Make your own practice exam

In freshman year, my final grades ranged from 65 to 95. Even though I loved reading, I found it difficult to retain much information by passively reading textbooks at the library. During my senior year, I finally created a study technique that worked well for me. I made my own practice exams based on questions from the textbooks. Making, and taking, these practice exams was active enough for me to practice. If I took my own practice exam three times before the real one, I knew I’d perform well enough for an acceptable grade. Here’s why it worked: in the process of writing my own exam and answer key, I explored what teachers might be quizzing me on, and, by extension, the actual concepts and ideas in the textbooks and source material. It was a way to trick myself into actively reading. This was a great way to apply a creative mindset to what seemed like a very non-creative problem. Looking back, there were a few ideas that inspired this one: I had briefly managed a community exam bank,…