Students may be unsure how to study for their Science practicals as little practice is given for practicals in schools. So, we came up with 5 tips to help you prepare for your upcoming practical exams.
Revise past practicals
Practicals that you have done in school are important as the topics that might be tested will already have been taught to you. Revising them will help you better prepare for your practical exams.
How should you go about revising past practicals?
You can make a list of the questions given and the important keywords to use in your answers. Also, taking note of the mistakes that you made previously will help you make sure that you won’t repeat the same mistake again.
The questions tested may not be the same but the way the questions are asked may be similar. So, being able to come up with a list of keywords to include in your answers will help you understand what is required and score points.
Use your observations as the basis for answers
Knowing your content is one thing, but you cannot just base it on theoretical knowledge to do well. Through what you observed in your past practicals, you can use your past answers as a gauge to make sure that your responses are as close to the actual answer as possible. This is important as you will be tested on how you apply your theoretical knowledge and also how you will use it in real-life settings. Being able to get a rough estimate of how your answers should be will help you greatly.
Pay close attention during practical lessons
Practicals test students on their skills and evaluation from the experiments. It is important for students to pay close attention to the skills taught during practical lessons so that they will be able to revise the methods used in the future. Also, schools may not open the laboratory for students to go in and practice the skills taught in class for safety reasons. By chance, if you were unable to pay close attention in class, you can head over to YouTube to watch videos of how scientists did the experiments and you can take note of a few key points from them.
Use visuals and diagrams
Being able to visualise is a powerful learning method for science experiments. It helps you to understand and retain concepts easily, and also get yourself familiar with the apparatus used in different experiments.
Also, during your practical, you can do a quick sketch of the set-up that is required so that you can set them up quickly during your practical and not spend too much time re-reading the set of instructions given.
Do not hesitate to ask for help during your practical
During practical, you may be nervous and will try to get your experiments done as soon as possible. But, if you ever come across any issues during your practical, or you don’t understand something, you can ask the teachers immediately. Most of them will try to explain it clearly for you to understand what you should do. Do not be afraid of asking as it will be easier for you to carry on with your practical when you understand what’s going on.
Hope these tips help you to prepare for your upcoming science practical exams!
All the best!