Exam Special

Published: Thu, 04/16/09

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Straight to the point. If you are doing exams, know someone who is doing exams, or have an interest in the wonderful world of exams then read on. If that's not you then the bulk of this newsletter may not be for you but the 'Ask Michael' is a belter!

Yes, it's that time of the year again when millions of terrified teenagers are judged on their levels of intelligence by the dreaded exam. My daughter is doing GCSE's this year, I think she's sitting 78 this summer, or at least that's how it feels.

I'm being asked to do coaching sessions with kids who are already sick with worry and also motivation sessions for those who haven't lifted a finger! Schools are organising residential revision weeks and I've no doubt The One Show, Jeremy Vine and Blue Peter will be broadcasting specials too.

Then there's the exams themselves. Scorching hot halls with row after row of chairs closely packed together. The examiners instructing you to 'read the paper fully' before answering any questions. The deathly silence shortly after the exam begins. This is closely followed by the exam postmortem where you suddenly realise everyone seems to know more about 'Of Mice and Men' than you.

Then there's the wait - weeks drag by before the big Thursday's in August arrive. Scenes of nervous teenagers opening envelopes with worried friends are quickly replaced with jubilant, geniuses declaring to everyone how well they've done.

But that's just moments before the popular press dive in with - 'this year exam passes are higher so they must be getting easier' (let them sit a GCSE in Maths or and A level in English now).

But before we get there let's come back to today and in particular the next few weeks.

FREE EXAM AUDIO PROGRAMME

If you do have exams to take, or you know someone who has, then I have a special gift for you. Plus it's created in a format for teenagers which I think they'll love i.e. nothing to read!

As a special gift for those who have exams to take, I have recorded two special MP3 downloads available for every subscriber to michaelheppell.com. They only take a minute or two to download and less than 15 minutes to listen - but they'll help the listener to prepare for exams in a rather unique way.

You can download the audio by clicking here.

These audio programmes are part of a special Exam Success Programme Michael recorded for Edexcel. The full programme is available here: http://tinyurl.com/examaudio

To see a web-based version of this newsletter click here

16TH APRIL, 2009 - EDITION #159

ASK MICHAEL - E-SPECIAL!

THREE Ask Michael's this week all with an 'e' theme.

Avoiding the distractions

Michael,

We all have day jobs which seem to grow and grow as the weeks go by. I try and focus on the key tasks in hand, however why does it seem so much easier to procrastinate and go through my emails instead?

How do you keep focused and avoid getting distracted by each new email that pops up? I know that if I have no email I can be more productive however how do I keep that mind set and keep focused day by day?

Thanks,

Julia

Hi Julia,

I hope you appreciate the irony of this reply popping up as an email! The challenge with an email is it's much like a ringing phone. You don't know how important it is until you pick it up (or open it).

You end up with hours of your valuable time taken up with passing on good luck charms to girlfriends and countless cc'd messages where the only purpose of copying you in was to protect the senders butt.

Here's a plan. Only open your emails on the hour. I know two or three times a day may be better but to get started you can open your emails at exactly 9, 10, 11 etc.

This makes the waiting fun and also sends a powerful message to your subconscious that you control when your mail gets opened - not the ping.

Be Brilliant,

Michael

Hi Michael,

Are you on Twitter?

Stephen

Hello Stephen,

Yes, I am on Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn. I'm not 100% sure if there's a business benefit to Facebook or Twitter so I'm just playing for fun. Feel free to follow, befriend or link!

You can follow me on Twitter by clicking on this link www.twitter.com/michaelheppell

Michael

Hey Michael,

Do you know have any advice for a small new company to drive traffic to their website? In fact we are so new we don't even have a website yet!

Enthusiastically,

Jenny

Hi Jenny,

I don't really have any advice other than write, write, write. Once you get someone to your site you have to offer lots of goodies. I have masses of articles from customer service to work / live balance as part of our free stuff section.

Our statisics show that once people visit MichaelHeppell.com they do stay for a while and keep coming back.

Be Brilliant,

Michael

PS If you (or any readers) have comments on our site or it's content or if there's something you would like us to add please email info@michaelheppell.com we love to hear from you.

HOW TO BE BRILLIANT
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