School/Exam Motivation

[Maria DUK]

Hey all!

I'm coming to the end of the first year of my master's and I'm in the middle of exam season and have lots of deadlines coming! 🙄

I was wondering how you all stay motivated? Or how you help guide your children motivated during stressful school periods or exams? I can imagine it's tough managing diabetes and managing school at the same time. Any techniques or sources of inspo? 🙂

I like to make sure I plan my study days and to break up the sessions, working for 25 minutes at a time instead of an hour at once. I wonder if anyone does the same or if this would be helpful for people living with diabetes?

 

[SB2015]

For anyone, with diabetes or not, it may be useful to

• Set aside time for both revision and for proper breaks from revision, avoiding muddling the two.
• Have a timetable to ensure coverage of all the subjects being examined. It is easy to focus on subjects that you are more confident and to ignore those that you find more difficult.
• It is also important to recognise if there are subjects that are lower priority for you.
• Eat well. Good meals but perhaps some treats as well (along with insulin if needed)
• Sleep well. Easier said than done sometimes but try to get a routine.

For external exams make arrangements with the school/college as early as you can to ensure that you can manage your diabetes effectively during exams. Be sure you are able to monitor levels and treat hypos and hypers as necessary. Glucose levels don’t always behave predictably.

Best wishes to all coming up to exams and assessments.

 

[Spathiphyllum]

Dear Maria-- I agree with SB2015. In more detail-- one of the best pieces of advice I ever had was: Treat preparing for exams in the same way you would treat preparing to run a race.

What does that mean? Well, it's obvious if you think about it:

1) This doesn't apply to coursework but to standard exams: If you were preparing to run a race, would you spend your time reading about running races? Of course not; you would practise actually doing it.

Same with exams. Use past papers to do your own mock exams. Then, when the time's up-- have a cry, have a cup of tea, have a nap-- and then go over your own answers. Check whether what you wrote makes sense, and, if not, how you could have said it more clearly. Check whether the structure of your answer makes sense, and, if not, what would be a more sensible order in which to address the necessary points. Check whether you have actually answered the question the exam paper asked! And, if not-- if you went off at a tangent or omitted part of the question-- work out what the complete answer should be. Check whether the facts you put down are correct. And so on. And then write out your new and improved answer.

And then the next day or the day after-- do it all again, mock exam followed by checking your own work and producing a better answer.

2) Whether it's standard exams or coursework: If you were an athlete preparing to run a race, would you spend all your time running? Of course not. You would know you need to take care that you got enough sleep, you got enough (and good enough) food, and you got enough genuinely relaxing time off.

So you should draw yourself up a timetable not only for your study time/mock-exam time for all your subjects, but also for the other things you need in order for your brain to work at its best: exercise, sleep, meals, and recreation. Seriously-- schedule it and stick to it, and you'll be fine.

 

[Maria DUK]

For anyone, with diabetes or not, it may be useful to

• Set aside time for both revision and for proper breaks from revision, avoiding muddling the two.
• Have a timetable to ensure coverage of all the subjects being examined. It is easy to focus on subjects that you are more confident and to ignore those that you find more difficult.
• It is also important to recognise if there are subjects that are lower priority for you.
• Eat well. Good meals but perhaps some treats as well (along with insulin if needed)
• Sleep well. Easier said than done sometimes but try to get a routine.

For external exams make arrangements with the school/college as early as you can to ensure that you can manage your diabetes effectively during exams. Be sure you are able to monitor levels and treat hypos and hypers as necessary. Glucose levels don’t always behave predictably.

Best wishes to all coming up to exams and assessments.

Hey! Some really useful tips. I particularly agree with making sure revision and breaks are kept separate, sometimes its just too easy to still be working when you should be resting, and watching facebook reels when you should be doing work...ooops... Prioritisation is also really key I agree! I wrote my first report not based on which deadline is sooner, but which module I struggle with the most, so that's been pretty helpful!

Your note on arrangements with school/college/university will be really helpful to any diabetic students who have a read through this forum. It's really important that schools and unis make sure their students have the adjustments they need! Otherwise they'll find it hard to engage and study for their exams, and that's not what they want right? I wonder, do universities give diabetic students health support plans, or give them reasonable deadline extensions if they're struggling?

Thank you for the wishes! Hoping everyone is finding exam season okay 🙂

 

[Maria DUK]

Dear Maria-- I agree with SB2015. In more detail-- one of the best pieces of advice I ever had was: Treat preparing for exams in the same way you would treat preparing to run a race.

What does that mean? Well, it's obvious if you think about it:

1) This doesn't apply to coursework but to standard exams: If you were preparing to run a race, would you spend your time reading about running races? Of course not; you would practise actually doing it.

Same with exams. Use past papers to do your own mock exams. Then, when the time's up-- have a cry, have a cup of tea, have a nap-- and then go over your own answers. Check whether what you wrote makes sense, and, if not, how you could have said it more clearly. Check whether the structure of your answer makes sense, and, if not, what would be a more sensible order in which to address the necessary points. Check whether you have actually answered the question the exam paper asked! And, if not-- if you went off at a tangent or omitted part of the question-- work out what the complete answer should be. Check whether the facts you put down are correct. And so on. And then write out your new and improved answer.

And then the next day or the day after-- do it all again, mock exam followed by checking your own work and producing a better answer.

2) Whether it's standard exams or coursework: If you were an athlete preparing to run a race, would you spend all your time running? Of course not. You would know you need to take care that you got enough sleep, you got enough (and good enough) food, and you got enough genuinely relaxing time off.

So you should draw yourself up a timetable not only for your study time/mock-exam time for all your subjects, but also for the other things you need in order for your brain to work at its best: exercise, sleep, meals, and recreation. Seriously-- schedule it and stick to it, and you'll be fine.

Hello!

I absolutely love your saying about preparing for exams being like preparing to run a race! I think reading is somewhat useful when you're first learning something, but from that point on the best thing is to engage with in some way such as doing practice questions and mock exams. The point about getting enough sleep and good food is really useful too! Who would have thought preparing for exams is so similar to preparing to run a race?