You need to practice memory muscle to get ahead

This sounds like a no-brainer. However, you’ll be shocked at the amount of people who do not take advantage of this concept. Simulate your exam procedures during your learning. You will build up “muscle memory” in your brain. Your body becomes use to how you are studying and when you walk in to take the exam - it’s just a familiar exercise and is just like another one of your study exercises.

I remember when I was in college and was taking Social Psychology, whenever I had a closed book exam, I would study and practice answering difficult questions without access to my notes or textbook.

Another one of my personal favorites. My roommate would create note cards of questions to study. Then he would spend days studying the questions he created. What could be easier? Of course you’re going to know your own questions (at least you should).

He would tell me “I have this exam mastered(http://www.certdaddy.com/).” When he would leave, I would change out all of his note cards and when he came back, I asked him to go through the questions that he had. This had disastrous results for him.

After all, you’re not the one picking items for the exam at the testing center, so asking yourself questions that you have made up on your own is usually a poor way to simulate the behavior called for on an exam.

That’s one of the reasons why products like certification practice tests are essential when preparing for an IT certification exam(http://www.certdaddy.com/) — they provide you with difficult practice items that someone else has written.

I tested this theory recently. I was taking BCX-222 Supporting BlackBerry Enterprise Server/IBM Lotus Domino, one of several Blackberry Certification Exams at a Prometric testing center. I took their exam guide and created index cards for each topic. I looked up what I felt they were going to ask and then studied them over and over.

I followed our recommendations and did not do a mass study, rather, breaking the sessions out over several days. I went and took the exam. I walked in with 100% confidence. Launched the exam and was shocked that the exam questions I came up with only accounted for a small number of questions.

I got back to the office (without a successful score) and sat down and reviewed a bunch of index cards that one of my peers put together. Not only did I have no idea to the answers, several of them covered the materials that were on the exam.

I asked James how they were so applicable and he explained he had already taken a Blackberry exam and he understood how their questions are created in relation to their exam guide. I am confident had I studied his index cards, I would have passed with ease.

Long story short, don’t study only what you know. You need to study what you don’t know, and follow the answers to the questions and learn more about the answer. Learn the concept and you’ll be prepared for success.