENCH
For the listening test, listen to the aural CDs or even French news on the internet to revise when you can. Look over vocabulary beforehand.
List out in a structured form all of the vocabulary for letters, postcards and notes and take into account the layouts. Number the parts of the layout and revise what goes where. Apply this information to a mind map or shorthand notes.
Revise grammar by writing out the rules of each tense. Put the rules into a mind map or other form of notes and revise this daily.
Conjugate a verb a day in each tense you know, to make sure your grammar is accurate.
Attempt written questions and time yourself. Make sure you are not spending too much time on one question.
BUSINESS STUDIES
Write out the definitions and rules in big topics, like insurance and economics, in a structured format. As these definitions can be quite lengthy, highlight the words in each phrase that you think are the most important.
Remember formats of things like reports and letters by listing and numbering important features and revising regularly.
Attempt as many book-keeping questions as possible, and make sure to remind yourself constantly of the rules of double entry. Before you even attempt the questions scan the layouts of the accounts to remind you of what to do.
Time every attempted question.
GEOGRAPHY
Revise all physical geography by constructing short summaries. Make bullet points of the most important parts of the chapter and only look in a more detailed way at case studies. Look over these pointers regularly, maybe before you get into studying a long question.
When dealing with long questions, it’s best to take one example of each topic you covered and revise it. Do not look over every case study in one chapter, as you won’t recall the detail required for one example at exam time. Highlight keywords in the phrases that you feel you will remember best and revise them regularly.
Write out pointers and practise drawing diagrams for your studied cases. Take time to look over them and rewrite them regularly.
Look over your rules for OS maps and aerial photographs, then attempt a drawing. It is worth practising these questions, as they come up frequently and, if accurately done, earn great marks.
Time how long it takes to complete one long question.
