How to win an ICAS medal – tips from medal winners

Winning an ICAS medal is an incredible achievement, and the recognition that goes along with it can really spur children onto greater things.

In this article, we’ve curated the greatest tips from past medal winners so that your child can learn from the best. Many of these students had similar advice, which is great because if they’re recommending the same thing, it shows that it really works!

Here they are in full – we hope they help your child get their highest possible ICAS scores, maybe even medals!

Medal winning tip #1: Relax

This was the most common tip shared by students, and for good reason: acute stress impairs your memory and cognitive flexibility, both of which are vital for exams.¹

But as we all know, few people (let alone children) can relax on cue, especially in exam environments. A reasonable amount of stress is expected, and your child can make good use of it by trying to see it as a natural thing that their body does to prepare them for a challenge. Those butterflies in their belly, the dry feeling in their throat, the nervousness that jitters through their body – they aren’t threats. They’re just their body’s way of telling them that something significant is coming up, and that they need to focus.

And while ICAS is significant, it’s not a high-stakes exam that will affect their future education. It’s designed to be a fun, low-stakes way for your child to challenge themselves and see how they get on. They want to do well, of course, but the less they feel they have to do well, the better they are likely to perform.

There are, of course, some specific relaxation tips that you child might want to try before their ICAS tests. Belly-breathing is an effective way to reduce stress levels,² as is mindfulness meditation,³ exercising and avoiding social media.⁴ They are valuable techniques for helping your child to relax their minds before taking ICAS.

Medal winning tip #2: Focus

As with any timed exam, your child will need to maintain their focus for the duration of their ICAS tests, answering each question as best they can. They can improve their focus by using many of the relaxation techniques listed above, namely exercise and meditation (as well as sleep, which we talk about more below).

In addition to maintaining focus, Year 3 medal winner Nick from South Australia also suggests that participants read each question carefully so that they fully understand what is being asked. If they’re not sure what a question means, James in Year 5 recommends trying to swap out some of the complicated words to simpler words – a nice little tip!

Another aspect of focusing is removing as many distractions as possible, and during classes and exams, one of your child’s biggest distractions are their friends. It’s even more tempting to talk to them when a tough question comes up, and the urge to procrastinate soars.

Medal winning tip #3: Prepare

It goes without saying that if you want to do well in a test, you should prepare for it. ICAS is no exception.

ICAS tests are a little harder to prepare for because they are based on higher-order thinking skills (like critical thinking and problem-solving), but Year 9 medal winner Jessica from New South Wales has hit the nail on the head:

In addition to taking subjects that you enjoy (though challenging yourself with others is also recommended), practice tests are one of the best ways to prepare for the ICAS test. There are a few great options:

1. ICAS past papers – downloadable PDF tests that use real former questions taken from previous ICAS exams. These are very popular with students.
2. RiSE+ – online practice tests that include specific ICAS-style tests. It’s also hosted on the exact same platform as ICAS, helping your child become familiar with the test environment.
3. Sample tests – free sample tests that show your child what the ICAS test environment looks like, and how it works.

Ultimately, all of this preparation will help your child feel more calm, relaxed and confident on test day – important states of mind for winning an ICAS medal!

Medal winning tip #4: Get plenty of sleep

Sleep is becoming more widely recognised for its importance in every area of life. It’s a pillar of health. Getting enough sleep will improve your child’s focus, memory, reasoning skills, decision-making and more.⁵ Eddie, a Mathematics medal-winner from Year 8 in South Australia, already knows this intuitively:

However, as with relaxing, the tricky thing about sleep is that we can’t just click our fingers and descend into a delicious slumber, especially if we have a test that we’re nervous about the following day. Again, it can help your child to shift perspective and try to see the ICAS tests as fun opportunities for challenging themselves. A medal would be wonderful, of course, but they’re also very tough to win, so having reasonable expectations is important.

And once again, the relaxation methods listed in tip #1 can also improve with sleep length and quality, and help your child achieve their best ICAS results.

Medal winning tip #5: Come back to tough questions

This is an excellent tip from Bonnie in Tasmania. If your child gets stuck on a tough question (which they will – ICAS is super challenging), they can just flag the question, continue with the test, and come back to it later.

It’s a technique that has been used by students for decades, but it’s a great one.

Medal winning tip #6: Have an open mind

Our final medal-winning tip from Rishi is a little more philosophical. If your child goes into the ICAS test with an open mind, remembering that their expectations will almost certainly not be met, they’ll have a more flexible attitude to the tough challenges that appear before them. As Bruce Lee wisely stated, they’ll be “like water” and easily flow with the difficulties of the tests.

Thanks to our proud medal-winners for their excellent advice, and best of luck to your child in this year’s ICAS competition!

References

1. Grant S. Shields et al., 2016, The Effects of Acute Stress on Core Executive Functions: A Meta-Analysis and Comparison with Cortisol, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
2. Xiao Ma et al., 2017, The Effect of Diaphragmatic Breathing on Attention, Negative Affect and Stress in Healthy Adults, Frontiers in Psychology
3. 2019, Mindfulness meditation: A research-proven way to reduce stress, American Psychological Association
4. Adberrahman M Khalaf et al., 2023, The Impact of Social Media on the Mental Health of Adolescents and Young Adults: A Systematic Review, Cureus
5. Susanne Diekelmann, 2014, Sleep for cognitive enhancement, Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience