Life Orientation

Study skills

Faeeza Adam
Grade 12

Objectives:

● ● Reflect on the process of assessment and

examination writing skills and apply these skills:
Revise your own study skills, strategies and
styles š Revise examination writing skills (read
the question, plan the response, answer the
questions, etc.)
● Importance of School Based Assessment
● Importance of obtaining the National Senior
Certificate (NSC): develop a study plan for Grade 12
Introduction:
Self- reflection:
●● Do you know how to reflect on the process of
assessment?
● Do you know how to revise your study skills, styles
and strategies?
● Do you know how to reflect on the work you have
done and use this to make improvements to the way
you study?
● Have you thought about how your exams went and
what you could do differently?
● Do you know how to answer questions
appropriately for an exam?
● How well do you prepare for your exams?
● Why is assessment so important at school and
beyond school?
● Why is obtaining your National Senior Certificate so
important?
● Did you use a study plan for Grade 11?
● How well did your study plan work, or did it not
work?

Let’s begin:
Grade 12 forms a vital year in South African schooling
as it is regarded as the end of Basic schooling and the
gateway into the World of Adulthood.

This being said, this year although seemingly

daunting, need not be so. Alhamdulilah the skills and
necessary knowledge needed to take on this year
have already been imparted to you over the course
of your Grade 10 and 11 years .
The Life Orientation curriculum has provided you
with the necessary skills, tips and strategies to make
this year fruitful and successful in sha Allah.

What remains is a few tweaks, mounds of effort and

a full scale of duaas to in sha Allah grant you success.

Here follows some information to aid you in

establishing good study practices .

Reflect on the process of assessment and

examination writing skills and apply these skills:
Revise your own study skills, strategies and styles

About assessment:
Assessment is the process whereby your knowledge
of something is evaluated. The assessor will also
consider how well you can do something and if you
can apply it to other situations. For example, let’s say
you are learning about recycling.
● You need to have knowledge about recycling, such
as what it is and how it works (knowledge).
● You need to be able to show that you can recycle
(i.e. doing it).
● You need to be able to apply recycling skills to
different environments, such as your home and school
(understanding/application). Your teacher will assess
your knowledge through something like a test or a
project. To see whether you can recycle you may
need to do a small project (doing it), and to show you
can apply it you may be given a homework activity to
see how you can recycle at home.
Topic 2:
Reflect on the process of assessment:

It will be useful if you reflect on both the informal and

formal assessments you do in Grade 12 and that you
did in previous grades at school. You can reflect on
your classroom activities (informal assessments). In
the case of formal assessments, you can reflect on a
test you have written and why you achieved poor or
high marks. Think about what you could have done
differently, such as studying sooner, studying in a
different way, using a different learning style to help
you study better, etc.

Reflect on examination-writing skills and apply

them.

You have had many years at school already. You

have probably written more examinations than you
can count at this point in time. However, it is useful to
reflect on the outcome of those examinations and
why you achieved what you did or why you didn’t
achieve good marks. Some examples of questions
you can ask yourself include:
● Why did I perform well in the Grade 10
examinations and not in the Grade 11
examinations?
● What did I do differently to achieve excellent
marks in Grade 11 examinations?
 ● Why did I perform poorly in a specific subject’s
examination?

● Perhaps you studied in a different way for a

particular grade and it worked really well for
you. Have you tried applying those same skills to
other grades?
● Were you too scared to risk changing the way
you studied prior to writing an examination?
● Have you tried changing the way you study or
the strategy you use before writing a test to try
out these new ways?

It is important that you learn from your mistakes and

apply what worked well in other examinations to this
year’s examinations, tests and assessments. Consider
analysing and reflecting on your feelings at the time
of the examinations.
Ask yourself the following questions:
● How did I feel at the time of the examination
when I changed the way I did things?
● Do I feel more secure if I stick to the same
routines?
● Do I panic or feel anxious if I don’t study the
exact same way for each examination?

Analysing and reflecting on your feelings about and

around examination time may also reveal an
important part of why you do the things you do.

Activity 1 :
 1. Write a definition of assessment as you understand
it.
2 How well do you think you are doing in your
classroom-based assessments (activities) so far?
3 How can you improve your classroom-based
assessments (activities)?
4 How well have you done in your formal
assessments, for example examinations, so far?
What can you do to improve your marks on your
formal assessments?
5 How do you feel when writing examinations if you
studied for them in a particular way?
6 Will knowing how you feel help you to make some
changes to examinations this year?

Reflect on and revise your study skills, strategies

and styles .

Why should you reflect on the way you learn?

Reflecting on the way you learn enables you to view

your progress objectively, to identify what is going
well and the areas on which you need to work. You
may reflect on your feelings regarding a specific
subject and identify areas to develop and ways to
improve. Some questions you can ask yourself to help
you reflect include the following:
● What went well? Why?
● What did not go so well? Why?
● How will you do this differently the next time?
● What do you need to change or work on the next
time?
● What will your first step be from now on?

Reflect on your study skills, strategies and styles and

apply them.
Once you have reflected on your learning, you can
review and revise your study skills, strategies and
styles you have used to write any tests, examinations
and to complete any other assessment activity. Using
your Grade 11 results as a starting point, perhaps you
need to consider revising the way you have learnt to
improve your Grade 12 results. It is important that
you find a method and style to suit the way you learn.
Perhaps you tried something different in Grade 11 and
it didn’t work as well as you thought it would. Relook
at your study style, i.e. the preferred way in which
you approach the way you study. Perhaps you learn
better by hearing information, rather than just
visually capturing key concepts and notes for an
exam. Maybe you are better at doing things when
you learn about them and would learn better if you
built some models. Revise the effectiveness of the
study methods you have used.

For example, you decided to learn ‘parrot fashion’

for a particular subject but you couldn’t remember
half the material when it was time to write your
exam; or you decided to make your own notes and
do summaries, which worked really well for a
particular subject. Consider how well your study
strategy worked. Your study strategy is your plan of
action to achieve specific results. For example,
perhaps you tried using mnemonics but it didn’t quite
work for you. Or you tried the SQ3R approach and it
worked really well for some of your subjects. You
could now consider using it for all your subjects, but
not using mnemonics this time. Here are some ideas
for you to consider this year:

● Instead of using full summaries, create keywords or

phrases of no more than two sides of A4 paper for
each possible question or topic.
● Create your own flashcards in different colours for
different information and to make links between
topics.
● If you are a more visual learner, include charts or
mind maps of your ideas. Use visual symbols or
shapes that represent key concepts and how they
relate to each other. For example, use a warning sign
for a key concept you need to remember.
● If you learn better by hearing, record yourself
reading key notes and play this back a number of
times to become familiar with the information and
key ideas relevant to your exams.
● Form a study group or get together with a friend
where you can discuss ideas and explain concepts to
each other.

Activity 2:
1. Does your current study style work for you?
Provide reasons for your answer. If it does not work
for you describe what you need to change.

2. Describe the study methods you have used so far

and state why these methods work best for you.
3. Explain the current study strategies you use to
study for a formal test or exam. Indicate whether
these strategies work for you or not. Indicate how
you will adapt these strategies to make them work
even better for your end-of-year exams.
4 You are required to design a set of ten SMSs or a
similar short text to send to your friends or class. They
will contain a set of study tips that you will send or
give to each other over the ten weeks before your
final exams. The study tips must be useful and
meaningful. Write these down and share with your
class.

Examination-writing skills
What you know already :
Exams are used to measure your understanding and
knowledge of a particular subject. Exams are used to
assess how well you can recall and apply theory,
how much knowledge you have about the content of
a subject, your ability to think critically and solve
problems and how well you communicate your ideas
and opinions. Exams provide you with feedback
about how well you work under pressure and also
your ability to work alone.

Self Reflection Activity:

Ask yourself these questions

●What methods do you use to study?

● Do you use study methods that are best suited to
you, or do you just follow what other people have
suggested?
● What plan have you made for this year’s studies?

What you still need to know :

Revise examination writing skills
Exams require a lot of studying and this can be
stressful. There are many different types of exams
and sometimes exams consist of a combination of
sections that include multiple-choice questions,
short-answer questions and essay questions.

Although each section may be different, there are a

number of strategies you can use to do well. These
include using a process of elimination, reading the
instructions/questions carefully and taking your time
to improve your chances of answering the questions
correctly.
The following are some guidelines for you to enable
you to revise your examination writing skills.
Remember you will always read the question, plan
your response and answer the question(s), etc.
Preparing properly for your exams will save you from
anxiety during the exam.

Reading multiple-choice examination question(s) :

You need to demonstrate your knowledge of the

subject and be able to recall and apply your
knowledge quickly. You need to be able to analyse
the questions asked. Plan your response:
 ● Identify main themes or key topics of the content
you have covered.
● Make your own notes and organise them into key
topics.
● Memorise key terms and theories well enough to
answer many questions quickly.
● Practise responding to multiple-choice questions
under a certain time limit and check that your
answers actually answer the question/statement.
Answering the question(s)
● Predict the answer before reading the choices and
choose this one first.
● Read all the choices for each question.
● Eliminate obvious wrong choices.
● If you cannot do one question, move on to the next
one.
● Carefully read statements – statements using words
such as all, every, no, never are less likely to be
correct; those using words such as generally, most,
least may be more likely be correct.
● Watch out for extra-long or complicated choices,
as they may be wrong.
● Try to answer all the questions; sometimes a good
guess is better than no answer.

Reading short-answer examination question(s):

These exams have many questions requiring answers

of about a paragraph in length. Questions vary and
are used to assess your memory and your ability to
apply concepts. You need to be able to analyse
questions really well. Plan your responses:
 ● Follow the same advice as for multiple-choice
questions.
● Practise answering similar past exam questions.
● Check your answers with someone in your class to
ensure you answered the question correctly, rather
than reacting to keywords to produce an
inappropriate answer.

Answering the question(s):

● Look at the mark allocation to see where you need
to spend more time. Don’t write a lot on some
questions and nothing on others.
● Write in full sentences rather than using bullet points
if a longer answer is required.
● If you run out of time rather answer the questions
about which you are confident.
● Allow time to check your answers.

Reading essay examination question(s):

An essay-type exam requires you to demonstrate

your analytical skills, to recall and apply knowledge
in certain ways.
Read the question carefully.
Underline key words and phrases
Plan your essay by noting down key points you would
like to include. Add examples or evidence to make
your essay more credible. Write out the essay and
go back to the question to ascertain if the essay fits
the question assigned. Edit and check your essay for
structure and spelling. Now formulate the essay for
assessment.
Top 10 Mistakes:
The top 10 mistakes that most students make when
attempting a test or exam paper, and how to
overcome them.
Importance of obtaining the NSC ( National Senior
Certificate):
12 Reasons why matric national
senior certificate is so important
 ● The National Senior Certificate is the key to your future
and success.
● The NSC is the key to opportunities to develop, grow
and find employment. It is the basis on which you can
build your future. IT is important to obtain your NSC
because:
● It allows you to study at an HEI. The better your marks
are, the more choices you have of HEIs and courses to
study.
● It is a basic requirement if you want to apply for a
bursary.
● Even if you are not going to study at an HEI, you will
still need your NSC if you want to work.
● It is a basic requirement for many jobs.
● Once you have your NSC, you can go back to studying
at any time.
● Having your NSC shows you can:
● Identify and solve problems and make decisions using
critical and creative thinking.
● Work effectively as an individual and with others as a
member of a team.
● Organise and manage yourself and your activities
responsibly and effectively.
● Collect, analyse, organise and critically evaluate
information.

Activity 3:

Read the case study below and answer the questions

that follow:
1. List four hardships Oliver Tambo had to
overcome in order to succeed. (4)
2.Describe the ways in which doing well at school
gave Oliver Tambo opportunities and rewards.
(10)
3.Critically evaluate how obtaining your NSC will
benefit you. (6)