3 Ways to Beat the Biggest Mistakes Students Make in Exams

Term 3 can be a little scary because of its pace and intensity, especially for our Year 11 & 12 students.   

There’s just a lot to do, a lot of pressure, and not a lot of time to do well or better than in the previous term.  

To help students and parents prepare for the hectic term, our team of education and exam coaches analysed exam results and feedback across 85 NSW schools from the last semester. What we discovered was a 13% increase in issues with written expression and articulation, not just during exams but also in assignments.  

If a marker cannot read your child’s answer and cannot understand their train of thought, it doesn’t matter how good the ideas are or how much your child still has up in their head. They cannot award your child the marks for their responses.    

It’s important to remember that mistakes related to articulation and mismatched or incomplete responses are almost always because your child is not fully prepared for the assessment. They don’t they don’t know what the marking criteria is or how to structure their response in a way that demonstrates their knowledge exactly the way markers want it. In their rush , they get caught up with stress or anxiety and leave out crucial elements from their response. 

But the good news is that these are all preventable mistakes; with activities and stop-gap measures to help your child organise that you can already deploy at home. In this article, we explore three easy ways to help your child beat these common mistakes and achieve higher marks and their ideal ATAR this Term 3. 

Improve your child’s exam performance and results in 3 ways  

The best tactic to address this will depend on their unique learning profile, but if your child has a tendency to not fully answer the exam question or commit exam mistakes, here are three of the most common ways to help your child improve their exam responses:    

1. Assessment Battleplan: Create a detailed plan to manage their time and tasks for their assessments. You can create your own plan or check out our free, pre-made Assessment Battleplan – the same one Kalibrate-Ed students use to get a 90+ ATAR.

   Senior school can get crazy with the volume of assignments and deadlines your child needs to cover, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed even before starting. However, by chunking tasks in an organised manner and starting early, they can avoid the last-minute rush, ensure their tasks are manageable, and have enough time to receive feedback on their drafts.     

2. Reverse–Brief and Scaffolds: ‘Reverse–briefing’ is a method students can use to work backwards – reviewing assessment criteria and marking rubric to create ‘mission briefings’ is a tried-and-tested method for making sure their responses hit all the necessary criteria for a top band response.

   A ‘scaffold’ is a structured outline or framework that acts as a guide for students to complete an assignment or prepare for an assessment. With a clear structure your child can follow, complex tasks become more manageable, and they don’t skip a step or an important section in their drafts. 
   

3. Have an Opinion: A clear and well-supported opinion is crucial for scoring well, especially on questions that require critical evaluation or justification. In subjects like English and the humanities, students should confidently assert a thesis or argument within their responses, and it should always hit the mark. 

Parents support their child by providing feedback on assignments and drafts. Or they can point them in the direction of their teacher or one of our education strategists, who would be happy to help. Either way, someone needs to make sure your child knows what to sign-post in formulating clear-cut essays or exam responses, and if they don’t want to hear it from you, they still need to hear it from someone; otherwise, their marks will never change.    

Bring reinforcements to boost your child’s results  

At Kalibrate-Ed, our education strategies and exam coaches have worked with hundreds of underperforming students who ended up with 90+ ATARs and at the top ranks of their cohort. No matter what challenges your child is facing right now, we know that there’s always a way to unlock their potential and help them reach their best results.  

If you want to learn more about helping your child get organised and achieve their best exam results, ATARs, and future university and career opportunities, we’re having a live parent discussion for Year 9–12 parents. The free session will focus on teens, exams, and career success, which will be held on Wednesday, 28th August at 7:30 PM online via Zoom.   

Get your free ticket and access the parent discussion here.