Exams and deadlines can be a stressful time for students.

To save you the stress, we thought we’d share the tips that we have learnt over our time at Loughborough to help you out in this exam season.

Lucy Phillips – Psychology

As a student who over-stresses and unnecessarily revises too much for exams, one thing I wish I always told myself is that there is such thing as ‘over-revising’. In first year, I would revise for a ridiculous number of hours every day and still even try to cram revision in the hour before the exam. I have come to learn that this doesn’t help, and if anything; tires your brain out, resulting in poorer exam performance. It’s important to start revising weeks before the exam and working through content at a steady pace, ensuring that your brain isn’t receiving a heavy load of information all in a short period of time and to enhance memory and recall.

Nicholas Radford – UG Systems Engineering

As someone who always had exams with numerical answers my top tip for exam season is to read all the questions in the paper first. The questions that you know you will find easier are the ones you tackle first, giving you a confidence boost going into the harder sections. Remember to highlight all important data in the questions as well.

Millie Steel  – Economics

My biggest tip for exam season is to make sure you set aside time to relax. It’s very easy to wake up and continue working all day until you go to bed, but you’ll find that you very quickly run out of steam and lose all motivation. If you set aside times for productivity, say 9am until 6pm with regular breaks throughout the day, then you have all evening to relax and do something you enjoy. This means the next day you’ll be refreshed and ready to start the day!

Nyasha Mukonoweshuro – History and Politics

While it seems obvious, I wish I’d made more of an effort to remember it’s not possible to memorise and remember every single thing, and that’s okay! It can be tempting to try and squeeze in those last-minute cramming sessions the night before, especially when you feel like there are so many little things you need to go through. However, you give yourself the best chance of being able to tackle exam questions when you have enough rest to think straight. So, make sure to get a good night’s sleep! After your exam, have some time off doing something you enjoy. You deserve it no matter how you think you did. Exams can be a bit of a rollercoaster so remember to take care of yourself and look after your mind, you’re doing just great by showing up – keep going and believe in yourself!

Rebecca Pearson – English

My top tip for dealing with coursework or essay questions would be to brain-dump all of your ideas and initial thoughts about the topic or question onto a piece of paper before you start to research and answer it. This is something that has helped me massively with building arguments for my essays and responding to questions, keeping my thoughts in mind without worrying that I’ll lose track of my ideas under pressure. I find there’s something therapeutic about putting thoughts to paper, taking them out of my busy brain so that I can focus more clearly! I would also say that, if you have the time, leave your essay or response for a day or so before you submit it – that way you can view it with a fresh pair of eyes.

Emily Rigden – Media and Communication

When it comes to revision my best tip is to start early and plan ahead. The library have great resources for planning that I use when it comes to my revision covering daily, weekly and termly timetables. I use the timetables daily and weekly, ensuring that I cover all topics I need to, and nothing can get forgotten about. By timetabling my days like this, it also ensures I can add some time off revision to have some downtime to do things like gym, going food shopping, and relaxing. Click here for the library resources: Link