What to avoid doing when preparing for exams?
Yes, it’s coming up to that time again – school exams. Those looming dates signal the time to knuckle down and get revising – to look back over all the topics covered since the last batch of exams, and review your overall knowledge of the topic to date.
So while you can easily find great tips on how to study well for an exam, this article is going to cover what NOT to do – what to avoid doing when preparing for exams.
Avoid multi-tasking
You are going to hear or read all kinds of advice on studying with music in the background, or with the TV on, etc. But common sense will tell you that when you are concentrating on two things at once, neither of them has your full attention.
Smart students know that the most effective way to study and prepare for exams is to give the revision their absolute full attention. While it may seem cool to brag that you can multi-task, in reality no one can.
So, to fully concentrate on your studies, make sure to do the following to avoid those unwanted distractions that can rob you of your concentration or take you away from studying entirely!
Study in a room away from the TV
Turn off your phone
yes, as tempting as it is to stay connected with friends, they won’t help you study, so turn the phone off so you don’t get distracted with messages.
Close your internet browser
Stay off the Internet when you are studying. You should have done all your reading and research previously anyway, and you can end up going down a rabbit hole surfing page after page, and before you know it, you’ve wasted an hour of study time. Don’t open any browsers so this is not a distraction.
Remove from reach any books and magazines that aren’t related to your studies
Again, keep all other activities out of reach so the only thing you have in front of you is your study work.
Avoid cramming
Not using your study time in the run-up to exams and then trying to cram in the last hours, or worse, staying up all night to try and get as much study in as possible is simply counter-productive.
It is better to spread out your study time over the day and take regular breaks to refresh your mind. Doing a little every day will help you retain more information than a last minute cram the night before.
Multi-tasking and cramming is what smart students avoid doing when preparing for exams. So now you know, do the smart thing and pace out your study sessions and stay focused on only that when studying.
You can log in to online.matrixmath.sg for free study resources running up to your exams.
