Some exams allow you to make your aid sheet. And every exam requires you to remember the course. So it’s always a good idea to make an aid sheet summarizing everything you need to know. Even if you can’t take it into the test, carrying it around before then means you’ll be able to study any time you have a minute spare. Which is a lot more useful than scrolling through some strangers shouting at each other on social media.
How do you make a great aid sheet? The first and most important step is that YOU have to make your own aid sheet. It’ll always be better than anyone else’s. Your friend might be an expert in the course, they might know everything backwards and forwards, they might have beautiful copperplate handwriting and have won several awards for calligraphy and graphic design, the fact remains that if you copy their aid sheet then that’s just ANOTHER sheet of material written by someone else. The exam is full of those! And they all take extra work for your brain to understand and use properly.
The second step is making an aid sheet RIGHT NOW. Don’t wait until the day before the exam, don’t wait until you “know what should be on it”, don’t delay or procrastinate until it’s too late. Because the next thing you know it’s the night before the test and you already have two hundred things you think you should be doing. And you shouldn’t be doing any of them except eating and sleeping to get ready for the test.
The third step is to use your aid sheet for everything from now on. There’s no point in making it if you don’t use it! Then you’ll automatically find out how to improve it. You’ll scribble on extra equations, you’ll cross out things you don’t need, you’ll add tips or keywords to certain equations or sentences to help you recognise and remember how to solve future problems. Your aid sheet will naturally improve. When it fills up or gets too messy, rewrite it on a new one, including the extra material and better organisation you’ve learned. Then use that one from now on, until it’s time to replace it with an even better one.
By the exam you won’t just have an aid sheet, you’ll have evolved a perfected response to all the problems on the course. One which will work to remind you of how you’ve done these problems before. Which is exactly what an aid sheet should do.
An aid sheet can make you smarter, and you can make a smarter aid sheet.
How do you make a great aid sheet? The first and most important step is that YOU have to make your own aid sheet. It’ll always be better than anyone else’s. Your friend might be an expert in the course, they might know everything backwards and forwards, they might have beautiful copperplate handwriting and have won several awards for calligraphy and graphic design, the fact remains that if you copy their aid sheet then that’s just ANOTHER sheet of material written by someone else. The exam is full of those! And they all take extra work for your brain to understand and use properly.
The second step is making an aid sheet RIGHT NOW. Don’t wait until the day before the exam, don’t wait until you “know what should be on it”, don’t delay or procrastinate until it’s too late. Because the next thing you know it’s the night before the test and you already have two hundred things you think you should be doing. And you shouldn’t be doing any of them except eating and sleeping to get ready for the test.
The third step is to use your aid sheet for everything from now on. There’s no point in making it if you don’t use it! Then you’ll automatically find out how to improve it. You’ll scribble on extra equations, you’ll cross out things you don’t need, you’ll add tips or keywords to certain equations or sentences to help you recognise and remember how to solve future problems. Your aid sheet will naturally improve. When it fills up or gets too messy, rewrite it on a new one, including the extra material and better organisation you’ve learned. Then use that one from now on, until it’s time to replace it with an even better one.
By the exam you won’t just have an aid sheet, you’ll have evolved a perfected response to all the problems on the course. One which will work to remind you of how you’ve done these problems before. Which is exactly what an aid sheet should do.
