Exams and assessments

Milly Treat assessments during school time like the real thing, because it will help you get rid of that stress when it comes to the real exam.

Milly: I definitely use past papers in my revision. Check with your teachers what topics you should be covering, because this does change from year to year.

Joe I think past papers are the best thing to get you ready for GCSEs, because it gets you familiar with the questions, the style of it, and I'd even put the same time conditions.

Baxter I had a traffic light system for marking my past papers, and it really helped me understand, if it was red, I didn't know at all, amber, I sort of knew it and then green, I knew it. So it just really helped me for revision. My school was very helpful. I had dyslexia, so luckily they gave me extra time when I was doing my exams and it just really helped, because made me not stress about the time and I could just focus on the paper.

Nung My school was really supportive. They were able to adapt to my needs and help me and support me. So the support was second to none. But I was able to get the right support by having a smaller room so I can cope under pressure. The thing is, the key message to you guys is like, never be afraid to ask for help.

Shay I feel like my teachers helped me a lot before preparing for my exams and assessments, and it was definitely a big help going into the exam knowing that I had their support.

Lauren The only time I've had breakfast is when I was doing my exams, because it was just brain food, and I had cereals or porridge or whatever.

Shay I always found it really useful to pack my bags the night before an exam, because it's just one less thing to worry about and stress about in the morning.

Joe One thing I did like massively, and I think a lot more people should start doing it, the final half hour until your exam, close your revision books, take a step away from your friends, take some deep breaths in, you're now fully ready for that exam, and you're going to be in a better state than you are if you're messing about your friends five minutes before an exam

Milly Takes some water with you into an exam. Exams tend to be in summer, so that will be there to keep you hydrated and keep you calm and cool you down.

Jacintha Keep focussed on your own desk and your own paper. Don't get distracted by what other people are doing

Iain Well in the exam hall, I found the best thing to do was calculate how long you had with each mark. Just with a simple like you have 30 marks in one hour, so you can give yourself two minutes a mark. So that way you're not spending all your time on one question. You should use every second you have in an exam.

Milly When I'm in an exam, I like to read through the questions twice, because it helps me to answer the questions to my full ability. I like to highlight the command words within a question, such as describe or explain.

Sekani Time management is very important when you're in an exam, because some of the more difficult questions with more marks are at the back of the paper. So definitely spread out your time evenly.

Rohan At the start of exam, I read the paper just so I know what I'm expecting towards the end. If I finish early, I always like to look back through the exam at least once or twice, just to make sure I haven't missed out anything or check through my answers once again. There might be something that you've missed that will earn you an extra mark.

Milly When I finish early in an exam, I like to read through what I've already answered, especially on them longer questions, because you do get stressed and you do panic a little bit, but by reading through at the end of an exam, when you do have extra time, you can identify any mistakes you have made and correct them while you can.

Daniel An exam day there's a huge mental side to it. Going into the exam room with clear thoughts and confidence can boost your performance.

Ellie Simmonds Hello. I'm Ellie Simmonds, a British Paralympic swimmer. For me, when I was leading up to a big pressured event like the Paralympics, for me one of the big things that I would do is talk. I would always have that person that I could talk to leading up to it. It just helped to release that pressure off and being able to express the feelings that I would feel.

And also for me one of the big things is using the things like mindfulness; doing a bit of meditation every single day. I used to do it for about ten minutes, especially leading into Tokyo 2021, which was quite a stressful Paralympics with covid and all those implications and having that ten minutes out where I'd be able to not think about anything and be totally grounded.

And also the likes of yoga, in the past couple of years using the things like that has really helped me be clear on my mind and using things like friends. For me, with my best friend Gemma, we used to, leading up to the Tokyo Games, we would have to say the three things that we were grateful for. Because I think sometimes being consistent and knowing what you're thankful for takes away the stress of the other factors of life.

Dean McCullough Hello. It's Dean here from Radio 1. And if I was putting together a playlist to get me ready for an exam or an interview or something really important, I would make sure that it's got three main ingredients: artists that you love. If you're a massive Ed Sheeran fan, Little Mix fan, Kim Petras, Rina Sawayama, stick them in there. Those feel good artists that you go to if you're going through a break up or your mum and dad have really got on your nerves, get those in there. Songs that make you feel good.

And let's put songs in there that you know all the words to. I'm talking those big anthems. Those big Beyoncé tracks. Those Blossoms, Coldplay, just tunes that everybody knows, that you can sing along to and distract you from what's coming ahead. And thirdly, music with a beat. I'm talking dance tunes. David Guetta, Eric Prydz, Prospa, those songs that when you hear them you're transported into that music video and you feel like you're the star of the show.

Get those in your ears on your headphones and put some bass in that walk and get yourself down there and absolutely smash it. And if you've got enough on your plate and you want someone else to do that for you, head on to the BBC Sounds app and find Radio One dance. It's my number one place to go to if I need to feel good. I can escape to these big banging tunes to make me feel good, to make you feel uplifted and you've got some of the biggest names on the planet on there putting mixes together for exactly what you're looking for. If you're working out, getting ready for an exam or if you just need something to pick you up. Go on there and check it out.