Episode 70: 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments 

TRANSCRIPT:

You’re listening to The Parents of Hardworking Teens Podcast, episode number 70 - the audio version of my free parent guide: The 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments - and how to fix them immediately, so your teen CONFIDENTLY achieves their best ever grades.
 

Hi VIP’s. Welcome to a special episode of the podcast where I’m going to share the audio of my Free Parent Guide so that we have an audio-book like version.
I know that it can be hard to find the time to print and then read the PDF version - which is free on the website: www.rocksolidstudy.com/guide. So if you’d like the hard copy version for free, then you can absolutely go get that for yourself if you haven’t already - I’ll include the direct link to it in the show notes. 

So, let’s get straight into it: 

The 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments - and how to fix them immediately - so your teen CONFIDENTLY achieves their best ever grades.

INTRODUCTION:

You want your teen to get the grades they deserve, want (and perhaps need). They're working hard; slaving away on assignments, diligently completing homework.
 

But... it's just not quite happening for them.
 

Either they're getting 'okay', decent, average grades, but not those elusive A's. Or, they're getting good grades, but the stress and 'up til midnight' evenings are far from ideal.
 

I see this happen all. the. time. with the (dedicated, anything-but-average!) students I work with - and their concerned, supportive parents.
 

So let’s talk about the solution!
 

First, I wanna make one thing clear:
 

Boosting grades does NOT mean slaving over text books for hours, cramming in more and more subject content. In fact , your teen can easily sky-rocket their results by at least one full grade, with their existing subject knowledge. That’s exactly why I created this parent guide. It’s crammed with insider secrets, plus some of my best tips ‘n’ tricks to help YOUR teen achieve their best grades ever and enjoy the journey along the way.

MY AIMS FOR YOU:

~ Understand what's stopping hard-working teenagers from achieving the grades they're truly capable of.

And

~ Know precisely how to remedy this situation for your teen so their hard work and effort finally pays off.
 

HUGE MISTAKE NUMBER 1: Not knowing what the marker really wants:

Teachers and examiners WANT to give students marks. Yep, the grouchy old Maths teacher wants to award marks in a calculation. The official examiner wants to be able to award all 15 out of 15 marks for the extended response.
 

So here's the first (super-basic) message: 

A student rarely has marks taken OFF them for something written incorrectly.

In fact the rules of marking usually mean they can only have marks given. This is known in the marking world as ‘positive marking’. It's a real system prescribed by exam boards. There are exceptions to this (which are too lengthy to go into here), but generally my advice is:
 

"If in doubt, put it in!"
 

BUT... (There's always a 'but' isn't there?! ;) ) ...
 

This is not a free pass to waffle on about everything and anything they've ever learned! Here's why...
 

Markers spend a long time looking for 'that extra mark' in any answer, searching for fulfilled criteria. But, hide it in amongst a lot of waffle or off-task tangents and there's a chance we might miss it. Your teen's paper could be the 137th paper that marker's marked so far that week, and it's late on a Thursday night.
 

Plus, when doing ‘external’ marking (i.e. for an exam board rather than in school) markers are given time limits for each paper. (Yep, it can feel a little like being back at school yourself!). So we want to mark each question quickly and easily.

(Don’t panic! Papers usually get marked at least twice through sampling and

checking systems. But, why take the chance?)

So the other key point here is:
 

- Make it EASY for the marker to give marks: Keep work neat, focused,

well structured and easy to follow (especially in extended responses).
 

HUGE MISTAKE NUMBER 2: Not knowing what the marker really needs.
 

How can your teen give markers what they need, so they gain every mark they're capable of?
 

There are marks with your teen's name on 'em, waiting to be awarded – they just have to know (precisely) how to earn them!
 

The truth is, most students have very little idea of how to do this. They might know the subject content inside-out, but all too often they respond 'on topic' but not to the specific command being given (or at the 'level of cognitive ability' required). Subject knowledge is only the half of it (literally).

Exams are as much a test of ability to decipher what's required at what level, as they are of subject knowledge.

In other words:

Success = Knowledge + Application
 

Therefore: Amazing subject knowledge is not going to get top marks UNLESS the strategies and skills of application and exam technique are mastered.
 

This particular mistake is one of my favourite things to train students to overcome. I've found time and again that training students to become experts in ‘exam technique’ and other aspects of 'application', results in some of the greatest and fastest leaps in performance - not only in exams, but also in assignment tasks, classwork and homework questions.
 

I can't count how many times I’ve seen answers that contain perfectly accurate and even detailed and sophisticated information, only to have that answer be given a score of less than half marks and in some cases even zero. (Yes, zero- it has happened – and more times than I care to think of). Just because it was not actually responding directly to, or at the level required by, the command.

Big Lesson Time: The 'Command' is the verb in the question.
 

Examples: Describe, Justify, Define, Evaluate.
 

There's a big difference between "Define global warming", (a one-sentence answer), and "Explain global warming" (possibly a whole essay!).
 

HUGE MISTAKE NUMBER 3: Not being Mark Scheme Savvy.

Mark schemes are what any marker HAS to stick to absolutely rigidly.
 

If your teen has not been trained in becoming a 'Master of Mark Schemes' then they're seriously missing out on a huuuuge gold mine of tips and tricks.
 

I decided to become an exam marker (waaaay back in 2010) because I knew it would be supervaluable in terms of being able to help my students achieve more in their exams (and well... because we get paid to do it! Though totally seriously, NOW, I would absolutely do it for free. That's how valuable I know the process is!).

But, what I was not prepared for, was just how much I'd learn and how eye-opening it would be.

Let me show you just one super-simple example that I came across in my first ever training:
 

I was marking a question that was about the impacts of development and one of those impacts was pollution. And the Exam Board stated that:
 

"If the word ‘pollution’ is used (e.g. burning fossil fuels creates pollution)

then although this is correct, it is not detailed enough to earn credit."

The exam board deemed that a student should be capable of more detail by stating the type of pollution.

This meant that if they didn’t write noise pollution, air pollution, water

pollution or soil pollution, they wouldn't get a mark!!

How many students had lost 'easy' marks just because they didn’t know about that little detail?
 

And that's just ONE example.
 

Depressing, right?
 

Time for the good news!

Most exam boards and education authorities across Australia publish their marking guides (and sometimes past exam papers too) on their websites.
 

A little challenge (not homework, a 'challenge' is of course way more appealing than homework) ;)
 

- Get your teen to go and find these treasure troves and devour all the gold nuggets that are in them. Even if your state does not publish past papers, find ones for the relevant subjects from other locations and study them. Carefully. (Things don't change much between states, or even countries!)
 

Compared to doing ‘wider reading’ for the subject, I promise you, this is much more effective.
 

Friendly warning - Mark schemes can look a bit overwhelming at first. So here are a couple of quick tips on what to look for to help your son or daughter decipher them and find the gems that'll help them.

1) What style of mark allocation is given to each question? 

Be aware of what sorts of questions are simple 'points allocation' and which are given 'levels of response'.

2) What are the key cut-off's between marks, grades or levels in questions?

E.g. detail (such as pollution vs. air pollution) or evidence (such as referring to at least one case study example).

3) Look carefully at the A-grade/top level criteria. 

What are some common requirements? Even better, (yes, it gets better!) is that after every external exam (by external, this means created and marked outside of a school e.g. NAPLAN, HSC, VCE, IB) the Chief Exam Officers write a report documenting where students did particularly well (aaaand particularly badly) that year, on that paper.
 

Yup, you guessed it... your teen should grab these too. They'll see how to learn from others' mistakes (so that THEY side-step them all and never leave easy marks on the *exam* table ever again)!

In case we haven't officially met yet...
 

Hi!

I'm Katie Jones - AKA Grade Transformation Expert + creator of the 10 Week Grade Transformation Program (10WGT if you wanna be down with the kids) ;)
 

I'm a Pom born and raised, now living in Australia since 2010 (and LOVING it- sun-worshipper that I am!). [Pic of me in a koala hat].
 

After Uni I spent a couple of years working in the world of conservation and environmental science (getting hooked on helping out students wanting research and info for projects), before becoming an award-winning high school teacher.

With a special knack (and heaps of training) for getting students 'more bang for their buck' when it comes to study and results, I launched Rock Solid Study to spread my strategies and knowledge further and wider than the classrooms I teach in.

THE STORY BEHIND THE GRADE TRANSFORMATION EXPERT

As a hard-working student I did everything I was told to - extra reading, wider research, creating (tons of) revision notes.
 

Luckily I was a naturally motivated person, which is a good job, because if I didn't work my butt off I didn't 'naturally' get good grades.
[Embarrassing school photo of me]
 

Even then, without everything I know now, I was kind of aware that just doing this extra study wasn’t going to magically transform itself into amazing grades.

It’s not as if the examiner marking my paper would get this supernatural signal that I'd slaved through hours upon hours of hard study and done all that additional reading and say: “Ah, yes, I am getting a vibe that this student has worked really hard – therefore I shall give them an A”. 
#ifonly
 

Often, I was at a loss as how to turn my B's into A's. I thought that exams were just about remembering information. I studied crazy amounts, working through more and more content, practising more and more questions in prep for final exams, staying up past midnight, feeling the stress and pressure. I simply didn't know a different (let alone better) way.
 

Unfortunately, it's no different for students today.
 

 

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOUR TEEN:

In my time on the 'other side of the desk' I've scrutinised and compared students’ work as an external exam marker. I've seen examples of the best and worst assessment pieces (and everything in between) as a coursework moderator.
 

I’ve witnessed extremely talented and clever students from around the world get lower marks than those with less skill or knowledge, just because they haven’t conveyed their work in the most effective way or answered exactly what the question is asking.
 

I've seen students put huge effort into the lengthiest essays, yet get relatively low scores because they don’t know how the marks are allocated.
 

I've become an expert in using official marking guides as a scrutiny panel member to quickly identify what does and doesn’t get marks in students’ exams, essays and assignments.
 

I've worked one-on-one, tutoring students and developing strategies, delivering exactly what students really need to realise their best possible success... with less stress.
 

And all this experience means I have many more valuable strategies, information and experience than I have space to explain in this guide, or time to tell in my weekly email tips (which - when you request the parent guide,  you'll also get automatically each week) :)

The online 10 Week Grade Transformation Program is like all my years of teaching, exam national marking and assessing being distilled and filtered to produce the cream of the crop of strategies, tools and techniques which make the biggest difference to students' lives and results.
 

I've developed proven systems which have radically changed the grades (and therefore lifelong opportunities) for thousands of students.

And now I've organised everything into 10 modules to catapult grades (and confidence) in just 10 weeks.
 

I give a little 'why' and a lot of 'HOW', with plenty of templates, explanations, cheat sheets and real-life examples.
 

It's not a load more theory to learn.

Instead, I give your teen proven actions and practical strategies. When they're clear on exactly what's being asked of them in every task AND know precisely how to respond, your teen can study with clarity and confidence, so they achieve the results they deserve and are truly capable of.
 

IT'S TIME FOR YOUR TEEN TO HARNESS THEIR STUDENT SUPER-POWERS!
 

If you're here reading this, it's likely that you're ready for your son or daughter to catapult their grades.
 

But this is also about your teen having confidence in their knowledge, ability and judgement. So they approach exams in a cool, calm and collected fashion, tackling assignments with grace & speed whilst creating a finished product that'll gain them the credit they deserve.
 

It’s about pride and enjoyment. Pride in themselves and what they achieve.

Enjoyment in and out of school or college, because there's no confusion or anxiety about what they need to do in any task (and no more late-night 'melt-downs' when they just don't 'get' the homework).
 

It's about them having every possible opportunity available in later life, so they go on to live a life they LOVE, not simply the life they have the grades for.
 

But most of all, it's about them achieving greater success with less stress, making study smoother and more rewarding in every possible way.
 

I'm here to help them do all of that :)
 

 

SUMMARY!
 

5 Steps to Get Your Teen Confident and Successful in Their Study:
 

[1] The formula for SUCCESS = KNOWLEDGE + APPLICATION

So work on application skills & techniques.
 

[2] POSITIVE MARKING usually means marks can be gained, not lost. So if in doubt, 'put it in' rather than leave it out. But this is not a free pass to waffle!...
 

[3] Know how different questions are marked. MARKING GUIDES reveal how marks are allocated and criteria for top marks.
 

[4] The COMMAND WORD(s) in every task or question reveal(s) exactly what to focus on and at what level of cognitive ability.

[5] Look out for future free parent events where I'll reveal more detail on these concepts and top-end techniques.
 

 

BOTTOM LINE: 

Most students don't know about these behind-the-scenes strategies. There's simply not enough time in class (what with all the subject content) and most teachers aren't external examiners.
 

Being aware and taking action on them puts your teen in the top 5% of the student population.
 

Mastering them?... We're talking top 2%.

This is no exaggeration.

I've seen enough exams and taught enough students to know!
 

That’s the end of the audio for the ‘3 Huge Mistakes’ free parent Guide - I hope you’ve found it helpful, and it doesn’t have to be the end of the tips, insights and insider info - that I should say, I’m totally allowed to share. 

Much of this info is out there on the internet for everyone to see - but it’s buried within 80 page chief examiner reports or in wordy rubrics and syllabus documents. I just like to distill and explain everything in easy-to understand, easy to ACTION and USE ways. 

So, if you found your way to the podcast through this episode, then I recommend going back and starting with episodes 1 to 5 and then picking other ones you like the sound of. I particularly recommend episode 63 - the Game of study and exams - what it really is and how to play it. 

If you have been a listener for a while and gotten any benefit or found something useful from the podcast, I’d love it if you paid it forward and forwarded on in a message, send a screenshot or share it on your social media so that other parents with hardworking teens can also benefit and I would also really appreciate it as well.

And finally, if you don’t already have the PDF version of the guide, you can get it at www.rocksolidstudy.com/guide.
​​​​​​​

Have a brilliant rest of your day. 

I’ll see you back here next week, for another episode of the Parents of Hardworking Teens podcast.