How To Deal With Christmas Exam Results & Studying Over The Break

you're listening to the Starclicks podcast, your number one source for junior and leaving star tips. We make exams easier. Welcome back to another episode of the Starclicks podcast where you're listening to Ness and Emre, two sisters and also two people who work for study clicks. This podcast is all about giving you the best tips and tricks advice on how to get through exam school, everything to do with that. We have worked with study clicks for a while now and have picked up all the best insider knowledge and yeah this podcast, if you've listened to us before, is all about that and should get you all set for your exams and to get the best results for you. So this particular episode is quite festive or not necessarily full of Christmas cheer but it's based around the Christmas time, the Christmas period, what are we talking about today Nessa? Today our episode is going to be on dealing with the Christmas exam results that you get from them and anyone who wants to study over the Christmas holidays, that is pretty much anyone who's doing the junior and the leaving star if you want to spend that or if you want to do well, come the exam time, we really recommend using that time to study and if you don't want you obviously like there's still holidays, you want you to still relax but we want to kind of give you a good plan or some good ideas of how you can spend that time efficiently that you can prepare for the exams and also give yourself the break that you deserve. Yep and so this is going to be coming out maybe before some of you have even done your Christmas exams. If you haven't done your exams yet we actually had a podcast this time last year where we talked about how to do well in your Christmas exams so we recommend you go listen to that one and yeah this one then is more so like Nessa said for how to deal with your results that you'll get either you might have already gotten them or that you'll get pretty soon and as well how to study over the break so we're going to break it up into two parts and we'll start with how to deal with the results I suppose, shall we? Yep that's right so basically I know or I just know from looking at the discussion forums and just seeing the kind of activity from what students are saying people do tend to freak out over the Christmas exams because I mean just the word exams in themselves kind of inside a lot of fear in people like people don't like exams but it's important to just approach the Christmas exams and the results that you get from them and they're purely for like a benchmark for you and your teachers to see how you're getting on at this point in the school year like I said if you're in junior living service kind of like six months to go now they're like mocks for the mocks kind of practicing like that and yeah basically just not something to make a big deal of it doesn't it's not a reflection on you it's just a reflection on how you're doing so far kind of a thing. Yeah and like whatever you get if it wasn't what you were hoping for or I'm like I think and experience a lot of people go through definitely what I went through for some of my Christmas exams especially in the exam years was it's the first time you sort of realize oh okay now I need to really start because you're put on to this exam it's it might be one of the first times that your that the teacher's trying to put you under an exam condition and give you a very similar exam to what you would get in the junior living service or the mocks and it started then that you realize okay I need to start doing a bit more work now and that's definitely what happened for me and I didn't do as well in my Christmas exams in six years I was like okay now is the time to really cop on and that's fine like that's all you should use it for you shouldn't get knocked too much by a result that's a bit lower than you're expecting and just use it as a way to try and improve and to know your weight points and to know how much work you need to do for now and you still have plenty of time there's no reason to freak out about the results if they didn't go as well as you thought they would because you're thinking oh god like this is a reflection of what it'll be in six most time it isn't you know it's it's a reflection of what you are now and it is it's a great indication of how you can improve so just try to see it as the positive thing regardless of the marks that you got because you can only improve from where you are currently yeah and you can absolutely use like where you follow now like we said this on the podcast we had about failure like failing or like getting stuff wrong is the best way to learn because so like this is kind of a tool that you can use when if you're going to be studying over Christmas it's go through your exams if you have them and this is actually only relevant if you do get your results before Christmas and but if that is the case with you go through your exam and go through make a list of all the the questions you got wrong figure out what topics they came under so that then when you're making a study plan for over Christmas you can focus on those topics and you can you know work on making them stronger yeah just try try to change your attitude towards how you're viewing your results don't see them as anything too bad and like a lot of you listening might have even got grace results and you'll look back on your Christmas exams I promise you you won't remember them even regardless of how well you did you won't remember them all like the only memories that I have at least of the Christmas exams is the kind of crack in the hall at least in our school you know we had like three different years because we were small groups we had three or four different year groups kind of all sitting in the same hall it might be a bit different this year because of COVID but I'm sure the people will be doing it in different rooms and so but sort of like you know the excitement coming up towards the end of the very last exam because you know that like you're all sunny because holidays everyone's looking around each other in the room kind of making jokes that's the stuff you remember like do you have any memories this is so basic but like I remember when I was like in first year and it was my very first like Christmas exam you know when you're in first year you take them so seriously yeah like especially if I don't know if there's a first-year listening to this but like that is like that's great no don't like freak out about them it's good to like if you take stuff seriously like to and means you like work out that's fine but I remember just like making such a big deal of it because I'll say like the first kind of exams coming from primary school and I remember I got sappy side that's like boy in fifth year and you know when you're 12 and you're sappy side someone who's like 17 they seemed like 45 to you and this is like oh my god like this it's like a cool boy in fifth year that one point he asked me what time it was I just remember that star straw it's like that they can like mean girls like on October 3rd he asked me what day it was and it's like it's born 50 or talk to me it's just insane that I remember that but I don't remember any of my results and I always remember as well that unlike the very last day because it was like Christmas and the teachers were like like they they'd pull up like three box of roses and and send them down the rows of seats there was amazing I mean and I always like I hated being at the very bottom because I was like they're better be pink ones left or I swear to god you're I can't believe things you're favourite do the absolute worst you don't always the blue one and but things are the best I would buy a pool box of roses just either pink ones anyway and the point is coming from our you know our experience of having done them it's fine to not be excited about your results are like not feel great about them but the the point we're trying to make crosses don't dwell too much on them regardless of what they are they're they're not gonna stay with you forever and they're not a true reflection of you as a person so yeah celebrate if you did well like great on you if they if they did if you did really well and then that's amazing and make sure to keep up the good work and don't slack off now just because you you feel like you're at a good place like there's still a lot of work to do and you still need to keep up that same level if they didn't go as well for you then you know like we said you know how to improve and it's not something to dwell on yeah absolutely enjoy your Christmas move them from remove them from your mind and relax it's it's been a tough year and if you're listening to this the following year I'm sure you'll remember the previous year but you know it has been a tough year and there's definitely Christmas exams of all things are definitely not the thing to be getting down over after the year we've had absolutely not yeah yeah no there it's just like a brief flickering in this in the chaotic year that 2020 has been like don't take it more seriously than it needs to be taken just see them as like I said benchmark for your progress see where you've gone wrong learn from the stakes take that on for when you're doing the next set of exams be that the mocks and go from there yeah I would make it yeah like a quick note I know some of you might be worried about wash your parents think about your results or what your teachers think about your results and you know everyone's situation is different so this might be universal to everyone but as always you can only do your best and as long as you make that point to the people who might be disappointed based on your results you know if it's your parents or whoever it might be let them know say look I realize what I did wrong here I'm gonna try and improve I promise that I'm gonna be working I have noticed my weaknesses now and I will work on them that's the best you can do and as long as you try to actually follow through what you're saying then there's nothing wrong with you whatsoever and you're actually doing a great job so don't worry about any of that it would be my advice and hopefully that that works for whoever might be putting you under pressure absolutely so as well as we might we've probably said all that we can about this Christmas exams and how to feel about them how to approach them moving on now to like we said this this podcast is in two parts so the next part we want to talk about is studying over Christmas if that's something that you want to do now if you're in leaving sir I would really recommend that you do use this time the two weeks that you have over Christmas because when you get back after Christmas the marks they really do just come out of nowhere like they come up so quickly so and I know I hate it as soon as we got back like we just finished Christmas exams and it was just like immediately it's like okay the marks as if like the Christmas exams were nothing let's go and I know a lot of schools like she don't don't do Christmas exams if they're doing the marks we were different but yeah it does it does get annoying because streets in January people are talking about the marks straight away but you'll feel so much better if you have done a little preparation over the Christmas break so you can do if so you'd recommend it as well but like especially six years I would recommend not completely relaxing and chilling out for the Christmas holidays try and do a bit of work and we're gonna talk now about how you can do that in a kind of a nice and manageable way like don't go crazy obviously yeah like definitely and like I was saying earlier you know crazy year very stressful for a lot of people even outside of you know school and all that so use this time to chill out a lot of people have probably just had months and months of being a bit overwhelmed and maybe burned out and now is the time to just allow your body to relax allow your brain to relax just chill out and like Ness was saying I wouldn't especially if you're in an exam year I wouldn't do two weeks of nothing because it's it's just a great time to like you know you don't have homework to that's taken up all your time or you don't have whatever you have usually during the week you just you have time that you can catch up on all the things that you have on your plan so do try to take advantage of the free time but definitely also relax and go easy on yourself and use the time to to recuperate a bit if necessary if you've had a reasonably fine year and you feel okay then great you like feel free to put more work on yourself but it's what's trying to base your your study timetable over the two weeks as much as possible on how you're feeling and how much you feel capable of don't put too much on your plate just because you feel oh I'm way behind so I'm gonna force myself to do 10 hours a day like that's crazy just don't do that you'll be much better off listening to what you know your brain and yourself feels capable of and just working as efficiently as possible as you can with that don't try to overdo it just because you feel like you're behind you'll be fine like don't worry about feeling behind you still have plenty of time and in that case I just think you need to get your your study plan and you're kind of your schedule into place you know would you agree with that yeah absolutely I agree with that because we do we get that question along actually which is like how often should I study every day and people think there's like this magic number that like if you study this much every day that's like the golden number and but yeah because everyone is different everyone learns different it takes people various different amount of time to learn things so don't feel under pressure that if one person is studying for like six hours a day during the during the Christmas exams and or the side of Christmas holidays then you have to do that too that's not the case at all it's kind of more it's much more efficient or more beneficial for you in the long run if you just have like a kind of a list of things that you want to study over the holidays rather than I need to spend this many days or this many hours during this because that's your ultimately just not actually going to study or taking as much as you really need to yeah and like try your best not to compare yourself with other people because that will be hard if you have people who are very or like friends who are very vocal about how much study they're doing that can be quite as stress because you feel like you're not doing enough you know exactly like Nezah said everyone is different and some people require more time or at least time and it is not a reflection on you if you're doing a lot less that doesn't mean that you're gonna do worse or anything like that and like I just said you know it's about finding your own capabilities and trying to stay in tune with that and do as much as your brain feels capable of and you know we've mentioned another podcast when you feel like your brain isn't taking anything anymore just stop if it's even if it's 6 o'clock in the afternoon and you've only done maybe an hour study and you had planned to do for but your brain is just not taking anything in just stop try taking a break come back in 20 minutes and go do something else that doesn't engage your brain at all very much and start again don't forget about it don't worry that you've lost any time because there's no point and if you plan to do for hours of study but your brain isn't in the mood then you're just gonna have wasted four hours of doing nothing because your brain isn't in the mood you know so yeah it's all about trying to get in tune with yourself and recognizing when and or when not is a good time for you or like what suits your particular style of learning what suits your particular brain and how it how it how it wants to learn because it is different for everyone and I know that's really hard to just figure out especially like at a yoga age you don't know how what necessarily suits you it's you're only learning this now but yourself it will get easier over time but try to just yeah recognize it if you can at all and definitely make a plan go on to study clicks use our study planner fill it in for every week add to it adjust it whatever it might be to make sure that you're organized any that you do have like to do list and you have something ahead of you every day that'll definitely make it a lot lot easier if you have something on a piece of paper that says I'm gonna do this today because if you have if you're just like oh yeah I'm gonna study tomorrow but you don't have a plan especially over the course of holidays whenever and ever and else is just eating chocolate and chilling then you're more than likely not gonna do it if you don't have like a specific plan in place so definitely do get organized get your study space nice and ready sit down with a cup of tea make yourself like convince yourself that you're in the zone study and that'll make it a lot easier but don't just go into the study mindset without actually having anything planned you know that won't be as efficient yeah you're only gonna waste time and long run if you just if you kind of go in with a very general mindset of okay go sit down still you know and we've talked about that loads before on the podcast that whenever you make a plan you have to be specific there's no point in saying oh study French for an hour instead you should be like okay for the first half an hour I'm going to go through my vocab book or maybe I say like the first 10 minutes ago it goes for my vocab book for like 20 minutes I'm gonna practice some of the the hour exam and then whatever like kind of break it off have it written down have that written down on your on your plan so that you can take it off as you go along the we talked about this before the buzz that you get off ticking stuff on your ticking stuff off your to-do list of your planner motivates you to want to keep going and that's going to be so beneficial to you especially over Christmas all you want to do is just line a sofa you eat a tin of roses this podcast has not been sponsored by cabri and I am definitely because if you if you're like having if you have a plan that you're gonna work these days but then you're gonna give yourself these other days off if you're gonna kind of a lazy approach to it every day then you're gonna feel like you need to actually do it every day I find I did that a lot and when I was like working freelance that I was just like oh I didn't do enough today so I have to do it again tomorrow whereas if I just worked hard enough the first day I could have given myself the second day off kind of it yeah so that's why it's so important to be focused and have that plan yeah and a big part of it as well and you know we say it so often that the hardest part is super cliché but the hardest part is just sitting down and doing it for the first five minutes and then you're grand and so I know it's it'll be really daunting like it'll be doubly as hard over Christmas because yeah everyone's sitting around being lazy and you know it's a great time pre-doing that and you probably won't want to study and that's totally fair but you should still do a bit but the hardest part will be to just sit down and get the first five minutes out of the way once you do that you'll be grand you'll be in the zone your brain will be ready for it so and if you are kind of humming and howling about what they used to do but a study try to think of this podcast code to your study or wherever you study and sit down and just do five minutes even if you don't feel like you can do a full hour just say fine I'll just do five minutes and I promise 90% of the time you'll just sit there and be able to do it and pass the five minutes that you promised yourself you know yeah absolutely we say that loads which motivation it is just a case of starting not even thinking about it because if you think about too much you're just gonna get overwhelmed and you're gonna feel stressed because you would like oh my god I have like seven subjects and I have all these things like just pick one subject pick one topic and just do it and you'll feel so much better after it and another thing to like motivate you is it's just one year like I know that the thought of studying over the Christmas holidays is just so it's just the thought of studying over the Christmas holidays so one pleasant like no that's my relaxing time that's like watch movies all day time it's just for this year you're gonna have all the lovely Christmas you'll have in the future especially this is the best year to have a terrible Christmas because it's already terrible like next Christmas is going to be so much better and you're going to be free you won't have to study for the next Christmas holidays and hopefully so think of it that way it's just this one Christmas and be fine and you'll be thankful that you did it yeah one thing I suppose that uh that we could maybe get advice on is what to study over the Christmas holidays and obviously everyone has different things to study and different subjects but I do feel like the Christmas holidays because like I was saying earlier it's two weeks where it's kind of uninterrupted you don't have teachers giving you homework well you know you might have had some teachers who were like oh do this over the Christmas break but yeah for the most part you won't have a lot of other things going on or you know like upcoming tests that you have to prepare for stuff that's kind of you know week on week off different things happening and so it's sort of like you have more time to focus on things that isn't just revision like I feel like at least for me when I was studying a lot of time the study I did during the week was like oh revision because we have a grammar test coming up or like yeah we have this small I say writing test is a bit a little weak so I'm gonna look at essay writing whatever it might be so that the weekly study was always kind of like oh I'm just organizing my notes that I got this week putting it into a folder slightly revising that revising what I did last week whatever and it was always just sort of like quick revise because you wouldn't have time to do anything else whereas what I'm saying now with Christmas is that you have a bit of time you can have a bit of a breather and like get to things that you won't have time to do necessarily when you have shorter bursts of study and so things like maybe practicing your essay writing that's usually a really time consuming and not something that people have time for during the week so do have a go at that even if it's just timing yourself writing out a single paragraph and making sure that you do you can do a paragraph within 10 minutes or whatever things like getting your notes getting on top of your notes organizing your folders making sure they're all in the right place and adding your own notes so like writing out your own notes is really really helpful and like very good for learning but it's also time consuming especially if you're the kind of person that likes to be very artsy about it and you know adding in all the highlights and colors so now is a really good time to get on top of that to get ahead on making your own notes and things and yeah just try to think of it from that perspective like try to use the time wisely to do things that are normally a bit more time consuming and are harder to do during the week when you have other stuff going on that is so true I remember being a living serpent like I should really process all these essays but they're so time consuming that you would never do that during a normal school week so yeah just try and think of anything like essays or like organizing your notes anything in the past that you've said oh I don't have time for that now and the Christmas holidays is a great time to get that sorted and then you'll you'll come back to school in the new year and you will just feel top class you feel so ready especially with the mocks yeah especially with the mocks coming up because then you're like you're ready you're got a head start almost you know you have everything in place and you feel more prepared and ready for that kind of stuff so yeah obviously as well you know with if you're in 36 you're in a business this you and like we said the mocks are coming up and it's definitely not a bad idea to be doing as many past questions as possible because it will be exam conditions you will be getting an exam paper so the best thing you can do is to already start practicing those past papers which of course you can do on studyklicks with much ease monk papers as well if you get premium so definitely I assume most are used as study clicks users anyway or most of our listeners or study clicks users if you are not though and study case study please go check as I wish we will change your study life I promise yeah that is like a huge thing of like if there's anything that you do over the Christmas holidays be it let it be positive sound questions there it's never you're never gonna regret doing exam questions especially when you're facing into the mocks and those are the exact kind of things that you're going to see anyway that's what you're preparing for and do as many of them as you can yes so to summarize don't worry too much about your results you're still a great person and you know how to improve if you did badly if you did great well done keep up the good work do not let your guard down now to study over Christmas definitely let yourself relax have a nice time go easy on yourself after the hard year we've had but if you do want to study and we do recommend you do a bit of study the important things are to make sure you have a plan keep organized just sit down for the first five minutes and it'll be easy one just motivate yourself by getting the first five minutes out of the way and then it'll be fine use pass papers as much as you can use the time that you have to do things such as essay writing or the more time consuming things like running out notes and what was the last thing does that was it no I think that's everything that's exactly everything that we just said nicely summarized good okay well then we might leave it there that's probably gonna be our last podcast of the year good riddance to 2020 am I right yeah so we'll be back again in the new year with some more tips you know CIO is coming up things like that will be we'll be back to give you all the advice and the ammunition that you need to get through the exams next year and so don't worry we'll be back and we'll be here for you again yeah absolutely and as always if you have any 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is studying underscore clicks make sure you're following us on TikTok we're still new over there but there is like all of our social media platforms is a good mix of funny stuff but also helpful study tips condensed into you know into nice click digestible content yeah make sure you're following us on all of them like we said we're well worth the follow yep so we'll leave it there we hope that you have a lovely break like we said go easy on yourselves definitely take a break do as much study as you can as you feel like but don't go crazy either do take the chance to unwind and chill out after the crazy year and yep we'll be back again next year bye for now bye [Music]