Do you have the same fight over and over again?

Have you gotten to the point where you simply don’t know what to do next?

You’re not alone!

Lacking motivation to study is by far the biggest problem for teens at high school.

How can you show your teen the importance of trying their best at school?

Well, it’s not by nagging.

That’s for sure!

Your teen needs to understand WHY it’s important that they learn how to study as best they can. Otherwise they have as much chance of getting good grades as they do of piloting a commercial jet.

If you want your teen to be studying as much as they should be, you need to communicate to them the importance of doing well at school.

This does not mean nagging, arguing, or dragging them to their desk screaming.

They need to understand what’s in it for them

You must try and get it through to them that trying their best at school is the best thing they can do for THEIR life.

If your teen is to study regularly and strive for the grades they’re capable of getting, it’s imperative that they are self-motivated to do so.

They can’t always have someone there to hold their hand.

We’re not saying this will be a straight forward task, but rather something you should think of as a work in progress.

Start today by simply trying to have a chat with your teen about something interesting they’re learning at school, and how this could help them after school. (You may need to take the lead on this one!)

Small steps, amazing results.

Image Credit: Callum McKain on Flickr

We’re back on the other side of the desk.

Except this time, we know exactly what we’re doing.

Just to clear up the confusion about why we’re now students again, well, it’s not because we failed the first time…

After we finished our degrees in Biomedical Science we found ourselves at a bit of a loss.

We didn’t know what we wanted to pursue, and so (among other jobs) we’ve been tutoring high school students in maths and science for the last couple of years.

About a year ago we had simultaneous epiphanies about what we thought we next wanted to sink our teeth into. So on Monday Chris had his first day at Medical School at Deakin University, and Clare had hers at Law School at the University of Melbourne.

Much to our disbelief, and in complete defiance of the oaths we swore that we’d never sit another exam again, we’re now tertiary students for the second time. (And this time we’re really excited about it!)

What we’re going to do differently this time

The good news for you here is that your teen doesn’t have to wait until they start their second degree (…) before they know what we’ve taken YEARS to perfect!

So here they are – the three things your teen can start doing NOW to get on the track to straight A’s.

1. Keep on top of things from the very first day.

When we were at uni the first time ‘round, we didn’t appreciate nearly enough the benefits of studying from the get go.

The mindset was, “We just got going! We don’t need to start studying for ages!”

We completely underestimated the power of the long-term memory.

If you don’t start revising what you’ve been taught in your lectures (or in the classroom) until exams are just around the corner, you don’t give your brain long enough to convert that information into it’s long-term memory.

Whereas if your teen starts revising what they’ve been taught in class NOW, they won’t be able to forget it come exam time.

Just half an hour a day can make a HUGE difference to your teen’s grades at the end of the school year.

We find it incredibly effective to write out or type up what we’ve learnt in class that day when we come home.

Since we started doing this, we’ve been amazed at how much we managed to retaine months later when preparing for exams.

Please relay to your teen that getting good grades at school doesn’t mean they need to sacrifice everything else in their life.

Half an hour a day is sometimes all it takes.

2. Keep study notes and everything to do with each subject in ONE place.

It took both of us a while to figure out that having a system in place to keep our separate subject stuff altogether in one place makes life a lot easier.

It doesn’t matter how they do it. It will certainly depend on how they make their notes.

But make sure your teen keeps ALL of their subject materials in once place. Whether this means using a ring binder to put all loose papers in, or writing everything for each subject in ONE exercise book, it doesn’t matter.

The important thing is just that your teen knows where everything is.

The task of studying for exams can be daunting enough without having to find and attempt to organise a years worth of books, notes, and bits of paper!

3. Make the most of different ways of learning.

Right now there are so many resources out there other than dusty ol’ text books to help your teen study.

The Internet on it’s own should be an invaluable resource to your teen’s studies this year.

Everyone learns in their own unique way, so it’s really important that your teen uses resources that help them study best. And this could be quite different to the traditional method of ‘swatting’.

There are thousands of educational videos, interactive exercises, quizzes, and practice questions available entirely for free online that can help your teen get the grades they deserve.

When we were at uni the first time around, and certainly at high school, there wasn’t nearly the same amount of information available on the Internet. And now that it’s been embraced by so many fantastic educationally-minded people, it’s hard to NOT find what you want!

Now that we’re studying again, we’re going to make use of the amazing resources available to us – online and elsewhere. (Check out Khan Academy if you haven’t already!)

There are many other aspects of studying effectively that we will no doubt be much better at now (and we look forward to sharing them with you) but the three we’ve talked about today are probably the most important for your teen to take on board right now.

These are also things you can help your teen with at home, which is a great way of showing them that they have your support and encouragement.

Image Credit: Akeg on Flickr

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Well it’s NOW of course!

Good study habits need to be forged early on

If your teen thinks they can cruise the whole year, and then but be able to pull an A out of their, err, you know… come exam time, then think again.

The students who are going to get good grades this year are going to start the year as they intend to finish it.

That is, they’ll be organised from the get go, and keep on top of things as they come.

Your teen might think you’re insane when you tell them this – that it’s in their best interest to get organised NOW and start studying NOW – but they simply need to realize how much better off they’ll be if they do.

The amount of time, stress, and pure agony your teen will be saved if they study consistently throughout the year (and not just at the end) is truly ginormous.

The best thing YOU can do this week, is to try and convey this to your teen

We all know what leaving something until the last minute feels like.

Not fun. Not at all.

And we’re sure your teen can appreciate this, even if they’re just starting high school.

If you can communicate the idea that their life will be MUCH better if they start studying (or at least complete homework ALWAYS) as soon as they can, then you’ll be doing more than realize.

And the good news is…

Being organised throughout the year takes a lot less time than your teen might think.

Just half an hour of revision of what’s been said in class, and maybe then taking the time to look up what they didn’t understand on the net will take your teen from average to outstanding.

And please don’t let your teen tell you they don’t have time. If doing well at school is something you believe your teen should value, then they DO have time.

Little but frequent amounts of effort multiply exponentially over time

So this week take the lead – help your teen get organised for the start of school this year.

This means getting stationery sorted, having a clean and tidy study desk, and establishing some sort of weekly routine.

That’s all you have to do to give your teen the best possible start to 2012.

Image Credit: Ggmossgirl on Flickr

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“My teen doesn’t know how to study, my teen used to get good grades but now she’s lacking motivation, my teen gets really stressed out about tests and exams” – stuff like this.

Almost EVERY teen struggles with these sorts of issues at one stage during their time at high school.

Even straight-A-getters.

So what’s the best thing you can do to wrap up 2011?

The very best thing you can do to help your teen wrap up the year – or more importantly, to start 2012 with a bang – is to read the articles on our Studying 101 and Exam Success 101 pages.

There is a LOT of information within these pages, and we suspect that not too many have read all of these articles before.

But now is your chance!

Please take the time this week to have a look at the ones you might have missed. There’s some extremely important information that no teen should be deprived of.

Everything from how to write effective study notes to how to destroy exam-time stress. It’s a real spectrum of stuff, but it’s all REALLY important.

Any parent who actually reads every article could almost call themselves a Study Guru!

Check out Studying 101 and Exam Success 101

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And by long term, we mean life after high school.

The brain’s frontal lobe is an important region – it controls decision making, problem solving, purposeful behaviours, and emotions.

Yet it doesn’t fully developed until we reach our early to mid twenties.

This is why, even though your teen feels all grown up, their ability to plan ahead, think long-term, and consider consequences is still a bit dodgy.

It’s then a cruel irony that high school is arguably the most important time for them to think about the long term, and the effect their high school grades will have on their future.

Unfortunately their most important priority is what social event to attend in the weekend.

The worst thing is that teens often don’t realise how important it is to get good grades at high school until it’s too late. This is especially true for teen’s that weren’t particularly ‘academic’ at school.

They spent their entire time at high school longing for the day in would end, only to realise very soon after that life without good grades is not a whole lot of fun…

Here’s a real-life example

Yesterday my (Clare) mum told me about the dilemma her hairdresser’s son is in. I couldn’t believe just how well this story illustrated this very point!

Sam is 18 and has been out of school for one year.

He never really studied at school – never bothered to put in any effort. Snowboarding and BMX-ing was way more fun.

He either didn’t sit or didn’t pass his final high school exams, and has been working for a temporary labour hire company for the last six months or so.

Sam has just realized that digging holes and helping with road works isn’t actually all that fun or satisfying.

Or well paid.

He announced to his mother the other day that he’d like to be an architect. Probably because the one subject he enjoyed at high school was graphic design.

What he hasn’t realized (but is definitely about to) is that architecture is a competitive course to get into at university. It’s restricted entry (at least in New Zealand), and you can guarantee that almost every successful applicant passed their last year of high school with really good grades.

At this stage, Sam probably has more chance of sprouting wings are flying to the top of a building that he does of designing one.

Now we’re not saying that Sam now has no hope in this world and should just accept his fate as a cleaner at McDonalds. But if he is determined to be more than this, he’s made life pretty hard for himself by not getting good grades at high school.

If only Sam had had the foresight to realize that even though school isn’t the funnest thing in the world, it’s soooo important to try your best at it while you have the chance.

We don’t want the same for your teen

If you’re afraid that your teen might end up in Sam’s position in a few years time unless their attitude towards school changes, you can start getting them on the right track today.

Tell them Sam’s story.

Your teen may not think that doing well at school is important right now, but hopefully with your help and support they’ll realise how crucial it is to do well at school.

Even if your teen has no desire to go to College/University at the moment, it really doesn’t matter. Sam’s story is a classic example of how so many teen’s don’t know what they want to do until they finish school. (This is something we cover in our Straight A’s email course!)

Your teen needs to give school their best shot in order to keep their options open. This is especially important if they don’t know what tickles their fancy yet.

Because who knows what they might decide they’re interested in later on.

Just think of Sam.

Image Credit: Double–M on Flickr

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Most of us don’t launch into exercise like an Olympic marathon runner.

We take a bit of time to warm up, to override the niggly pains, to come into our stride.

Sitting an exam is exactly the same.

It’s our experience that for the first half an hour or so of an exam, your brain is just warming up. It’s only jogging – not quite ready to get into a full sprint.

At the beginning stage of their exam your teen could squander precious minutes pondering a hard question. Perhaps if they left that question and came back to it later once their brain was in ‘exam-mode’ they’d be able to answer much more quickly, and to a much higher standard.

Doing well in an exam is not necessarily about answering every question.

It’s about getting the most marks you can possibly get.

Exams are designed to have some easy, some medium, and some really hard questions. They’re certainly not designed for every student to get an A+.

Your teen shouldn’t answer their exam from front to back

If your teen sits there racking their brains over a question they’re not quite sure about, that’s time they won’t get back to use on questions left they could easily answer.

The last thing you want your teen to do is run out of time in an exam having not answered a whole bunch of easy questions because they spent 10 minutes desperately trying to remember the answer to a harder question. In that same time, they could have answered 10 easier questions.

So it’s our very strong recommendation that they skip the hard/long questions and answer all of the exams easy questions first.
 

We almost always use this strategy in our own exams

First we go through our exam papers and pick out the easy questions to get our brains into exam-mode.

Then by the last half of an exam our brains would be fired up. Nothing could have distracted us. During this time the answers to the harder questions that were only skimmed over will be ticking over in the back of your head.

This is when you go back to the harder questions.

It’s an amazing phenomenon. It’s incredible how much clearer you can think once you’ve gotten into the swing of an exam, as opposed to at the beginning when you’re overwhelmed by the task ahead.

Too any students don’t get the grades they deserve because they don’t use their time well in exams, not because they didn’t stuff hard enough.

Don’t let this happen to your teen.

Make sure they answer the easy questions first, and come back to the hard ones once they’re warmed up.

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Especially when you’ve got a number of teens at high school!

If this is a position you’re in at the moment – may the force be with you. Hopefully your teen is going OK and isn’t too stressed!

If they are panicking, we’ve got a tip for them to help remember much more in the last few days leading up to each exam.

Make a Cheat Sheet

No, we’re not saying your teen should smuggle in bits of paper into the exam!

A Cheat Sheet is something your teen should prepare in the last few days before each exam.

Its purpose is to help your teen remember things that are hard to remember.

Content such as facts, important peoples’ names, place names, subject-specific terminology, formulas, processes – all of those fun things!

Most students find it easier to remember more conceptual content – well, once they understand it that is. But there are parts in most subjects that require students to just know something.

Unfortunately, these things can usually only be rote learned, rather than inherently understood.

For example, as part of writing a history essay, your teen will need to back up what they say with evidence such as peoples’ and place names, dates, etc.

This stuff can be a pain to study because you just have to know  it!

Our solution? Create a Cheat Sheet.

So we want your teen to write down on a piece of paper all of these fact-type things they’ll need to know for their upcoming exam.

Any and all ‘facts’ that they can think of.

Then in any down time your teen has before the exam they need to read over their Cheat Sheet. Perhaps before they go to bed, when they’re having lunch, or even when they’re (not driving!) in the car.

The idea is that these tricky bits of information will soak in over the last few days before the exam.

We found it really helpful to go over our Cheat Sheet just before our exams too

Waiting outside an exam room is a horrible business.

We don’t recommend ever studying new information in this time – it’s way too late. What will be will be!

But looking over a Cheat Sheet will give your teen something to do, and let them consolidate all those nasty little facts they need to remember.

If they want to be really sneaky – as soon as they get into the exam room they can jot down the ones they always struggle to remember on the inside cover of their paper. When the time comes during the exam they need that bit of information, it’ll be right there staring them in the face.

Using colour in a Cheat Sheet helps some students – particularly visual learners, as they come to associate a certain fact with a specific colour. It’s worth giving this a go anyway irrespective of what your teen’s predominant learning style is.

If your teen does have exams just around the corner – best of luck to them! We hope that making Cheat Sheets is as effective for them as it was for us!

Image Credit: Dreamstime

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Don't skip this incredibly potent study tip!

However, there is something that every teen should do during their exam preparation.

Something so effective in helping students prepare for exams in fact (we speak from personal experience), it almost feels like you’re cheating!

It doesn’t matter what your teen’s predominant learning style is or how they prefer to go about studying for exams…

Every student should use Past Exams to study

Past exams are an absolute goldmine of information.

They let your teen know what types of questions they should be preparing for, the lengths of these questions, the number of questions, the order of questions, and what the layout of the exam is.

We can’t stress how important this little tip is!

Our university had a database that contained the past 10 years of exam papers from almost all of the courses offered.

One particular semester I (Chris) remember having one class that I particularly enjoyed, and another that I took simply because it was compulsory. Throughout the semester I got higher marks in the class I actually liked – which isn’t terribly surprising.

But sadly, when it came time to prepare for exams I found that the past exam papers for my preferred class had been withheld from the database. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it meant I was studying for the exam blind – I had no idea what was coming!

In the end, I got a better mark for the compulsory paper… Not because I put in extra study to ensure a good grade, not because the exam was any easier than I expected, and not because my favoured paper was particularly hard.

It’s just so much easier to study and succeed when you know what to expect.

That is the power of past exam papers!

What will your teen learn from doing past exam papers?

 
1. What types of questions they should expect

There’s no point in your teen practising multi-choice questions about the novel they’ve studied if their exam is going to contain essay questions.

Question types make a huge difference to your teen’s study. Multi-choice questions, short answer questions, and essay questions, each require very different types of preparation.

 
2. What content they should be focussing on

For most subjects there is core content and peripheral content.

Core content will always be assessed, so it’s incredibly important that your teen studies this first and most thoroughly.

Having a look at some past exam papers will give your teen a really good idea of what the core content for each subject is. It’s recognisable by looking at what types questions always come up and where the easiest marks are usually got.

There’s absolutely no point in your teen studying something obscure that might only appear once every ten years.

 
3. How many questions they’ll be asked

It’s really nice to know going into the exam approximately how many questions there will be so there’s no nasty surprises.

The number of questions will obviously determine the pace your teen will need to work at during the exam. An exam with 40 short-answer means your teen has less time per question than an exam with 30 questions.

On top of this – exams often contain a range of different question types. Your teen could have an exam with 20 multi-choice questions, 10 short-answer questions, and an essay.

They need to find this stuff out before the exam by looking at past papers so they can sort of their in-exam strategy.

 
4. What the layout of the exam is

By layout of the exam we mean the order of questions, how the questions look, how much room your teen will have to provide answers – even what the multi-choice answer sheet looks like.

The more familiar your teen can get with the details of the exam, the less daunting it will be.

Where can you find past exam papers?

There are lots of websites that you can download past papers from (for free!) – here’s a list for most of the common exam systems.

NCEA – New Zealand

Past exam papers are stored on the NZQA website under each subject.

Click on the subject you want, then scroll down to ‘Resources for externally assessed standards’. Past papers are under Exam Documents, and marking schedules are called Assessment Schedules.

Cambridge Exams

• Cambridge Checkpoint
• GCSE
• IGCSE
• A Levels

International Baccalaureate

Past Papers can be found here.

Australian Exams

You can get up to date information and links to past exam papers from the Aussie Educator website.

American Resources

• SAT Resources
• GED Resources

Apologies if your teen is sitting exams other than those above. Your best bet to find past exam papers is probably by doing a Google search. Otherwise your teen’s school might know where you can get your hands on some.

If your teen does belong to another schooling system with their own exam paper databases, please include them for others in the comments below

Image Credit: alaina.buzas on Flickr

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Time is precious! Don't Let It Go To Waste

[Clare] A few days ago, while tutoring one of my regular students, something struck me…

He simply isn’t doing enough to pass.

Because spending an hour a week with a tutor isn’t study!

Yet, despite my complete honesty about the fact that he isn’t doing enough (or actually any, for that matter) work outside of our lessons, he still hasn’t got the message.

And if he keeps this up (with his math exam only three weeks away), the likelihood of him even passing his exam is dubious.

This student has got himself into a very sticky situation indeed, and one that could have SO EASILY been avoided.

Sound even remotely familiar?

Your teen may not be on the cusp of failing their exams, but perhaps they’re not filling their academic cup right now?
Either way, we have the solution!

To keep on top of their school work load and not put off studying until it’s too late, your teen needs to make a weekly study timetable.