DECA Regionals Exam Tips

In the month of October, many people eagerly await the spookiest evening of the entire year… October 30: The DECA Regionals exam! The sun sets as students stay after school and the wails of past DECA alumni are heard through the walls as they take the most important exam of their lives. Lucky for you, Central Peel DECA won’t let you get too spooked. We’ve compiled a list of our deadliest exam tips to ensure you survive this haunted evening!

Let’s get right into it! The first thing we recommend of all victims, or students, is to complete as many practice exams as possible. DECA is unique in the fact that there are so many concepts you can encounter just by doing exams! It’s the best way to introduce yourself to the broad scope of business knowledge you might be expected to know for success in DECA. You can use AnswerWrite to practice and do exams over and over. What a treat!

On to our next terrifying tip - create your own practice exams out of the questions you get wrong! DECA may try to trick you, but don’t be fooled. If you get a question wrong, copy and paste the question and the potential answers into a separate document. You can then create a Quizlet or Kahoot as a fun way to study what you don’t know. Sometimes, certain questions will repeat on different exams so knowing the answers to those can help you boost that score!

The third tip? Research concepts thoroughly. DECA often expects you to know the specific details of a topic that you wouldn’t know if you just studied the bare bones. Use business journals, industry websites, and any information you can find. Sometimes, even knowing one of the options for a question can help you figure out the right answer!

Our exec team is extremely qualified and we’ve survived this spooky season for many years. We now have some great tips from different members of the exec team - to ensure that your exam scores are boo-tiful!

Communication Reps: DECA recycles some questions, so earn yourself some extra marks by knowing the answers in advance! For the concepts you don't know, Google the topic and look for credible sources that will give you great examples so that you can really understand the concept and apply it.

Treasurers: Don’t cram all the information a few days before the exam, or you will get confused. Remember concepts by thinking about how you would use them in your everyday life. Understand the content rather than memorizing.

Marketing Cluster Leads: When doing practice exams, make a list of all the questions you found hard or any of the terms in specific questions you didn’t understand. Then, answer all the questions in that list over and over again until you get them all correct!

Finance Cluster Lead: One of the best exam tips is to make sure you look for keywords in a question. There will be terms you will not understand, but looking for keywords will allow you to choose the best possible answer.

Business Admin Cluster Lead: Make sure you understand why the answer to a question is correct. If you can adopt the DECA thinking style and strategy, then no matter what the question, if you understand the thinking process, you’ll always get the right answer!

Hospitality Cluster Lead: DO NOT CRAM FOR THE EXAM. Space out your studying in the weeks approaching the exam, and get a good night's sleep the night before!

Writtens Cluster Leads: Be curious. Being interested and learning new things is the only way you will be able to retain the knowledge derived from your PIs. Make notes on the important concepts and connect them to examples. Just go through the study guides, practice exams and try to have fun!

Presidents: Do as many practice exams as possible! Make a list of what you got wrong, and study those topics further in depth. You also don't truly understand something until you can explain it to someone else, so grab a family member/friend and start teaching.

We hope these tips will help you succeed and vanquish your DECA demons.

Happy studying Griffins!

~ Gurleen & Ananya