Exam and class preparation don’t have to be difficult. To be honest, there are a lot of exam study hacks for students to learn how to study well. Even though not every technique works for everyone, a little trial and error may help you identify the strategies that suit you. Nothing can replace a strong, old-fashioned work ethic, every little bit counts when it comes to boosting your productivity in college.
Students may improve and increase the effectiveness of their studies with the use of study hacks. Before their next exams, all students should be aware of these study tips.
Easy Study Hacks For Students
1. Study SMART Instead of Studying HARD
Studying SMART is one of the exam study hacks for students. Students are aware of this, but who is to divulge the study tip for savvy studying? Make use of clever study techniques that have been validated by science. Don’t take too long to go over and revise your notes. These study techniques are effective for preliminary test preparation. But if you want to study more efficiently, consider active recall and spaced repetition.
Students using this study technique are expected to recover material without consulting their notes again. This helps to develop your muscle memory around the knowledge by training your brain to utilize what you’ve learned to answer the question.
2. Use Necessary Tools
Studying and revision don’t have to be boring or monotonous. It is not necessary for students to repeatedly complete practice papers, go over the same notes, and compose the same summaries. To make learning more fun, employ a variety of learning resources. It has been shown that using some of these tools may make studying more productive and efficient.
Here are some resources that students can find useful to add some flair to their revisions:
- Flashcards.
- Small notes.
- YouTube summary videos.
- Conducting a real-life experiment.
Students may employ a greater variety and uniqueness of learning resources than ever before.
3. Find A Quiet Place
Finding a quiet place is one of the best study hacks for exams. Make sure you have a quiet place where you can study quietly and noiselessly if you live with your parents. If you reside in a dorm or hostel, try to find the times when you are least likely to be disturbed and make use of them.
You can even turn on the outside world by putting in your earbuds and turning on some relaxing music. Before you begin, gather the notes you took both inside and outside of the classroom, your textbooks, and your stationery. Two hours is the optimal amount of time to study nonstop.
Again, each two-hour block may be divided into periods of 25 minutes for intensive study followed by five minutes for rest. After every two hours, take longer breaks, around twenty minutes, if you choose to continue studying. Even if you think that studying for a lengthy period is the best option, this can backfire and cause headaches and poor memory recall.
4. Track Your Time
Consider your weekly routine. During your “break,” you should not allow any exam-related ideas, pressure, or tension to consume your thoughts. In the unlikely event that you use the break to organize your next reading session or have a discussion with friends about the material, your mind is not taking a rest. The following study session won’t be as productive and efficient if your mind doesn’t take a rest.
If you are noticeably better at one topic than another, it is erroneous to think that your final exams are all comparable. Since each person is different, it makes sense that you would excel in one area while your buddy might favor another.
Create a study timetable that fits you best, dividing up the time to study according to your preferred study period and your strong and weak points. Determining whether you have greater concentration in the early morning or late at night can help you make the most of your study time.
5. Listen Actively In Class
Active listening is one of the best exam study hacks for students. One often-ignored study tip is to pay close attention in class. You should pay attention to your instructor even if other pupils are busy copying down what the teacher is writing on the board or nodding off.
Make sure you get their reasoning and methodology when they respond to inquiries by paying attention to how they answer questions. Make a note of anything significant they said so you have it handy when you review the question later. These little nuggets of knowledge can be useful in the future.
6. Avoid Stress
Students experience worry and stress when they have to study the full syllabus in the last week before the test. The impending course always looms in the background, even when you are attempting to concentrate on just one thing. It’s a good idea to start practicing some soothing methods at this time.
If yoga, dancing, or taking a walk in the park are your things, go for it. The idea is that it should ease your tension and divert your attention from it. You may even give yourself a pep talk; there’s no need to spend any more time thinking about it since the time has already been spent.
Instead, concentrating on the subject you are now learning will be beneficial. Prioritize your coverage of the subjects that provide the highest scores so that, even if you are unable to study the full syllabus, you may still get a respectable grade on the test.
7. Prioritize
Prioritizing your studies is one of the best study hacks for exams. Make studying for the exam a priority if you have a lot of assignments due before the test, especially if the test will count towards a larger portion of your final grade.
This also applies to any other pastime or sport you may be involved in. There is only one week left to prepare for the test; therefore, you must dedicate the majority of your time to studying and very little to other pursuits. You may even think about switching between topics sometimes to break up the monotony of your day. It is one of the essential exam study hacks for students.
8. Mark Important Texts
To help you remember crucial dates, arithmetic formulae, or vocabulary definitions, create flashcards out of index cards or paper. Highlight the most important sentences in your textbook, then write a summary on the margins of the page that encapsulates what you have learned about a particular subject. You’ll be able to save time on the revision by doing this. Simply go through the side notes and review what you’ve learned about a certain subject.
If you don’t want to annotate the text in your school textbooks, you may make notes using sticky notes or keep a separate notebook where you can write some chapter-specific tips. By using these techniques, you’ll be able to swiftly review the key concepts for your last-minute revision and retain your understanding of them.
9. Focus on Earlier Exam Papers
One of the most effective study tips and strategies for exam preparation is to practice prior exam papers as much as you can to get a sense of the questions’ complexity.
Not only may they help you get used to the format of the questions, but previous year’s papers are also a terrific way to practice and make sure you devote the right amount of time and effort to each area. They also help you get more used to the exam’s format, which reduces test anxiety.
Additionally, there’s a strong probability that the practice problems, articles, and assortment of other resources provided by your instructors will sharpen your mind like a violin. So, to facilitate your learning, please review all of the materials that have been supplied. Taking notes on the issues that are challenging for you is unquestionably a great way to focus your reading sessions more on those areas.
Why Do We Need Study Hacks?
Recently, it occurred to me that we need to write a brief article summarizing the exam study hacks for students, so that we may direct readers there the first time they accidentally come into our oddball little universe of focus-straining techniques and note-taking techniques.
Study Hacks’ obvious goal is to assist students in succeeding without feeling stressed. Our approach to accomplishing this objective consists of three easy guidelines:
- Reduce the number of activities you do.
- Perform them more effectively.
- Be aware of your motivations.
These three topics provide the basis for all of the site’s key recommendations. People, we have been engrossed in this subject matter for years. We promise you that this is effective. You’ll discover that I’m obsessed with minimalism if you spend enough time on this site. I detest the distorted perception of impressiveness that pushes kids to attempt an excessive number of tasks.
The most happy and successful college students, in our opinion, understand why they are there and accept this explanation. Additionally, they usually don’t do much, but when they do, they do it effectively. They understand that those who are so exceptional are rewarded by the world in the end.
On the other hand, we overlook the exhausted triple major who demonstrated leadership by joining ten clubs and earning a 3.9 without ever making an impression on a professor.
We commend the student who chooses a reasonable and well-balanced course load and allows enough time in his schedule to immerse himself in the subject matter, allowing it to settle into his mind and take some time to process; this is the kind of student who accepts a little boredom as a necessary cost of doing things well.
We consider studying to be an art form worthy of serious consideration (it’s a topic I wrote a whole book on). The majority of students are awful at studying. But the most accomplished students are like academic maestros; their strategies for taking notes, revising, and composing papers are very effective.
FAQ
Q: How can one thoroughly study a chapter?
A: Divide the chapters into manageable chunks, and before going ahead, go over the content in each part. To quickly recall the important parts of the reading without having to reread full chapters, summarize them in your notes. Put challenging passages in your bookmarks for later.
Q: Can I make my own study hacks?
A: If you feel they are working, then you can make and share your own study hacks.
Q: What is the study plan for 9-8-7?
A: Using this method, you set aside:
- Nine hours for studying.
- Eight hours of rest.
- Seven hours of varied activities, such as eating, working out, etc.
