Written by Trilok Bista
Whether you’re freshly starting your tertiary education journey or a returning veteran in for another session, assessments will be a continuous challenge until the end of your studies.
From essay to presentation assessments, refer to all of the major tasks in your course that can have a major contribution to your overall grade.
A plan of attack can be an incredible way to make the most of your studying and ensure you come out on top.
- Scheduling your Assessments
The subject outline is a critical tool that allows you to see the due dates and overall worth for each assessment.
This information is vital to allow you to be strategic with your time management.
Using Google Calendar, Excel, or just Microsoft Word, you can schedule how much time you need to allocate to each assessment based on how much they are worth for your overall grade.
This will be an integral skill, especially later on in the session when assessment tasks seem to overlap and you need to prioritise your efforts to achieve the best results.
- Breaking down the Assessment
To beat the devil on your shoulder whispering in your ear to procrastinate, or to not be paralysed by how overwhelming an assessment might be, its integral to breakdown the assessment into digestible and achievable bites.
To gain this understanding, class discussions on the assessment and any lecture recordings on your Brightspace site are your go-to places.
By listening to these discussions and the video, you can get your head around what the task is asking of you and furthermore, converse with lectures about what may be confusing you.
The subject outline will also give a description of what each part of the assessment is asking you and how the marks are allocated.
Additionally, the discussion board can provide valuable knowledge on how other students may be approaching the assessment and allow you to communicate conveniently with subject educators as you chip away at your work.
- Starting research
Researching can be a daunting task with varying referencing requirements putting stress on you to think about the relevancy, credibility, and a myriad of other aspects of the source you are using.
The librarians at Charles Sturt University are incredibly supportive and provide excellent services in educating and assisting you on how to use the journal databases and search for the appropriate sources.
This will not only allow you to meet your assessment requirements, but assist you to develop these skills to be a more independent researcher for future assessments.
- Starting to write
With the assessment broken down into smaller and more realistic goals and research on the topic being conducted, it is time to write your assessment.
Remember to take frequent breaks to continue being efficient over longer periods of time and write down further questions you may have to ask in discussion boards or to your lecturers.
Developing an efficient proof reading process will also allow you to find any errors in your writing and minimise the chances of missing out on marks due to a few grammatical and spelling mistakes.
Microsoft Word’s text speech is a excellent
Microsoft Word’s text speech is an excellent writing tool and allows you to pick up on mistakes more effectively.
- Submitting and wellbeing
Submitting your assessment can be a huge relief.
Congratulate yourself by giving yourself a break and have to opportunity to de-stress.
Especially when the next assessment is just around the corner.
