Five top tips for studying with Quizzes
We offer a large selection of self-marking, multiple-choice quizzes by topic for OCR A and CIE, which are also useful for students studying other specifications.
But how can you use them to best effect? Here’s a quick guide.
Think:
You only get one chance to see each quiz for the first time
A-level exams are designed to test your deeper understanding of concepts, so they rarely repeat the same questions in the same way
Five Top Tips for using the Quizzes:
1. No cheating
HOW - don’t skip past ones you’re not sure about, sneak a look at your notes, or avoid picking an answer
WHY - to practice your best strategies for answering difficult questions, to practice recalling difficult information, and to find out whether you’re able to answer the question or not
2. Think about the wrong answers as much as the right one
HOW - think carefully about why each wrong answer is wrong
WHY - this forces you to think more deeply, and means you are less likely to make mistakes
3. Explain your thinking out loud
HOW - explain it to an imaginary friend. You can ‘talk’ silently if necessary, but make sure you ‘say’ every word
WHY - this ensures your thinking is clear and that your brain isn’t skipping things or taking short cuts
4. If you get a question wrong, restudy the concepts and the facts instead of just memorising the answer
HOW - go back to the topic and improve your understanding of the concepts that were being tested in the question
WHY - your questions will be different. Memorising an answer to a question you won’t get on your exam isn’t going to help
5. Recognise when you had a lucky guess
HOW - think about how confident you were before checking the answer
WHY - if it was a lucky guess, then you don’t know the content and you need to restudy that topic
If you do all these things, you will get a lot more benefit out of using the quizzes. Also remember that the quiz collections don’t cover the whole topic, so getting everything right doesn’t mean that you are definitely set for the whole topic area. They’re just a useful tool to practice thinking about the topic and to help you identify some weaker areas.
And don’t feel bad if you get answers wrong - this is actually great as it means you’ve found out that you need to restudy that area. And it’s best to find that out before the real exam.
This article written by Jenny Shipway