How to study for an exam? It’s a big question for those who have poor grades or for those who know that their academic performance is not that advanced. Some of them might think they need to be a real genius to get high marks and saying goodbye to all other hobbies and tranquility. To be honest your life does not have to be like that to get the good marks. Obviously, study is an essential part of life because it opens our mind and helps us understand our place in the earth. As we grow we need to go through some basic knowledge throughout our life. Your world does not have to focus on academic grades as long as you know how to study for an exam.
So, if you consider yourself one of them who stressed by the threatening of an exam, here in this article you will know everything you need to achieve the best study habits and able to immerse yourself in a deep way in each of the contents that will be evaluated.
Starting today, how to study for an exam will be something that will be more fun to take on:
Say no to STRESS
The first blocking factor that a student has when it comes on how to study for an exam is levels of stress and anxiety. Many people assume the study as a real ordeal. When they study, their mind does not stop plotting about their future qualification. “If at least I reach a 3.7 I will be able to pass the subject” and that idea begins to saturate all the attention channels. The assimilation of particular content is simplified only in the essence of a note but not in what it has to offer us knowledge. Instead of turning mathematics into something that challenges your understanding or discovering why atomic energy can devastate a city in a single second, the student becomes engrossed in stress.
That’s why, if you feel mentally saturated at the time of studying for an exam and if you know you’re going to start thinking about your future qualification, it’s best to go out, take a breath. I will say eat an ice cream and come back with a more positive attitude. You should affirm to yourself: “I will give all my effort in this exam regardless of the result”.
The study schedule
Just as you already have a strong attitude that you can devote yourself to study; you must establish an exclusive study schedule. Simply define the time in which you will dedicate to review the contents or to perform the academic exercises in subjects such as mathematics, physics, and chemistry.
The schedule, compared to How to study for an exam is something really vital and very important as it gives you the same feeling you experience when you know that you are going to play a football game with your friends or when you go to the cinema with your partner. When establishing a schedule, your mind appropriates those two or three hours, assuming the study calmly. Keep reading Coolhunting: Marketing and innovation to fight the crisis
All that free time that you have determined will prevent you from fighting against the minutes and hours are running out for the exam. Even if the exam is done on the same day, one or two hours at most are enough to do a good review.
The workspace
Of course, studying for an exam could not be a success if you are not clear about the space in which you will focus all your learning activity. You need a very well lit space, which is comfortable enough so you can study calmly.
At the same time you should turn off the radio or you pause the music of your smartphone unless it is relaxation music that helps in the study. Now it is scientifically proven that some music has a positive impact on the process of how to study for an exam.
Another very important thing that you should consider is know how to voiding any other distracters that hampering your concentration. For example, if you are studying on your PC, close the windows that distract you. Close the Facebook page and your email. If your curiosity calls you a lot, take a look at those pages before you start studying and when you closed them, try not to open them again.
Active breaks
Another piece of high-value advice on how to study for an exam lies in the way in which the time we invest in studying affects us indiscreetly. Your body accumulates a certain tension given the position you are in, the mental fatigue of reading is exhausting your sight and your breathing goes to automatic mode.
All these conditions can be cleared through active pauses. What does it consist on? Simple: get up from your position and feel like stretching your body relax your muscles. Drink a glass of water and pay attention to how the air reaches your lungs. Do some extra stretching, until you feel that your energy has been restarted.
With that new attitude, go back to your books or to the screen of your PC.
Immerse yourself in the subject and ask
At this point, the tips on how to study for an exam will have a much more practical approach. It is likely that you have perceived the four previous tips only focused on the technical preparation to assume the process of studying on how to contribute through your attitude and respecting your study schedule.
Therefore, it is necessary that as you study the contents of the subject that will be evaluated, allow your mind to fill with questions. Keep an open mind to those questions and your mind will begin to be interested in the subject and wishes to dominate it deeply.
You will realize that as you continue reading, your mind feels enormous satisfaction when you perceive the answer. When a book does not resolve the doubt, choose to consult them through the Internet. If you still do not get an answer (which would be very rare), then leave the doubt for your teacher, he will solve that.
Underline ideas
Another interesting option to keep in mind is to take the text and read it calmly and underlining with colors or markers the ideas that most attract your attention. The fact of using colors achieves a similar effect by having to rewrite. The line drawn under the phrase is deeply felt by your brain associating the content in your memory.
By having a text full of colors, your mind will associate very well as each of these ideas is structured into one. Following this advice on how to study for an exam will offer a solid and advanced level of learning.
Mental maps
Very close to the previous point and this time fact of using mental maps. It is a type of educational resource that allows you to deepen on the topics while you relate each of the ideas of a text.
It’s a very fun exercise where learning is complemented with images and color connectors, which precisely give your brain an extra reason to make each concept more easily in your memory. The trick on how to make mental maps simply lies in the use of drawings and colored lines that connect the ideas.
For example, if your theme has to do with peace at the end of World War II, start by drawing a pretty little dove with its olive branch. When you are going to talk about a country, use the respective flag of that nation. Then draw a line of color to an idea and write it in the most summarized way.
That is it. That’s the magic of how to study for an exam with mental maps.
Conceptual maps
And of course, if we refer to mental maps, it is essential to do the same with conceptual maps. Something different happens in concept maps. If you already have the ideas underlined, it will be much easier for you to do it, because the idea is simply to integrate them in a logical and orderly manner. It will be easy to focus them towards an end.
For this purpose, small text boxes are used, where each main idea is synthesized. Then you just have to branch out and integrate them as if it were a tree, starting from the tree itself and reaching the deepest end of the root.
By having a conceptual map at hand, you get a whole navigation chart about the content of the theme. In the case of mathematics, if you make a conceptual map of the process of the most difficult equation that you had to perform, rest assured that by reviewing it in your mind you will diagram this method. In this way, it will be easy to remember the key aspects of the subject.
End up with a positive thought:
Those were the ideas I thought will be best on how to study for an exam for them who want to pursue the level of understanding in study manner. If you have any other ideas about this topics please share it in the comment sections.
