Live and learn - online study secrets
As exams draw closer and closer, it is important that you develop good study habits to make sure you allow yourself enough time to study, and that you use that time wisely. The internet can be a great help here, with tons of online guides and revision material to help get you ready for the big days ahead. For those lucky to be young enough to escape exams for the next couple of years, it still important to develop good study skills now so that you are ready to go once you hit year 11. While a lot of these guides are designed to help you prepare for NCEA, they can also help you get ready for other school testing and even the most basic homework assignments.www.studyit.org.nz is probably the best place to start. This is a New Zealand website specially designed to ready you for NCEA. It has study and exam advice, encouragement if you feel you are starting to lose it, help with individual subjects, links to further revision websites and a forum where students can help other students with their study.www.studygs.net has a collection of articles on essential skills such as time management, goal setting and prioritising, and www.how-to-study.com has another 75 articles on study and schooling including one on choosing a career, which can put a lot of influence on what exams you choose to sit in the first place.For the younger audience, www.anyquestions.co.nz can prove to be an invaluable resource. It is another New Zealand website which allows you to log on between the hours of 1 and 6pm, Monday to Friday, and talk to a real librarian. The chat is live and allows librarians to help you with research online from your own home by asking you questions on your desired topic, and trying tricks and online searches that you may not have otherwise thought of yourself.www.sparknotes.com/backtoschool/2010 is a fun and amusing website with interesting guides on the school year in general. Unfortunately it is American, so it uses terms like ‘freshman’ and ‘sophomore’ instead of ‘years’ like us, but it does have some good tips on everything from surviving your first day at high school to making the most of your final year, all presented in fun slideshows with cute little drawings. If maths is what you’re struggling with, count yourself lucky because there are some amazing websites on the World Wide Web designed to help you out. www.mathletics.co.nz is a world-renowned mathematics website that caters from year 1 all the way through to year 13. It provides you with quick basic facts-recall quizzes and learning activities, and then tracks your progress through a wide range of different areas of maths. You can compare your scores to those of other students all over the world and compete to make it into the leader boards. Unfortunately there is an annual cost to this website, but judging by the impressive array of features on it, it is money well spent.Another similar website is www.hotmaths.com.au This equivalent website is run by Cambridge University and provides you with lessons and short quizzes to help boost your mathematical knowledge. This website also has a small cost, but some schools encourage this online resource and pay for the school package, which provides students with individual logins to start their own mathematical journey without any personal costs.For a quick list of study tips, tinyurl.com/soundfeelings is the place to go. It has a great list of 11 free study tips to help with exam preparation and if that’s not enough, tinyurl.com/homeworktips has a list of 10 study habits that, if you get into them, can make a huge impact on your education as well as your final exam results.Finally, you can be as prepared as possible going into the exam, but it does all depend on how you do on the day. Have a good night’s sleep the night before, eat a big breakfast and turn up to school with a positive attitude, then before you know it your exam will be over and you’ll be wondering what you were so hung up about to start with.
