Matric mid-year exams: 3 Key points to remember

With matric mid-year exams right around the corner, it’s important for students to understand the significance of them in the greater scheme of their final year, as well as their prospects thereafter, an education expert says.

Whilst many matric students put all their eggs in one basket when it comes to the final NSC exams, the mid-year ones are just as important

“In fact, mid-year exams have a unique significance in the big picture and should not be viewed as merely a trial run for final exams. It plays its own medium to long term role – in various ways – in the outcomes and prospects for Grade 12,” says says Nola Payne, Senior Head of Programme at The Independent Institute of Education.

Mid-year exams allow students to hone their skills as well as identify gaps in their knowledge and understanding. They also serve as a dry-run for finals.

Students writing matric mid-year exams should also keep the following in mind:

MID-YEAR MATRIC EXAM PERFORMANCES ARE IMPORTANT

Mid-year marks are important primarily for two reasons: firstly, because they contribute to a student’s year mark. And secondly, because they can use these marks to get provisional acceptance when they apply to a university.

This means learners must do as well as they possibly can in these exams, to hedge their bets should they face unexpected challenges later in the year. Learners who did well in Grade 11 can already use those marks to apply for higher education. However, an institution will only give final admission based on final marks, and matric mid-year exam marks contribute to these.

Performing well in your mid-years also gives you a confidence boost as you move into the final stretch of the year. You can focus your effort where it is really needed, rather than having to keep working on parts of the curricula that you should already have mastered.

BUT…YOU CAN BOUNCE BACK IF THINGS DONT GO AS WELL AS YOU WANT

Although a good matric mid-year performance is undoubtedly tremendously beneficial, not doing as well as you hoped does not signal the end of the road. It should be kept in mind that after the mid-years, you still have several months to throw everything at your studies. And that with focus and a concerted effort, you can substantially improve your performance towards the end of the year.

In this respect, your mid-years will provide valuable insights for you to use when strategising the rest of the year. With the help of your teachers and tutors, you can use your performance to develop a framework for the rest of the year. In this regard, you can address those areas you found challenging and which impacted negatively on your performance.

It might also be that your mid-years show definitively that your plans for next year might need some additional consideration. If, for instance, you wanted to do a qualification at an institution for which you are most definitely not going to qualify no matter how much time and effort you put in, you are now able to objectively consider your plans and devise a new strategy by researching your options and speaking to student support services at higher education institutions. This will allow you to take the pressure off yourself if your vision was not aligned with reality. It will also help you to find a path better suited to your unique skills and strengths.

MATRIC MID-YEAR EXAMS ARE A REMINDER TO SUBMIT TERTIARY APPLICATIONS

With the increased competition for tertiary study space, particularly for popular and respected institutions and qualifications, it is important that matric learners apply for higher education opportunities as soon as possible.

This might not seem like a priority when studying for your exams, but if you are serious about pursuing studies after school it must not be left for much longer.

Thousands of matric students have already applied for higher education, and if you have not yet joined their ranks, you need to do so sooner rather than later. As the year progresses and the final exams start to loom, you will be even less inclined to spend time and energy on investigating your study options.

It is therefore ideal for those who have not yet done so, to use their June holidays to go visit higher education institutions. This can be done online or in person by appointment, to discuss various offerings and their related career paths. When doing so, remember that it is also important to ask institutions about their post-graduate support and work-integrated learning components in their curricula.

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