Many of us have a jaded view of revising for exams based on our school experience. Hell, it was boring! Hours upon hours of reading through notes over and over again just hoping that some of it would sink in.
At the time we didn’t know it could be any other way. Studying for exams is boring and there’s nothing we can do about it. Now when faced with work based professional exams we feel we are just going to have to grin and bear it, right?
Wrong on both counts. Fortunately, understanding of learning and study skills has moved on enormously which means we can all study smarter rather than harder. So, in theory you can get better results by doing less! Yes, I thought that would grab your attention.
Here's a few tips for you. They include studying in short sessions, using a variety of study methods, creating a positive study space, what to do in the breaks, arranging your study day and working on a few techniques to promote relaxation and boost motivation. So let's get started...
Break up, not break down
There’s nothing noble about bashing away at it for hours on end. Instead, break up your study time into 30 minute blocks and have a five minute break between each.
The reason is that the human attention span is on average about 20 minutes and after that there’s a decline in the amount of information we retain. Giving it 30 minutes pushes that to the limit. The five minute break is enough to boost your attention again - just think of it like a rechargeable battery.
Variety is the spice of life
By repeatedly reading the same thing over and over again for hours on end, we make two crucial errors. First, we bore ourselves half to death and so switch off. Second, we make the mistake that recognition and recall is the same thing.
Let me explain. Reading through your notes means for hours at time certainly means that you would be able to recognise them notes in a police line up. And if some one asked you direct questions of whether your notes contained specific information, you’d probably be able to answer yes or no.
However, more than likely you wouldn’t be able to elaborate very much. Yes you can recognise the material but you can’t necessarily recall it. Just reading through notes keeps the learning very much at the surface. What you need is a bit of deep penetration :-)
To make the information sink in you need to create variety in your study methods. This will immediately grab your attention and reduce the boredom. We tend to pay attention to novelty and variety, so try some of these...
Don’t just read out loud. Make short hand notes at the same time and read them out as you’re writing them – reading, writing and speaking is a lot more demanding. Working together, they seize out attention more effectively and so the information sinks in.
Write out several questions and prepare answers for them, then either test yourself or get someone else to test you. Only if you get really stuck can you look at your notes. It’s the act of trying to remember that makes your brain work that little bit harder which in turn deepens the information connections.
Check out the numerous books on Mind Maps by Tony Buzan. A Mind Map is a like a spider-diagram that represents all the information in pictorial form. Seeing as most people think more readily in pictures rather than words, using Mind Maps can help make information more memorable.
Use coloured paper, coloured pens, postcards, pictures or anything to make those notes more interesting. Don’t make marks on books, but rather copy out the information. It’s the act of doing the work that will help you remember. Furthermore, if you keep your books in good condition it’d easier to sell them after you’ve passed your exam.
If you can get more creative and write songs, poems or rap then this can help two.
Begin each day by reviewing the material you studied the previous day. The process of reviewing the material gives a boost to your memory.
Overall, the important thing is to use a variety of things to give your study time a more dynamic feel. At the end of the day if you find it boring then change it and make it interesting.
