Within my first hour of learning to drive, my dad took me onto the BUSIEST road in Sydney.
It was REALLY scary.
However, that initial painful experience is the reason that I’m such a confident driver today!
When it comes to school, we do the opposite. We do far less daunting work throughout the year and finish on the really hard task of an unseen exam.
The question is, how do we inverse this process?
In this video, I’m going to take you through how to make practice HARDER so that when it comes to exams you’re totally prepared and confident!
Tip #1: Flooding
Case Study: Josh Waitzkin
Tip #2: The 10% Time Less Rule
Tip #1: Flooding
There’s a principle in psychology called ‘flooding’.
The basic idea is :
‘You should overexpose yourself to a challenge so that when you get to the real experience you’re far less overwhelmed!’
This is because you face the problem with the knowledge that you’ve been able to cope with challenges that are far more difficult.
An example of this is when people have phobias. It can often help to overexpose someone to whatever their fear is.
If you have arachnophobia and you’re put in a room full of spiders, the next time you see one crawling across the ground you might be able to deal with it a bit better.
Overexposure is an excellent preparation tactic, but don’t just take it from us….
Case Study – Josh Waitzkin
Josh Waitzkin was at the world chess championships.
He was facing the Russians, and the Russians were known for playing dirty!
Chess requires high focus and high concentration and they looked to manipulate this to their advantage.
Every time an opponent was contemplating a move they would tap their fingers constantly against the table as to break their concentration.
When Josh was preparing for the world chess championships he knew that this was coming! He realised that he needed to overexpose himself to this tactic if he was ever going to overcome the actual competition.
As a result, he made his practice HARDER. Whenever he was playing chess at home, he would make sure that there was a constant tapping noise to distract him.
When he got into the competition the tapping Russians couldn’t faze him! This new superpower allowed him to clean up and ultimately win the championship.
‘But how can I use the same principle for preparing for exams?’
Well, there’s one simple trick you can utilise to make your practice harder than your actual exams…
Tip #2: The 10% Time Less Rule
This is a really easy trick, but it produces some really great results!
Put simply, the rule is:
For every practice paper you work on, give yourself 10% less time to complete it.
This way you’re making your practice harder and giving yourself more constraints.
As a result, you’re going to get super comfortable with completing your exams in less time.
When you get into the exam and you have all the added stress of completing an unknown paper you can breathe easy knowing you’re prepared to complete it in far less time than you need.
If this tactic is used in combination with flooding, you can make sure that you’re totally prepared for your exams and ace that Band 6!
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