Exams (whether face-to-face or online) are a source of stress and frustration for many students, if this happens to them it is completely normal, so that week we bring you a series of tips to help you cope with those weeks in the best way possible.
1.- Healthy attitudes
You have to get enough sleep (8 hours a day). Let’s not forget that during the hours of sleep knowledge is established, also if we are not rested it will be much more difficult for us to concentrate.
You also have to eat in a balanced way and exercise. Good nutrition improves performance.
2.- No to distractions
Mobile phones and social networks are the main sources of distraction today for young people. At exam time, we must try to focus on studying and put aside these types of distractions. For this, the ABC technique is very useful, that is, A for Awareness that tries to identify and be aware of the distraction (whatever it is), B for Breathing or breath control to be able to take a moment and reflect on what we’re doing and C for Choosing Mindfully, the ability to choose what to do with that distraction.
3.- Regular breaks
When we are saturated, concentration is lost and we feel as if we are not moving forward. Instead of continuing to force yourself to memorize concepts, it is best to take small breaks throughout the day. They can be scheduled breaks, for example, every “x” number of topics you study or at certain times of the day. You can take advantage of them to do a little sport and disconnect, take a relaxing bath… They can also be 10-minute breaks in which you simply sit down to think about other things.
4.- A suitable place
There are environments that surround us with distractions and worsen performance, for example studying in the living room with the sofa, the cell phone… The best is a calm, bright and quiet place and with the necessary material (notebook, computer, pens, notes…) so you don’t have to get up all the time.
5.- Use your own notes
It may seem irrelevant, we have all studied classmates’ notes at some point. However, each one has their memorization techniques and this is reflected in the way of writing the notes, for example, there are people who outline everything and their notes consist of numbered lists; others, on the other hand, prefer to study from texts separated only by paragraphs and their notes are like a textbook. No way is wrong, but it may not be yours. In addition, while the notes are being made, small doses of information are memorized and doubts arise that are resolved with personal annotations.
6.- Plan the study
Once we have the exam calendar we can make a personalized study plan where we will write down what we are going to do day by day. It is important to be realistic when making them so that they are feasible objectives and not get frustrated when we see that we did not reach what we had proposed. Remember the importance of breaks and do not forget that the days have only 24 hours.
When planning, we must also take into account what our strengths and weaknesses are in order to know what we will need to dedicate more time to.
We hope these 6 tips have served you well to better cope with exam times, we’ll see you next time.