222. Eating Your Frogs In The Final Weeks Before An Exam

Today, I'm sharing one question that cuts through revision stress and helps you decide what to study next: what kind of learning feels most difficult right now? 

Tune in to find out why mental resistance is a signal to prioritise that work and how you can, rather than leave it to one side, actually lean into it and do more of the practice that matters most.

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Hosted by William Wadsworth, memory psychologist, independent researcher and study skills coach. I help ambitious students to study smarter, not harder, so they can ace their exams with less work and less stress.

BOOK 1:1 COACHING to supercharge your exam success: https://examstudyexpert.com/workwithme/

Get a copy of Outsmart Your Exams, my award-winning exam technique book, at https://geni.us/exams

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Transcript

Welcome Back And The Key Question

William Wadsworth 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Exam Study Experts Podcast. And for those of you who've been missing a little exam study expert in your podcast feed the past couple of weeks, then welcome back. I'm your host, exam prep psychologist and study strategy coach William Wadsworth, here with today's high impact bite-sized mini sode, which this week focuses on a single powerful question. What's your struggliest kind of learning at the moment? And how can you do more of that in the week ahead? Okay, maybe that was two questions, but they're super important questions at any time of year, and especially as exam season looms, uh, as a time of recording it is for so many of my coaching clients who have exams coming up over the next few weeks. A key consideration I often coach on with my clients, uh particularly at this point, is how can we make the most of those final few weeks before an exam? Our time is limited, so where do we focus? And one uh really important consideration when answering that question is to think about what you're finding challenging. And in particular, anywhere you're feeling particularly high mental resistance uh to doing a particular kind of studying or learning. And that's often a really important signal that we want to put that stuff first and really kind of prioritize some extra time on it. Uh, our natural instinct is to maybe shy away from those things because we kind of find them hard, we don't like doing the task very much. Um, but if anything, you know, I think we'd both agree that that is really important stuff to prioritize because we find it hard. So here are some concrete examples of this in action. Uh, these are all taken from real conversations I have with real students recently. I've just made up the names, but the examples I'm sharing are completely real, just to illustrate the point we're talking about today. So maybe you're like Eric. Uh, you're taking a number of different classes or modules or subjects. Um, uh, in this example, uh, we're we're taking our A levels in a number of subjects, one of which is economics, uh, and we are struggling way more in economics than the other subjects. Uh so Eric did a fantastic job of spending way more time on economics than any of his other subjects, really uh leaning into that struggle uh and making some headway on it, even though finding it really hard. So, way to go, Eric. That is exactly the right thing to do. Uh, maybe you're like Sarah. Maybe you're kind of generally feeling in pretty solid shape for most of your subjects at this point now. Good job. Uh, but you know that there are some of those maths problem types that you'd really rather not come up on your paper. Okay, great. Let's list those out, roll our sleeves up and tackle them head on. Maybe think about uh when in the day you have your best focus. Uh for some of us, maybe it's just the first thing we do. Uh the idea of kind of eat the frog. We had Brian Tracy on the podcast way back in the day talking about eat the frog. Um, and and uh, you know, roll up our sleeves and really tackle those tricky problems head on. So we don't just do the full past papers, or perhaps more accurately, we don't only just do past papers, we don't just do full past papers. We really make a point of digging in on those uh particular topics, those particular problem types in the case of baths that give us that kind of slight sinking feeling in our stomach, um, you know, when we think about them coming up on the exam. So the a little side tip on this: don't put pressure on a single sitting to figure it all out. Uh you might need to come back to it multiple times. That's okay. All you want to worry about is just giving yourself the chance, creating the opportunity to sit with those tricky problems, wrestle with them a bit, look at the work examples and so on. You might make some progress today, you you might not. That's okay. Trust the process and be patient. You might just need to spend a little bit of time with them. Uh, but that's what we need to start to do. So keep going, Sarah. You're doing great, you've got this. Or finally, maybe you're like Mel, our exams are getting close now, and we feel very comfortable with certain kinds of learning. So maybe we've been doing a lot of flashcard practice uh throughout the year, and particularly recently, and we we're starting to feel like we know our content pretty well. Um that's great. Uh, but maybe we have a tendency to put off the actual practice exam questions, and particularly the full past papers, especially uh if it's essay heavy type exams. I often find that you know, when an exam is basically lots of long-form writing, you know, it it's it's often um that we often put off doing that kind of practice, uh, especially. Um, so look, all that good learning work with the flashcards, the quiz apps, the blurting, the brain dumps, and more, you know, all the stuff we talk about on the podcast, that's a fantastic foundation for success. You know, we want to learn and understand our content really well, but we also need to practice applying all our understanding to those actual exam papers. So it's vital to weave in actual exam practice into those final few weeks, uh both practicing individual questions uh as well as tackling those full-timed papers as well. So make sure we weave that into our routine over the next few weeks. So, what is it for you? Whether it's a specific subject like Eric, specific topics or problems within a subject like Sarah, uh, or a particular type of practice uh like Mel and the actual full past papers, watch out for any mental resistance you're feeling uh to any kind of aspect of your studying over the next few weeks and let that be your guide, not to shy away from doing that kind of practice, but rather the exact opposite. Lean into that, really embrace it and tackle that kind of practice, because that's going to be the most important stuff of all for you to work on. And as always, if I can help you as your coach to make the best choices in how to make the best use of your valuable study time with exams looming or at any other point in your study cycle, uh then I am here to support. Not only with helping you with the kind of intellectual, practical stuff of the how and the what and and the organizing and the how you're learning, but but also the kind of the mindset, the accountability and the confidence to help you actually execute and put into practice uh what you might already know you need to do. Um that's easier said than done. So please do reach out. Uh as ever, you head on down to examstudy expert.com forward slash coaching, uh, and there you follow the links to schedule a consultation chat with me. Uh, we'll have a little bit of a chat about how things are going for you and talk about how I might be able to help you. Potential coaching clients often ask me, you know, when is the right time to engage with me? Uh, I generally say the sooner the better, uh, because you've got longer then to benefit from your freshly optimized study system that we build together for you. Um, but I also stress that it's never too late to make a difference. So even if, like Eric, Sarah, and Mel, you're down to those final few weeks, uh, I'm still here to support you in getting the exam scores you deserve. Uh, do reach out, that's examstudy expert.com forward slash coaching. Thanks for tuning in today, and I'll catch you in the next one. Wishing you every success, as always, in your exam.