How to Get the Most Out of Your Learning Style

People have been trying to figure out the best way to learn for centuries and there have been numerous ideas and theories over the years. For example

How to study for exams

Exams are a necessary and stressful part of study. Since they are so important, you need to study in ways that get the best results. Here are some ways to improve your study skills. Adapt them to your needs and environment to make the best of your education

Exam Preparation: Ten Study Tips

Study comfortably and avoid stressing yourself

Preparing for exams? Give yourself the best chance with these top ten study tips.

1. Give yourself enough time to study

Don't leave it until the last minute. While some students do seem to thrive on last-minute 'cramming', it's widely accepted that for most of us, this is not the best way to approach an exam. Set out a timetable for your study

Sixteen Easy Steps of Becoming a Mathematician

Introduction

Mathematics is more of an attitude rather than fear phobia as most students would like us to believe. It’s one of the poorly performed subjects in KCSE and KCPE exams despite enjoying the largest number of lessons in a week compared to other subjects of the same league. Eight lessons a week is pretty much if you want to prove you talents in mathematics. The problem in math performance mostly is to blame to the student and to some extent company and some shrewd teachers

Top 10 revision tips for your final exams

Talk to your teacher and say your problems

Draw up a revision timetable
Research shows that shorter 20-30 minute spells work best, because your concentration is much higher. We therefore recommend taking short, frequent breaks.

How to study to improve your KCSE grades

Students are always advised to work hard to improve their grades. I advise students to work smart in order to improve their KCSE grades.

Students who study smart pass their KCSE exams, they have time to play with their friends, they have leisure time and they enjoy life.

There are five things you have to do to study smart.

1. Eat the frog.

A Genius Revision Technique

Make short notes. Do not read like notes  a novel

Imagine you are talking to a friend who describes to you the plot of certain movie. She explains to you vividly the outline of the movie. From her explanation, you decide to go and watch the movie.

When you go to a movie theater, you find yourself seated comfortably watching a movie that you understand. You feel good as the movie progresses because you can follow every action. You do not get lost in any of the scenes. The movie looks interesting and you laugh whenever the other viewers laugh because you can understand and follow the movie. Just before the move comes to an end, you somehow remember watching a movie that you did not like because you could not follow.  You also remember that, you could not follow the movie because you had not read any review and nobody had explained the plot of that movie to you. From that day, you decide that, in order to enjoy any movie in future, you will always read the review of the movie.

Tip #1. Give More Time To Revise for KCSE Subjects That You Personally Find Difficult

This tip #1. in 2011 on how to pass KCSE examinations. In the following days, I will write 20 tips that can help you pass your KCSE examinations.

The tip I am giving today is very good and important.

Tips on Writing Good English composition: KCPE or KCSE Examination

Writing Process

Composition is one of the biggest challenges for Kenyan students doing KCPE or KCSE examinations.

In this article; I will outline the best steps in writing a good English composition during KCPE or KCSE examinations.

All compositions usually follow

The Best Method to Revise for Kenya Secondary Examinations -KCSE

Revising Quietly in class

Introduction

Simple question: Why are you reading this?

Most likely you are reading this because you are a candidate waiting to sit for Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam. You may have started revising for the final KCSE exam or you will start soon. To all the candidates and non-candidates, feel at home and read on. I assure you that, you will not be disappointed.

In this post, I am going to share with  you the best method to revise for KCSE exam.  Normally, revising for KCSE should be easy and a smooth ride. However, due to lack of good revision techniques , the students find themselves overwhelmed by revision work load.

Having taken exams for many years, I developed a revision method that I think is the best. It can help any student to understand the subject matter and pass the KCSE exams. Give it a try and see what you think. This method involves 5 key steps. I can acronym the system as TONOMOTERE

1. Topic. Revise a Topic at a time
2. Notes. Make condensed notes as you revise
3. Model questions. Attempt to answer model questions
4. Teacher. Ask the teacher for help
5. Repetition : Repetition, repetition, repetition

Requirements:
1. An exercise book preferably squared exercise book
2. Class note book, Course book or text book of the subject you are revising
2. Coloured pens/highlighter
3. Sample past KCSE examinations questions and model answers (You can free past papers by checking the page menu of this website).

1. Revise a Topic at a time.

Lets say you want to revise Physics. I will choose a topic of Linear motion.

The first thing to do is to check the contents or outline of Linear Motion. This is very important. Many people ignore this part. But I emphasis that, it is very important to have an overview of what you are supposed to know after reading a topic. No need to memorise the subtopics. But it is good to have an idea at the back of your mind of what you are supposed to know. If you have time, write down the contents or subtopics

The outline a topic can be found from the syllabus, a recommended text book or in your class notebook. In this article, I will use the recommended Kenya examinations council (KNEC) syllabus.

The steps I have discussed in this section can be used for any other subject, let it Biology, Chemistry, Geography, Commerce etc.

LINEAR MOTION
Specific Objectives: By the end of this topic the learner should be able to:
a) define distance, displacement, speed, velocity and acceleration;
b) describe experiments to determine velocity and acceleration;
c) determine acceleration due to gravity;
d) plot and explain motion time graphs;
e) apply the equations of uniformly accelerated motion;
f) solve numerical problems on uniformly accelerated motion.

Content/course outline
1. Distance, displacement, speed, velocity, acceleration (Experimental treatment required)
2. Acceleration due to gravity free – fall, simple pendulum
3. Motion-time graphs- displacement time graphs, Velocity time graphs
4. Equations of uniformly accelerated motion
5. Problems on uniformly accelerated motion

The above are the objectives and the main subtopics you are supposed to understand in Linear motion. Now embark in revising.

2. Make condensed summary Notes
The first subtopic is distance, displacement or speed. Write the the Topic and subtopic with a coloured pen as the heading on your exercise book. As you revise, make revision notes of the most important points such as definitions and equations. The revision notes should be a summary. I used to condense my summary notes. I did this by using a squared exercise book. I went further and folded each page into half. I used to write the summary notes with smaller writing style. This helped me to condense a lot of information as possible in a single page.

Write down what you do not understand.
If you read something that is difficult to understand, write it in a separate page. Otherwise, you can have a problems exercise book. But make sure the problems are separate from your revision notes.Sometimes you can write the problems in a sheet a paper. This is not advisable because of the likelihood of losing the paper.

Keep the written problems carefully so that you will ask for help from the teacher or fellow students.

3. Attempt to answer model questions
After you finish revising, attempt to answer model questions related to the topic. You can use model questions from past KCSE papers. If you do not have sample KCSE questions, you can use other previous exam papers or you can formulate sample questions  yourself. Using all the three types of questions provide advantage of different format of questions.

Attempt to answer these questions without looking at the notes. It is not important to time your self at this point. After answering the questions, cross check the answers with the notes. If you find a difficult question, check the answer in the revision notes, if you cannot find the answer in revision notes, check the answer from the note book or text book. If you cannot find the answer, write it down in problems exercise book.

Quality Studies

4. Ask the teacher or fellow students
Take the difficult questions to your fellow students and discuss with them. If they cannot help you, go to your teacher. The teacher will do everything to help you answer those questions.

5. Repetition.
They say practice makes perfect. When you are revising the same topic again, follow the steps above.Re-write condensed summary notes and difficult questions. Read while writing down summary notes. Never revise without writing down summary notes. Revision notes are very important.

Re-writing the notes will help the material to stick in your memory. If you feel you have no time to re-write the summary notes, re-read previous summary notes.

6.Final Revision.
The days prior to the exam, use your revision notes. The notes are condensed and summarised,  they therefore provide less reading material this saves time. In addition, they are quick to scan than the whole book of class notes. The fact that you summarised them with your own style, they are easy to read.

Summary.
This is the summary of the 5 most important things to remember.
1. Topic. Revise a Topic at a time
2. Notes. Make condensed notes as you revise
3. Model questions. Attempt to answer model questions
4. Teacher. Ask the teacher for help
5. Repetition : Repetition, repetition, repetition

Tips on Passing KCSE Mathematics Examinations

Do it yourself

I have received numerous questions on how to pass KCSE mathematics. I will describe some of the reasons why many students fail KCSE mathematics and what I did to pass. I hope the tips here will be of help to some one. Many KCSE candidates argue that mathematics is the hardest subject. To me KCSE mathematics is one of the easiest subjects to pass.

Reasons why I think KCSE mathematics is one of the easiest subjects
1. Mathematics concepts never change and will never change. The way a problem was being solved in 19th century, it is the same way it is solved today in 21st century. In History, presidents of countries keep changing, you have to keep up with the changes to get questions right.
2. Mathematics formulas are the same geographically throughout the world. The way an American or Chinese student solves quadratic equation, it is the same way a Kenyan student does it.Mathematics formulas also never change with time.
3. Mathematics exams test the same thing every year. In every year’s exam,you will find a geometry, algebra or triangle….. question maths exam. By understanding the topics tested in mathematics you are guaranteed to pass.
4. Mathematics do not test specific answer, they test how you understand to solve a problem. You might miss the answer and still get a very high mark. This is different from subject like CRE which most students like. In CRE if you do not know mother of Jesus, you miss the full mark. CRE tests specific answer.

Reasons why many students fail in KCSE mathematics

Participate in Class

1. Many students have a negative attitude towards mathematics even before going to high school.
2. Many students do not allocate sufficient time to study mathematics.
 3. Many students do not even do maths home work. Maths home work is one of the best way to understand mathematics. NEVER COPY HOME WORK.
4. Many students blame their mathematics teacher. This is wrong. The fact that he/she is teaching mathematics, it means he/she passed his exams. So he/she is good in maths (I will never agree with the idea of students that the maths teachers are bad).
 5. Most students do not know the KCSE maths exam format. Look at past KCSE papers, you will notice a certain trend. Specific questions come in section A (low marks) while others in Section B which has high marks. By knowing which areas to focus your revision, you will score high marks.

Ways to pass KCSE mathematics exams

Practice! Practice! Practice!

Warning: There is no quick remedy in passing mathematics. Mathematics requires practice, practice, practice, practice, practice…. I passed my KCSE mathematics exams very well. I did not regard myself as clever student, I was an average student who was in an average school but did very few things right. I will describe the things I did right to pass my KCSE mathematics exams.
 1. I did not rely on the teacher to pass my KCSE maths exams. I knew I couldnot grasp all concepts when the teacher was in class, so I spared good amount of time every day to revise what we were taught in class. 2. Every student knows himself or herself. I used the technique that suited me. Doing something many times, helps it stick in my mind so this is what I did.
 3.Solving mathematics problems was sometimes very demoralising for me. However, I did not shy away from trying a problem again and again. If I could not get it right after several trial, I approached good students for help, if not, I approached the teacher.
4. I ensured I had covered the whole syllabus by second term of 4th year (form 4) (not with the teacher, but by myself). This gave me whole two terms to revise, revise and revise.
5. I allocated more time in my personal time-table to mathematics. Because it is generally hard to grasp maths concept for the first time, I repeated same or similar problems regularly until they stuck in my head.

HOT POINT: After trying a maths problem, I closed my books and tried solving it in my head step by step (not cramming, but understanding what each step involved). This worked magic. Because if you can solve a problem in your head without looking at the book, then you are guaranteed to remember it in the exam!!!!!

Handling KCSE maths exam
What I will describe here is what I did during actual maths exams. Other students approached in differently, that’s fine. I did what worked for me. Other approaches are good too.

SECTION A
I always started with Section A. But, I tried to solve every problem in Section A as fast as possible. I never wasted time in any question if I did not know how to solve it instantly. This means I spared good chunk of time for Section B.
SECTION B
 I ensured I could solve all 5 problems in Section B (each carrying 10). This way, I was sure of at least 45 marks (assuming I got 9 marks from 5 questions). This is from Section B alone.

After solving problems in section B, I went back and looked at difficult problems in Section A. Since at this point I had calmed down, I could concentrate and sometimes I found myself solving some of the difficult problems. If I did not know how to solve a specific question, I avoided panicking, because it is counterproductive. I left that question and moved on.

I hope these tips will be of help.

How to handle a teacher you do not like

Last year, I was giving a talk to a girls’ school in Meru called Kathera girls High School. After an excellent and inspiring speech in which I discussed the powerful 5Rs for revision, then came time for questions.

A girl shot up her hand and asked a question that will always ring in my mind. ‘How can I study a subject I like, but it is taught by a teacher I hate?

This took me back 17 years ago. I was in form three, we were taught Biology by a teacher we all disliked. Disliking is an understatement; we went on rampage more than 5 times asking the principle to change the teacher for us. Anyway, it never happened and I passed Biology with a very good grade, B+ I think. Actually a good number of my classmates passed well.

What trick did we employ to pass Biology that was taught by a teacher we disliked?

I will discuss my secret that I used to help me study Biology.

I viewed the teacher like a peel of an orange. He was just a housing for the sweet inner fresh. He was nobody to me, what mattered is the stuff he was teaching.

According to me, everything else about him was bad, but I realized one very important thing; I did not have to like him as a person. Provided I grasped the facts he was teaching, the rest is garbage. If I grasped the facts I would pass the exam and he would be left there and my life would be progress better.

That is exactly what I did. Like the way I remove a peel of an orange to enjoy the sweet inner fresh, I ignored his personality. I was interested in passing Biology. He was just a vessel to deliver the subject.

Be a bit clever, convince yourself that you do not need the peel and although the peel is bitter you dot not throw away the whole orange fruit. Actually be happy that the bitter peel is protecting the nice and sweet fresh from get contaminated.

Therefore, it is a matter of choice, to either throw away the whole fruit together with the peel or ignore the peel by removing it and enjoy the sweet fresh.

Similarly, it is personal choice to hate the teacher and the subject or hate the teacher and like the substance he/she is teaching, knowing that the subject will help you in future.