Students face hundreds of challenges while preparing for exams. Starting from assembling notes and trying to make sense of it, ignoring any kind of distractions, and overcoming exam-related anxiety on the day. In this article, we underline a few simple strategies that would help you pass some common bumps you may face on the road to exam success.
Break A Tedious Task Into Small Bits
The most common challenge one faces is from where to begin, and which bit would be more important for their examination. This normally happens as we see things too vast and large. In this scenario, you have to use breaking the task trick.
Divide your syllabus into small parts; the ones you could cover in 10 to 15 min. Tell your brain you’ll just sit for 10 min and will take a break, soon after. But what actually happens is, once you have started you don’t realise how much time you have already devoted to it.
By the time you realise, you might have already completed a chapter. This happens because you stop stressing to complete the entire book and focus on one single bit of syllabus which would help you in concentrating.
Stay Positive And Motivated
If you simply don’t want to be bothered while preparing for an exam, do not stress your brain with negative thoughts and stay positive.
For this, you need to think about the benefits you’ll reap once you successfully pass the exam. If you need more benefits, invent ways to reward yourself or ask your family member to push you into putting in more efforts.
The more positives point you see, the less delaying tactic you will experience, and the more enthusiastic and motivated you will be.
Believe In Yourself
“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning,” said MK Gandhi.
When you hold yourself back and don’t believe in your abilities, it’s called self-efficacy. Just think about a time when you did well without much effort, or your efforts paid you beyond expectation. This is a simple trick of assessing yourself and to become aware of oneself. This would help you in making improvements and regulate your actions.
“You can have anything you want if you are willing to give up the belief that you can’t have it,” said Dr Robert Anthony.
Believe in yourself, if you think you aren’t good — you won’t practice! Our brain can’t create an improved response. When you see an improvement, celebrate, shout out in your mind, “Yes, I did it —I can do it!” This will strengthen your self-belief and rejuvenate your intention to do better next time. With these little steps, you will improve your performance and build your self-efficacy.
Use Distractions As A Reward
A common trouble for plenty of students is being distracted easily while trying to study. Your brain can grasp only one thing at a time. Therefore, your interest flicks from one aspect to another very easily, specifically when you have an assignment due, it can be irritating how these distractions take over your thoughts.
People have a tendency to be stimulated towards pride and hide away from pain. When studying isn’t the most amusing activity, your mind looks around for different things. Try this; make a list of the most common distractions around you. Rank them from “maximum pleasing” at the pinnacle to “least pleasing” at the bottom. Do you tend to certainly go for the most pleasurable ones first?
Now, use your distractions as rewards for putting in some effort. Before you begin preparing for any examination, decide on a short-focused attempt and reward yourself with the most pleasurable distraction for praise after you’ve finished the task at hand.
Notice how well your mind will maintain your interest in the task, understanding, that the reward will follow shortly.
Reduce Screen Time
A rising matter of concern among students is that they don’t concentrate well because of sleep problems. The biggest reason for this is the excessive use of mobile phones. The bright light emitted from devices such as phones, tablets and laptop screens being used before sleep time.
Recent studies show that how humans use technology is affecting their brains in a manner that might be addictive and unhelpful for their capacity to examine and assume critically. Other researchers recommend that the boom in electromagnetic WiFi energy from an increase in smartphone use is negative to our health and wellbeing. Try turning your devices off for an hour before you plan to sleep and reduce its usage.
Follow A Present-Centric Approach
Try using present-centric awareness exercises. Worry is created due to over-thinking about the future. As your body, mind, and feelings all work together, the destiny-targeted thoughts create emotions that launch stress chemicals compound in your body that make you tense.
When your mind focusses in the present moment, you can control your thoughts. If you generally tend to fear a lot, ask yourself, “Where am I now?”. Take a few deep breaths and focus on your consciousness and attention on your breathing. If you’re in bed, attempt shifting your interest towards your toes and slowly flow it up through your body, relaxing while breathing deeply. If you’re out and about, attempt setting your interest in the surroundings around you.
By bringing your attention back to present-centred awareness, your worrying thoughts will disappear, and you’ll sense better. This process is basically to distract your focuses from the past or future to the present.
Time-Saving Technology
Students all around the world are inventing new approaches to study using advanced technology. During study hours, use relaxation music designed to help and increase one’s concentration. There are software programs to assist you in making notes or telling you tricks and shortcuts to help you memorize content. There is organiser software for students to divide time and syllabus. You call it, and there’ll be something out there for you to use. Go online and find some time-saving technologies.
Get A Study Coach
Get a study coach who specializes in helping students with common exam challenges. Online coaching for exam-preparation through YouTube or Skype is also a great way to get help, and it’s affordable and convenient.
Visit the exams website to get previous year sample papers and solve them once you are done with your syllabus. By attempting these test papers, you would be able to assess yourself.
These few steps could reduce challenges while preparing for exams. Your focus and dedication to achieve something is the biggest key factor to give you success in exams.
Note: This was originally published here.