Why do we do Unit 3 and 4 practice papers and trial exams at MLMC?
A big question that some students and parents may be wondering about is ‘Why do we do practice papers and trial exams?’ Trial exams and practice papers are vital tools for student learning and exam preparation — with their value increasing according to students’ motivation, application and willingness to take and utilise feedback.
Watch this terrific TEDTalk from Doug Barton: ‘What do TOP students do differently?’
Improving knowledge and skills
Practice papers and trial exams are a proven, effective way to improve subject knowledge and skills — especially in the area of memorising/recalling information and applying skills to scenario-questions. Researchers (Roedigger and Karpicke, 2006) found that students who complete practice papers after receiving feedback from previous a practice paper or trial exam do better in a ‘final’ exam than students who don’t do practice papers and a trial exam.
Students practicing and personalising exam strategies that work for them
Trial exam week (and practice papers) enables students to apply learnt subject revision strategies (taught through the year), personalise and ‘tweak’ aspects of strategies that best work for them. Teachers mark papers, then give rich feedback to students with suggestions from improvement. Productive students will take this feedback, reflect on it, problem solve, and work more specifically on where they need to in the weeks ahead.
Identifying areas of strength and weakness…
Students are encouraged to not be ‘threatened’ or ‘intimidated’ or ‘anxious’ about a trial exam or practice paper — it’s not a ‘judgment’ on their capacity; rather, it is diagnostic. The practice paper or trial exam identifies gaps in student knowledge that lead to better self-awareness for where to focus revision strategies. Teachers mark these papers, then give students 1:1 feedback and suggestions for improvement — itself a process of deepening and consolidating learning.
… then setting revision goals for focus-improvement
But, it is up to students to then develop and apply those strategies in their study-routine. They should not ‘cram’ at the ‘last minute’, but over the coming six to seven weeks spread out revision sessions to better embed content into their cognitive-memory (learn, time to forget, then re-learn, repeat). We have also been encouraging students to BECOME TEACHERS themselves. The National Training Laboratory suggests that most students only remember about 10% of what they ‘read’, 20% of what they ‘hear’ or ‘see’, but retain nearly 90% of what they learn through teaching others.
In the next newsletter, there will be an article ‘How are we helping students best prepare for the exam period?’. If you have any questions, please contact any of the Barak Campus team during school hours.
