How to Pass Your Board Exam

Old Exams - if your regulatory body releases the exam questions to the public, I’d recommend securing a copy and answering the exam. This is one sure way of getting a feel for the exam. You might also luck in the chance that a question in your exam will be similar to a question in the previous exam that you have already answered.

Write Review Notes - depends really if this is your method of studying. For me this is how I study. I create a more concise outline of my notes. This way it helps me to remember easily the lessons and makes my notes more portable and easy to memorize.

Write a Formula Cheat Sheet - If your exam relies on formulas, it would be beneficial to have a separate piece of paper that you can write down all the formulas you will need for the exam. This will make memorization more convenient and easier for you. I remember having memorized 3 pages worth of formulas and conversions factors. And by 3 pages, I meant back to back. It was only then that I discovered that the human brain can actually retain that much information.

Learn to Derive Formulas - One reason I was able to limit to just 3 pages my cheat sheet of formulas was because I practiced deriving formulas from their mother formula. This helps keep down the number of stuff that you have to memorize.

Use Mnemonics to help you memorize - I remember the first mnemonic taught to me in school. It was so that we could easily remember the planets in the solar system. It went something like “My very eager mother just sent us nine pies”, which translates to: My - Mercury, Very- Venus, Eager -Earth, Mother-Mars, Just -Jupiter, Sent-Saturn, Us -Uranus, Nine-Neptune, Pies - Pluto. Of course Pluto isn’t classified as a planet anymore, but this is still a great memory technique to use.

Take Breaks - factor in breaks so that you can rest your mind and relax. They say that a tired brain has a hard time absorbing new information. Based from experience it does hold true. Try not to get “too” relaxed that you end up forgetting what you have studied.

Take time out to review again what you’ve learned - I remember taking some time before hitting the sack to read again my review notes so as to refresh my memory on the topics.

Group study - I was told that studying for some exams, such as the Bar, usually work better if you can group study with other people to share information. Getting together once in a while with fellow classmates where you can share answers and tips will also help greatly. You have to remember though that in the end its you that will have to come up with the answers during the exam and not the group.

Ask advice from people who have passed the exam before you - those who’ve gone ahead of you will always have sage advice to offer you.

Have Faith - I believe that prayer helps greatly in helping you pass an exam (along with hard work). There are great prayers available which ask for intercession from saints for helping you pass exams. One such saint is St. Joseph of Cupertino, the patron saint of exam takers.

Practice, Practice, Practice - the best way for me to gain mastery of a subject is by constant exposure to it. So if it was problem solving techniques, I would continuously expose myself to solving problems. As to remembering formulas and notes, I would usually grab a blank piece of paper and try to write down everything I knew about that topic. That way I was testing and sharpening the memory retention depth of my knowledge on that subject matter.

This is also the part where having a copy of old exams comes in handy as you can practice solving the problems and answering questions from previous exams. It also develops a sense of familiarity with the exam which can help take away some of the nervousness that you may have during the exam proper.

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