At some point in your academic career, you will fail an exam. It’s inevitable. It can be devastating to your GPA, and even more so to your confidence. Now, it’s possible that it was just a fluke. Admit it you honestly didn’t study enough, thinking this exam (or exams) would be easy. You thought you knew the material well enough…until the scores were posted and you very obviously did not. On the other hand, there may be times when you do study. Maybe you even spend the week leading up to the exam in the library, buried in a stack of notes and a table full of Starbucks coffee. How then, do you still fail the exam? How then, do you still fail the exam? How will you come back from this? Here are five steps to take toward a better grade on your next exam.
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Breathe
Before you freak out about how this exam will affect your GPA, take a deep breath. There is still time in the semester to make up for getting one bad grade on an exam. Tell yourself that you are going to work hard on the next exam to gain back the points that you lost on this one.
2. Do not blame the professor
I always hear other students immediately blame the professor for their poor performance on a test, without taking any responsibility themselves. They are convinced he or she was out to get them and purposely put hard questions on the test. Don’t be one of these students. Realizing that there are things that you can do to improve your grade on the next exam, is the first step toward doing so.
3. Evaluate how you studied for the last exam.
Did you really spend the needed amount of time reviewing the material? How did you review the material? If you spent two hours making flashcards, and your grade was poor, some amount of change is needed.
4. Try a new study strategy
There are so many ways to study. You just need to try out a few and find which one works for you. Consider forming a study group of people in your class, bug your roommate to quiz you on the material or make an extensively long study guide. Use that trick where you feed yourself an M&M every time you make it through a paragraph in your textbook. Find what works for you and do it!
5. Make a Schedule
If there’s one thing college students are, it’s busy. We balance schoolwork, clubs, jobs, internships, a social life. Thus, fitting in time for hard-core studying is often difficult. The easiest way to prevent feeling overwhelmed by schoolwork is to make a schedule. Allot time for each class assignment, and plan specific hours each day to study for exams. Sometimes we cause ourselves unnecessary stress by thinking about how much work we need to do. Having a visual representation of how to complete all the work will negate a lot of that stress.
It’s important to remember that you were accepted to this elite school because they knew you could handle the work. You are smarter than you think you are, so don’t let one bad grade bring you down. Buy a Den Pop, grab a table at Hicks, and crack open those books!