At some point in your degree, you will experience that midsem exam that just didn’t go to plan. Whether that came through lack of preparation on your behalf, or it was just a hard exam, which no one could have anticipated, there are a few things that you can do to bounce back. The KEY is to gain motivation from the experience/result, which can sometimes be easier said than done, as receiving poor midsemester exam marks only accelerates the anxiety and stress when it comes to wanting to pass your subjects.
It is common to try and identify why the midsem exam didn’t turn out as well as it probably should have. At the end of the day uni is all a balancing act, one that we all probably are yet to master when it comes to midsem exams. I always find during this time each semester, my social life seems to explode and I get rostered on to more shifts at work. Sometimes uni is about just ploughing through the next piece of assessment, with not all areas of our life always being within our control.
I know that I have certain strategies for when I don’t achieve to a standard that I consider acceptable. Here are my eight hot tips about
how to bounce back:
1. Have your initial reaction – If you are upset be upset, if you are angry be angry, if you need to run out your
frustration, exercise, and if you need to watch a favourite TV show with some chocolate or ice cream, do it.
2. Do not dwell – the energy that you waste on stressing about what you ‘could have done’ should be put into hard-core
prepping for the next piece of assessment in order to make up the lost marks.
3. Give yourself a breather – I often focus on a subject that I feel more confident in for a few days after I get my
results, to gain back confidence. If you do a double degree, it is also a strategy of mine to focus on the opposite degree to completely
escape.
4. Go to the exam viewing session – Instead of thinking, ‘how did I stuff that exam up so badly?’ and leaving it to a
guessing game, find out. Sometimes it can put your mind at ease that you made silly mistakes under pressure, rather than jumping to a crazy
conclusion that you did not understand the content.
5. Examine what is left to do – Go through your assessment left for the course and work out what work will give you the
most marks. Remember that finals count big time. Most often subjects heavily weight the final exam, which is helpful in this situation if
you have had one of these whoopsie moments in a midsem.
6. Make a Plan and Make it a Priority – Plan out how
much work you need to do between now and the next piece of assessment and commit to doing it. This includes planning your SWOTVAC and
prioritising this subject.
7. Go to a consult – If you don’t understand something go to a consult, they are there to help you, and often are
an underused resource.
8. Study it – Do the work to get the marks you deserve, and whatever you do, don’t give up on the subject – it is
completely salvageable!
Work hard, play harder, and bounce back: University helps us build resilience