Study Smart, Maximise Exam Performance

Priya, an ICSE mother, approached us through a common friend a couple of years ago. Her child Vir was studying in St. Marys school, Pune and was struggling in Biology with the 10th standard board exam coming up in about 10 months. Priya was anxious. Vir was a good student. He had an above average level of understanding, was very sincere, and worked hard. He was doing very well in all his subjects, getting more than 80% marks. Except biology. He just didn't remember things in biology, and was barely scoring 50-55%. Priya, a commerce graduate, couldn't understand why this was happening. For several reasons, 10th standard is an interesting period in a child's education in India. To begin with, it is their first board exam, and board exams tend to make students anxious. Second, a student does not have a lot of choice of subjects at this stage. All students have to do social sciences and mathematics. If they opt for science, they cannot drop biology and just do physic...

When I was in school almost 40 years ago, we had fewer distractions than today's students. There was very little television, no mobile phones, social media, or video games. We did not go for tuition classes, but studying was a much more social activity than it is today. A typical study session would involve three of us studying together. The process was very simple - study a topic, and then ask each other questions. If we did not know the answer well, the person asking the question (& holding the book) would correct us right away, and ask the question again after some time. We did not know this at that time, but research has shown that the act of information retrieval is vital to pushing information into our long term memory. Friends studying together and giving each other feedback does 3 vital things that are essential for deeper learning, and sadly missing from today's study methods. Active recall Just reading books and notes, and watching videos is a one wa...