Transcription
Let's kick this one off with some cold hard numbers. So, in a typical engineering curriculum, you're going to have 40 courses, give or take a few. And in a typical course, you're going to have three exams, two midterms and a final. That means over the course of your entire degree, you're going to have to take 120 exams.
Now, if that didn't make your palms sweaty, this next one will. In a typical engineering course, your exams will be worth 70% of your overall grade. Let that sink in a little bit. 70%. Now, let's say that in just one of your courses, right? Each one of those exams is 90 minutes, right? Which is pretty much average. That means that an entire semester of lectures, labs, you know, reading, studying, homework, and all of the other work that goes into your courses basically comes down to just 4 and 1/2 hours of high-pressure performance. How does that make you feel? Probably a little stressed out.
The point I'm trying to make here is that your exam performance is just non-negotiable, right? If you want an engineering degree, you simply must do well on your exams consistently. So, what that means is that you have to produce, you have to create a robust exam preparation process so that when it comes to be exam time, you're not cramming, you're not fearful, you're not guessing, right? Instead, you're ready to step up and knock it out of the park.
But hey, if you're new here, my name is Jake. I'm a mechanical engineer, author, and YouTuber. A few years ago, I wrote this book to help new and struggling students actually make it to graduation and get the degree they want. And it's actually become required reading at several universities across the United States. I also offer a program called the Engineering Success Academy, where we turn driven but inexperienced and overwhelmed engineering students into high performers without sacrificing the rest of their life. In the academy, we focus on building real exam momentum, right? By creating a robust and self-improving learning process. We also focus on maximizing productivity and creating a sustainable lifestyle and schedule that's grounded in consistent growth. All so that you're set up to handle a high academic workload while also being protected from burnout. I believe that absolutely anybody can become an engineer. The problem is that most students just don't have the right tools for success. So, that's why this channel and my book and the Engineering Success Academy are here to fix. So, check the description below for a link to my book, or if you want to learn more about the academy. Back to the video.
2.3. That was the average GPA over the first two years of my mechanical engineering degree. In fact, here's a chart showing every grade for the first half of my degree. All over the place, right? Several failed courses, up and down performance, pretty all over the place. And as you can probably guess, you know, the primary reason for my dismal performance during the first couple years was I didn't prioritize my exams, right? I didn't prepare properly, I crammed all the time, you know, I would study a few of the kind of main concepts that, you know, the teacher covered, um and I totally avoided the confusing stuff. Maybe you can relate a little bit.
And at this point, you might be asking, "Why the hell am I listening to this dummy about how to take exams?" And that's a fair question, but what I will say is that the second half of my degree looked much different than the first half. You know, my GPA increased all the way to a 3.8, I got mostly A's in every course, uh I never got anything below a B, and I never failed a course or an exam again. And if I had to kind of pinpoint, you know, one change that, you know, uh enabled that change in my performance, that increase in my performance, it would it was that I established my exams as my no-questions-asked number one priority. I completely overhauled how I prepared and studied for my exams.
So, the question is, what did I do, right? What did I change? That's probably why you clicked on this video. Let's get into that right now. And by the way, I've already condensed everything I'm about to go over into a nice consumable PDF. It's called the Bulletproof Exam Prep Blueprint. So, don't worry about taking notes, I've already done all of that for you. I'll put a link in the description after this video, you can head over to my website and download it for free.
All right, let's assume that I have, you know, an engineering exam in 1 week. You know, it could be math, it could be some other science, what some specific engineering topic, doesn't really matter. I prepare for exams basically the same way regardless of the topic. So, let's just pretend I have an exam in 1 week, and I'm going to go through my day-to-day process of exactly what I would do to make that exam my...
So, the first thing we should do is define what success looks like, right? So, you know, what things have to be true in order for some, you know, exam preparation to be deemed successful. So, it's just three things. Number one, full understanding of all covered material. Number two, the ability to apply the material to do something useful. Usually, it's, you know, solving problems. And then lastly, the ability to recall the information under pressure. So, if those three things are true, then you've essentially maximized your chances of a high exam performance.
Okay, so here's the rough schedule that I'm going to follow for the next 7 days before the exam. Let's get into it. Okay, so we're going to kick things off with days 1 through 3, all right? We're going to start at the very beginning of day 1, where I'm going to engage in an exercise called priming. So, it's super quick thing, should only take about 20-30 minutes. And all I'm doing is I'm just kind of quickly skimming over, you know, some of the practice exams, maybe the study guide that my professors handed out, so that I can see, you know, I'm instructing my brain with the information that it's going to have to latch onto, that it's going to have to seek out, and kind of target over the next several days during my studying, right? I'm basically giving my brain a direction. Like I said, you should only spend like 20-30 minutes on this. You're not getting in deep, you're not studying the material, you're just showing your brain, "Hey, this is the stuff that you're going to have to pick up, right? You don't understand it now, that's fine, but these are the techniques, these are the types of problems, this is the stuff that you're going to have to look for and really latch onto and remember when we actually start studying."
All right, now once you finish priming your mind with what it needs to learn, it's time to move on to the next step, which is to read your textbook. I know that was probably the most revolutionary, you know, mind-blowing piece of advice you've ever heard on YouTube, but let me ask you something. When was the last time you, you know, committed to fully reading and absorbing all of the material in your textbook, you know, all of the relevant material in your textbook before the exam, before you had an exam? I'm willing to bet probably 5 to 10% of you have ever done that. That should end right now.
All right, let me explain this with an analogy. So, let's say you have a physics exam coming up, right? And on this exam, um you're going to be tested on four main topics, right? Four kind of separate applications that you need to know how to do. So, let's say that each one of these four LEGO islands represents each one of those four applications that are the main applications that are going to be tested on the exam. So, as long as your professor asks questions that are kind of within the boundaries of these four islands, you're good, right? But what if they ask a question that's kind of in between, somewhere out here, right? You know, before I really started reading and taking the time to absorb the textbooks, you know, when I was in school, this exact scenario would happen to me all the time, right? I would maybe study the homeworks and the class notes and kind of what the professor focused on, and I would call it good. And then come exam time, there would be several questions that, you know, were kind of in between, right? They kind of had a little twist, maybe some nuance, you know, in order to do well on the question, it required you to have kind of nuanced pieces of information that were only in the textbook. And I didn't have that information. So, that's what reading and really absorbing the textbook does, right? It fills in all of these gaps, right? It bridges all of this space between the major topics, right? So, that you're armed with all that knowledge, so that you're okay, no matter what question is asked on the exam.
And by the way, the reading that I'm talking about here is not, you know, just opening the textbook and kind of skimming and moving over the words with your eyes, right? I'm talking about like effortful active reading, right? With the intention to really understand and absorb every single word. I recommend using a method that's like the SQ3R method, right? So, SQ3R stands for scan, um question, read, recite, review, all right? So, before you start your reading, you open your book, you kind of scan each page, you kind of prime your mind with what you're about to read, and then you get going, right? You start reading, um effortful reading, really um committing to understanding every single word. Once you come up on something that you don't understand, you question it, right? You write down that question, try to get that question answered quickly. And if you can't get an answer to it, or if it isn't answered in the following pages, you make sure you document that question, and you ask your professor, you know, you email them, you ask your peers. And then you recite. So, when something comes up that's kind of, you know, meaty, see if you can recite it in your own words. Write to maybe your uh study buddy and see if you can explain what the concept is in your own words. That's a super good way to prove that you understand something. And then lastly, you review, right? So, you go back and you kind of refresh your mind with what you learned so that you know that it took hold.
And just to kind of give you an idea, this is not a short thing, right? So, like when I would do this before exams, um usually an exam is maybe going to be on like two or three chapters in a given textbook. So, I would usually plan for like one chapter a day, right? That I would read. So, let's say each chapter's like, I don't know, 20 to 30 pages. So, I would take basically a whole day to read those 20 to 30 pages. And I mean, most of the stuff's pretty meaty, right? So, it takes time to really go through and absorb and learn the material as you're reading it, right? I mean, you guys have all experienced times where you're kind of reading something that maybe isn't very interesting or maybe that is just very heavy and it's hard to really focus on. And you'll end up at the end of a page and it'll be like, "What did I just read?" Whatever, you know, and you keep going. No, like that's a big no-no, right? You If that happens, which it will, if you end up at the end of a sentence or at the end of a paragraph or at the end of a page and you can't you didn't absorb any of it, you got to go back, right? You start over. The goal here is not to just make it to the end of the chapter. The goal here is to take all the information in that book and put it in here, right? And really transfer it into here. So, if you don't understand something or if you, you know, weren't paying attention what you're reading, you go back and you got to start back to where you left off. So, you want to plan for probably like, you know, a day per chapter with this situation. And then like I said, there's going to be questions that come up as you read, you got to try to get those questions answered quickly. Fill those gaps quickly, right? So, either try to get them answered as you go or if you don't, make sure you document those questions that you have and then send off emails to your professor or ask them the next day or in office hours or whatever. You got to make sure you fill all those gaps. And I know it might be surprising, but honestly, this one thing, this one action of just committing to reading and absorbing the textbook was probably the most impactful kind of change I made when I went through my whole process and you know, changed, you know, was able to kind of increase my exam performance. So, if you're not already doing this, which I'm willing to bet you're probably not, just make this one change and see what happens.
All right, so that was days one through three, right? Just priming and then spending a good solid three days reading and absorbing the textbook. So, we assume that it's probably three chapters I had to consume. Now, we move on to day number four, which is to rework through all relevant problems. So, what I'm doing is I'm pulling out all the homework, right? That was kind of leading up to this exam. I'm pulling out the practice exams that my professor hopefully provided. And then maybe like study guide problems, right? And I am taking the time to rework through all of those problems, right? And I can use resources on this day. I can use, you know, solutions. I can use, you know, stuff online. I can use my textbook. And I spend the time to rework and make sure I understand all the different applications that I need to know. So, like I said, on this day, right? You You can utilize all your tools, right? So, you're just trying to prove yourself that you understand how this stuff works, right? These different applications that you need to know. So, um you can utilize the solutions in the book, you know, the homework solutions. You can go through them, you know, read them, make sure you understand the solutions, understand what they did, you know, online tools like YouTube, Khan Academy, AI tools, obviously. And you know, obviously your class notes.
And then as you go through um all the different solving all the different problems again, you want to make sure you document any questions that come up, okay? Why are you not understanding this, you know? What is this problem that you keep having issues with? And then you want to take that confusion and you want to distill it down to very specific questions, right? What piece of knowledge is standing in between you and understanding this thing, right? Really specific questions that you can then shoot off to your professor or ask them the next day and make sure that those gaps are filled.
And then the last thing on this day four is you want to start building your equation sheet, or that's what I would be doing, right? So, on most engineering exams, you're allowed like a small, you know, 8 by 11 or or smaller equation sheet that you're allowed to bring into an exam that you create. So, on this fourth day, I am starting that equation sheet. So, as I'm learning how to solve these problems, reteaching myself how to solve all these problems, I am documenting a lot of the major things on my equation sheet. And by the way, on this day, this step of my exam prep is when I like to bring in other people, so study partners, right? So, where I can kind of we can compare approaches, right? Where we can quickly answer questions cuz maybe they probably have understanding that I don't have and then vice versa. So, so it's during this day um that I like to bring in study partners. And then conversely, on the first few days where I'm just reading, I do that by myself, you know, in a quiet room.
Okay, so now let's move on to days five through seven. And it's during these days that I'm going to completely focus on active recall. So, if you never heard of active recall, it's basically exactly what it sounds like. It's you pulling information, actively pulling information out of your brain without being assisted, right? By any cues or triggers or solutions. It's you producing those solutions from scratch on your own, which is exactly what you're going to have to do on the exam. And this one's huge because it really shows you how ready you are, right? That's why you want to do three days full of just active recall. Um, you know, science consistently shows that active recall is by far the most effective technique when it comes to study prep, okay? Cuz it really shows how ready you are, right? Because effectively, you're taking an exam. You're practicing the actual act of taking an exam. You know, it's very easy to get tricked into being ready, thinking you're being ready because you look at solutions and you say, "Oh yeah, I understand that. I understand that, right?" That is being trapped by the difference between recognition and recollection, right? Recognition means that you look at the solution and you understand how they did it. That's very different than recollection, where you're able to produce that solution on your own without anything, right? From scratch. That is active recall. It's practicing recollection, producing the knowledge, bringing the knowledge out of your brain and producing the solutions on your own unassisted.
So, it's during these active recall days that I'm reworking through all the problems that I did on day four, right? All the homework problems, all the practice exams, all the study guide problems, maybe problems that were identified during lecture. I'm reworking through all those from scratch, no solutions, no resources, only allowing myself what's allowed on the exam. So, a pencil, calculator, and then maybe my equation sheet. So, what these days kind of come down to is just repetition, right? It's just putting in the reps, practice. How do you get good at anything, right? It's practice. It's doing the thing over and over and over again. So, during these five through seven days, um I want to just complete several rounds of active recall, going through all the problems that I went through on day four, but with no resources, right? Several rounds of active recall. Because what I want to do is I want to identify my weaknesses. I want to identify where I struggle. And you need to fill those gaps immediately, right? So, that they aren't exposed on the exam. So, you want to spend this time to really find where you're weak, you know, where you can't perform, and you want to fill those gaps. Find that knowledge, fill those gaps so that it's not exposed on the exam. And you can use AI to generate new problems for you if you don't have enough stuff.
And then on this day or on these days, I also want to use my study group, right? You want to be doing these things together with your study group because they can help you fill gaps as they come up and then you can help them in the same way.
Okay, and then the last thing that I want to hit, you know, during the end of this active recall, you know, these active recall days, is I want to do what an exam simulation. So, it's kind of exactly what it sounds like. So, you know, I set a timer for however long my exam's going to be, maybe, you know, 90 to 120 minutes, whatever your exam is. I want to only allow myself what's allowed on the exam, right? Pencil, um, you know, my calculator, maybe my textbook if it's open notes, and then my equation sheet. And then I want to be somewhere else, okay? That's kind of the most important thing here. Is I want to take this exam, this practice exam, somewhere other than where I study primarily, right? Maybe you could go to an empty classroom at your school or a study location at your school, somewhere else, right? Because there's something called context-dependent memory, which states that you can associate memories with the place that you learned them in, right? So, if you study somewhere primarily all the time where you do all your learning, that learning, that knowledge can be more easily accessed when you're in that location as opposed to other places. So, in order to test that to in order to make sure that that isn't too detrimental in your case, you want to go test your knowledge in a different location. So, you only need to do this once, but if you have the time, I recommend doing at least one exam simulation during these active recall days.
All right, now let's move on to day number eight, which in this case it's going to be exam day. So, there's a few things that you can do the morning of an exam that can kind of optimize your preparation, all right? So, number one, get 7 to 9 hours of sleep. This is kind of obvious. You know, you don't want to stay up all night cramming. You should have done that. You should have already prepared well, you know, good enough in the days leading up to the exam. So, 7 to 9 hours of sleep. You want to wake up several hours before the exam starts so that you can, you know, prepare yourself, get your gears turning, get your body moving, get some energy going, right? You want to eat a small breakfast, small meal, nothing too huge. You don't want all your body's energy to be going to your stomach to digest all the bacon and pancakes that you just ate, right? So, something small that will be effective in just supplying you quick energy, right? Speaking of energy, you want to caffeinate. If you're a coffee drinker or tea drinker, go ahead and, you know, caffeinate a little bit before the exam. That's always very helpful. Um go to the bathroom, obviously. So, this is why you want to wake up plenty early so that you can get all this stuff done. I have a horror story about this, by the way. So, uh I don't know. I think it was my sophomore year. I was taking statics and it was during the final and I woke up kind of late, got to the exam just like barely on time. I was just chugging coffee on my way there and it was like halfway through the exam and my stomach is just like, time to go. And that totally takes you out of the focus, right? And I'm trying to ignore it and trying to like hold it, you know, just make it go away and there's just no way. So, I had to get up, make an emergency bathroom break, you know, it ended up probably losing me 20 minutes of like good focus time, you know, between me leaving and coming back and getting back into the zone. And I did not do well at that exam. So, that's why you want to wake up early enough to get all this stuff done. Lastly, um try to do a little bit of activity, you know, go for a walk, do some push-ups, do some sit-ups, some burpees, whatever, just to get the blood moving in your body. Your body is your mind, right? So, if you get the blood moving in your body, it's going to make your brain work better.
Um and then before right before the exam, you can review a little bit of your equation sheet, right? The the thing that you made that you already know, just review it a little bit. Just to get the gears turning, just to get all that stuff moving, you know, all these things that you already learned that you should already know. You do not want to try to learn new things the morning of the exam. Um that can just cause confusion. So, you don't want to try to, you know, all your learning should already be done. You don't want to try to learn new things the morning of exams. It's just going to cause confusion and it'll cause a little bit of doubt. So, just forget about that. Just review the things that you already know, right? Review your equation sheet. And then last thing, you want to arrive early to your exam, right? So, assuming it's an in-class exam, you want to get there early. So, the last thing you want is to be like the last kid there and the seat the only seat available is like crunched between two people in the front row. You want to get early get there early so you can get a good seat, you know, wherever you like to sit in the class, you can spread out, you know, get your materials out, spread out. You don't want to be, you know, distracted. Bring noise canceling headphones. Um bring a hat so that you're not distracted by other things, you know, or earplugs if your professor allows it. I've had several exams where I'll sit next to a kid and they'll be super sniffly or they'll be like fidgeting or whatever and it just pulls your focus away. So, noise canceling headphones, earplugs, you know, a hat, maybe a hoodie that you can kind of narrow your vision just onto the exam and then get there early, spread out so that you're nice and settled before the exam begins.
There you have it. That is my exam preparation process, right? And it's super general so you can kind of apply it to any course or any topic um and it really has great results, I think, no matter what you're studying. You know, once I really started to consistently following that preparation process, sometimes it was longer than 7 days. Um once I really started following that consistently, I don't think I ever scored below a 90 on any exam. So, give it a shot. Really, you know, give it a shot like like sincerely. Commit to it for one exam and see how it goes. Let me know how it goes in the comments below. Super curious to see. I read all the comments and you know, if you have any suggestions for improvement for, you know, stuff you can add to the preparation process, leave it in the comments. Very curious to hear you guys' thoughts. And remember, I've already collected this entire, you know, exam preparation process into a nice, you know, condensed PDF. It's called the Bulletproof Exam Prep Blueprint. It's on my website. I'll put a link for it in the description and probably a pinned comment. So, check that if you're interested.
But that's it for this video. I hope you guys found it valuable and I'll see you in the next one.