When you need to take an entrance exam, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. You want desperately to be part of a program or profession, and it seems like there’s one big, scary obstacle in the way.
The following aims to lessen this stress and provide several tips you can employ to help you ace your entrance exam regardless of the topic or structure of the test.
How to Pass Entrance Exam Tips
- Figure Out What’s On The Exam
- Study What Works
- Consistency Is Key
- Review And Simplify Regularly
- Take Practise Exams
- Exercise
Figure Out What’s On The Exam
First and foremost, you don’t want to be wasting a ton of time studying things that aren’t going to be on the exam. In many cases, you can find a breakdown of the material the exam will draw from online or in books.
It’s also a good idea to find out how the exam is marked. Some sections might be worth a higher percentage of the final mark, and this can let you know how to prioritize the material you need to study.
Study What Works
If past exams are available for you to see, don’t waste the opportunity. In particular, if essays are a portion of your entrance exam, see if you can find some samples of successful essays.
Sometimes people who have passed the exam will share these, but institutions might also make them available.
For example, you can take a look at HBS essay examples on the Harvard Business School website. Sometimes you can even find books that compile several successful essays or entrance statements into a single document.
Consistency Is Key
When it comes to learning, scientists are well aware that there are massive gaps in our understanding of how the human mind works.
This being said, one thing that is clear is that consistent interaction with material over a longer period of time is far more effective for learning than encountering the material only a few times, even if those times were long.
This means that studying for half an hour each day is far more effective for learning than studying one day a week for four hours.
One helpful tip in this regard, especially if you’re a busy individual, is to always bring your study materials with you when you go out.
You can keep a book in your purse or backpack or keep a digital or audio copy of the material on your phone. This way, when you find yourself with some time to kill, you can pull out the materials and make use of the time.
Review And Simplify Regularly
One of the best ways to let your brain know it needs to keep new information stored in an easily accessible place is to regularly review and simplify what you’re learning.
You might even want to set a timer during your study sessions every 15 minutes or so. When the timer goes off, stop and write down a summary of what it is that you’ve learned so far.
By forcing your mind to recall and reshape the information by putting it together into a concise format, you’re letting your brain know that this information needs to be used often. This will encourage your mind to store this new information in a way that leaves it accessible in the future.
You can also begin and end study sessions by summarizing what you learned in the previous study session.
Moreover, explaining what you’ve learned to someone else can be incredibly helpful as this requires that you simplify your information and answer any questions that they might have.
Call a friend or family member and ask them if you can explain something to them as a way of checking whether you’ve synthesized the information. Respond to all their questions.
Take Practise Exams
If you look for them, you should be able to find practice exams. It’s best to attempt to do these exams under similar conditions to the actual test.
If there’s a time limit or some other constraints, apply these to your practice. This will let you know what you need to work on.
Exercise
While exercise might seem like it’s taking away valuable study time, it’s actually improving your ability to learn new material in the time that you have.
Physical exercise is linked to improvements in memory and brain health as well as boosted mood and lower levels of stress.
Since stress can negatively influence your ability to focus and study or perform on the day of the test, this is very important.
The above information should have made clear a few things you can do to improve your chances of doing well on an entrance exam.
If possible, you might also want to reach out to someone who has successfully taken the exam in the past and ask them for any tips that they’ve learned. Check out the top mistakes to avoid when taking the US Postal Service Exam.
Do you have questions on how to how to pass entrance exam? Please comment below.