At any time of your personal or professional life you will surely want to take on new challenges and these require hard and constant preparation. An admission to the university, an exam, a language exam or maybe a test at the embassy will be some of the situations where you would be able to test your knowledge and your abilities in certain areas.
When the final moment arrives all your energy will focus on overcoming the test you have. It will require long hours of preparation, too little sleep, a great deal of physical and mental exertion, as well as an overflowing enthusiasm for continuing to advance in both personal and professional aspirations you set for yourself.
However, despite having struggled to pass the exam, the final results are sometimes not what you were expecting and it may be necessary to repeat your test because of the low grade. Although it may seem surprising, this situation is more common than it seems and should not be a factor that discourages you from pursuing your dreams. By contrast, it is a test of character that will allow you to be better prepared for the next time.
Undeniably the feelings of anger, frustration, worry and sadness will be present as you go through this difficult situation. Even so, it is very important to forget this episode quickly to continue working in order to improve your knowledge in the areas where there was greater weakness. It is essential to analyze the causes of the result so as not to make the same mistakes again. This way you will be one step ahead when you are evaluated again.
Finally, you should not interpret a bad grade on an exam as a failure. We recommend you avoid worrying and try to understand the advantages and disadvantages of having a stumble during your academic life.
Here, we tell you what else you can do to face these kinds of obstacles during your time in high school, college or university.
Make a retrospective analysis of your exam
Analyzing in retrospect the reasons why you may have failed your exam or did not obtain the grade that you expected is the best way to correct your mistakes. While facing a situation like this may seem devastating, it can also be the perfect opportunity to strengthen your weaknesses.
Reviewing each of the questions and answers that you had on the test, whether they were correct or wrong, is essential to identify what your strengths and weaknesses are. This can be a basic and sometimes tedious exercise, but of great importance to recognize your shortcomings and work to improve them.
Tips to analyze your exam:
- Divide the answers you had correct to identify your strengths and the answers in which you were wrong to identify your weaknesses.
- Compare your answers with those of your classmates and exchange different perspectives on the same subject.
- Correct the wrong answers of your exam; in this way you will be able to have a clear idea of what was the mistake that you committed and the chance to learn something new.
- Request a feedback session with your teacher to review the correction of your exam, so you can verify the clarity of your concepts and clarify new questions or concerns. Do not forget to ask your teacher what kind of bibliographical source or support material you can study to clarify the problem and your knowledge in front of the topics of the class.
Reflect: a grade does not define your abilities as a student
Remember that, despite not having obtained the desired result, the most important thing in an exam is to appropriate concepts that can help in your personal and professional training. In the same way, it is essential to be clear of your shortcomings in certain areas in order to improve and be able to perform your exams with greater clarity in the next few occasions.
It is very important that you do not get discouraged if the result you get is not what you expected. Remember that you must remain focused on obtaining maximum performance by exploiting all the knowledge you have acquired in class. Do not forget that the combination of discipline and practice will make you advance and be better every day in front of the mistakes you have made previously.
Although a grade can frustrate you, impacting some plans emotionally, economically and mentally, it should not be the only factor to be considered after a stumble at an academic level. You will have to evaluate if you dedicated enough time to the topics that were evaluated, as well as the way you approached the answers, to correct and learn from the mistakes, avoiding committing them again in the future.
In addition to this, it is very important that you do not get saturated with unnecessary information that can confuse you when developing different questions. Analyzing, processing and practicing the topics that will be evaluated can be useful ways in which you can improve your academic performance. Inquiring as many times as necessary about your doubts will allow you to be better prepared and safe before any question you might answer.
In the same way, before presenting the exam again, you must be sure of the concepts, the duration and the form of your test. It is necessary to have this be clear to improve your previous performance and guarantee better results in this new instance. It is essential to keep calm and handle anxiety to answer as clear and forcefully as possible. In this way you can optimize time and avoid confusion that may harm your final grade.
Keep in mind that a bad grade does not define your intelligence or ability as a student. However, prove your commitment to overcoming different obstacles in the academic field. So work on your shortcomings so that an exam is not a stone on the road.
Remember that the journey to fulfill your dreams is not easy, however, you must prepare and not give up to be among the best and most competitive professionals in the labour market.
Identify your learning method
Generally, schools, colleges and universities provide their education in a standardized way for all students. But the truth is that each person has a completely different way of learning, for this reason there are different learning methods that you can choose.
Although it is utopian to think of an educational institution with a totally personalized teaching model, it is valid to complement the standard education model of different institutions with some of the learning methods that best suit your abilities.
Identifying your learning method is essential to getting good results during your studies. In this way you will be able to learn and reinforce the content of your classes at your own pace and in the way in which you were most easily able to understand and memorize the concepts of your study program.
These are some of the learning methods you can apply in your study routines before and after the exams period.
Reading synthesis techniques: having a good reading comprehension is essential to having a good performance during your study period. Likely a large part of the content of your academic program will be based on reading. If you are the kind of person who reads hundreds of pages for your classes, but rarely understands the ideas and concepts of the text, you can apply certain techniques of reading synthesis to improve or develop your understanding.
- Using different colors to highlight the text will allow you to divide the ideas by topics, importance, keywords, relevant data and so on. In this way, it will be much easier for you to remember all kinds of transcendental information when re-taking your exam.
- Making a summary with the main ideas of the text will make it easier to understand the basic concepts clearly. It is not necessary to understand every word of the reading, as long as you can identify the ideas that the author wants to express.
- If you are the type of person who is facilitated to analyze and understand all kinds of information in different schemes, you can create conceptual maps. These will allow you to classify the information in a much more dynamic way, identify the most relevant points of the text and outline the most important concepts and definitions that will surely be fundamental when presenting your exams.
- Comparative tables, on the other hand, will be useful if you need to discover the similarities and differences between the different concepts of a text. This graphic tool will be fundamental to improve your analysis and reading comprehension.
Study area: adapting an optimal study space will play a fundamental role when it comes to preparing your brain to receive all kinds of information. The physical space contributes to concentration, order and efficiency. Try to have an area of your home especially designed for your studies, make sure you have good lighting, a chair and a desk appropriate to help you feel comfortable and away from distractions.
Routine of studies: establishing a study routine will allow you to organize your time and dedicate a few hours exclusively to prepare you academically. Each student is a completely different universe so you will know by yourself at what times and in what way your body and brain will be much more receptive to all the information you provide to it.
Resubmit your exam
Many times we can face situations in which we fail exams that are a requirement to take a step in our lives, either the university admission test or a test that allows you to take a subject next semester. There are other situations in which we can get a bad grade, for example, in a language exam, but the truth of these cases is that learning a language requires time, practice, perseverance and dedication. So, if for some reason you fail an exam do not be discouraged, you can have many more opportunities to present it, it's all a matter of time.
You must leave bad experiences in the past and use them as a reference so as not to make the same mistakes. Preparing to resubmit your exam is essential to close cycles and demonstrate to yourself what your capabilities are and how far your knowledge reaches.
Taking on this new challenge will be essential to acquire all the knowledge you did not have when presenting your first exam. In addition, after having analyzed in retrospect your first results and having identified your learning method, you will have the perfect guidelines to prepare and do it again. If you focus on doing your part and dedicating time and effort to your insurance studies you will get a good grade next time.
Do not forget to talk with your teacher about the alternatives to re-take your exam. You can demonstrate your skills and interest in learning from your mistakes.
Do not get discouraged and think big!
While getting a bad grade on your exam can be devastating, you should not be discouraged. These kinds of situations are part of the daily life of thousands of students around the world. The important thing in any way is to learn from the experience and draw up new goals for the future.
This type of experience helps us during our academic, personal and professional training. Life is full of successes and stumbles, so each step you take will be decisive to strengthen your weaknesses and develop both your skills and your abilities.
Working on your weaknesses will be the first step to improve yourself, to the extent that if you strive to improve either in your personal or professional life, you will be someone integral with the ability to be constant and persistent in different stages of your life, with the ability to take on new challenges and learn from your mistakes.
Work hard to become a person with determination, do not let yourself be affected by minimal details, because throughout your life you will find on your way an infinity of much bigger challenges.
Keep calm, take time to breathe and reflect on your future. The best things you can do is to think big, set yourself new goals and get ready because the road will be full of obstacles and rewards so encourage yourself to overcome your fears and correct your mistakes.
Do not forget to make every effort to be better than the day before!
