QUEZON City, Philippines (October 15) – Admit it or not, some of us are having difficulty when it comes to reviewing for an exam. Whether it is a summative, periodical, prelim, mid-term, or finals exam – it does not matter, it’s so hard to review, right? With this article, we aim to help you remove or at least lessen the difficulties that you have when reviewing for a test. By giving you these simple yet effective tips, we hope that you can effectively review for your exam:
You should be comfortable:
The first thing that you should do in order to get everything in order, is to have a clean, quiet and orderly room. You should be comfortable but not that much comfy because too much comfort might lead you to just sleep. No one can have a proper review if they have a messy place. You must first clean up all of the unnecessary things in the table or in the place where you want to have your lesson review. As much as possible, keep your cellphone or any social media sites away from you because it can definitely ruin everything! Don’t say that you’re just going to check it once in a while, still, that time you spent checking out other social media sites could actually be the time you can use to gain new knowledge from reviewing! That makes sense right?
Turn on the lights:
“Of course! No one would want to study when the lights are off!” well, kidding aside, what we mean is that you should have a better and brighter source of light in your place, it is really uncomfortable studying when lights are too dim! In addition, studying in a dark room is not recommended for it can eventually blur you vision! It’s hard to wear eye glasses I swear! Or if you are too eco-friendly, and you’d rather wear glasses than turning the lights on, please do open your window and let some lights pass through your window frame for you not to suffer from too much darkness. We care for you, remember that!
Ever since we were children, our parents usually turn off TV when they know we are studying or when they wants us to study. Don’t rely with the belief that the more you multi-task, the more brainy you are, some people don’t usually get to manage doing that and even if you think you can, we highly suggest that you shouldn’t because it’s still good to review without any distractions. Rapidly swapping attention between studying and watching TV makes it more difficult for your brain to prioritize information acquisition. Instead of watching TV, try something more relaxing like listening to classical music! Classical music literally and figuratively are music to my ears!!!
Walk before an Exam:
Walking, like we all know is a form of exercising. Dr. Chuck Hillman of University of Illinois proves that exercise or simply walking for about 20 minutes before an exam can boost your memory as well as your brain power and can also improve your performance. If you think walking before an exam is just a hassle, why not try it and see for yourself?
If you think you’ve write everything and doesn’t feel like you learned all of it, try to write it all over again. It will make you think and also learn what you are writing, you might even have a deeper view and understanding with your lessons if you do this. Another benefit is that it will refresh your memory, if you remember that you have past notes that you took months ago, go ahead and re-write it with your notes so that it will also be another knowledge you could use to answer your exam! BUT, don’t just the copy the whole “past notes” thing over and over for instead of acquiring knowledge and having a deeper point of view regarding your lessons, it may lead to memorizing and exact wording of your notes instead. Read the context of your notes and not just write every words, if you want to, you can also rephrase sentences or think of another term for some words you encounter.
Always pay attention in class:
Whether it is your super active professor you are listening to or your professor in the late night class that sounds like Jigglypuff of pokemon whenever he/she’s discussing a lesson always pay attention, try not to fall asleep or to get over entertained by your professor’s lectures, because there are hints that they might say like, “the most important thing about this topic is…” that you might overheard and can cause you not to get the complete details of the lessons, and in the end, the things that you could only say is that, “I should’ve listened…” or “what a loss!”
“No man is an island” you might want to call a close friend if you think you are stuck on a lesson. Calling for help will not make you look like a no-brainer, be true to yourself, and call afriend of yours to help you out with your predicaments regarding your subject or lessons. You can also work with your friends and try to compare your notes because there are some points in the lesson that you might’ve missed. Also working with other people will help you remember more information. Try to test each other, after reviewing you lessons with your friend, try to have like a mini-test for the both of you, and try to explin every answer, there is a hundred percent chance that you will remember all or just the things that you explained! It is still a big help!
Take breaks:
It is not healthy to bury yourself with all the lessons that you have in your notes. One way of having your brain absorb and remember all the lessons in their entirety is to have a break. At least 5 or a maximum of 10-minute break will do after around 20-30 minutes of studying. Don’t exhaust yourself and do not always forget to learn while having fun! It isn’t good that you are engaging into something that stresses you.
Try to give yourself a treat!:
It isn’t bad to sometimes spoil yourself especially when you know you’ve done something good or productive. If you think you really need to release all of the pressure or the stress that you have regarding your lessons, try to at least chill a little bit, buy an ice cream or at least candies like gummy bears! But since we already mentioned gummy bears and if you don’t want to waste your time but you think you really have to have some treat, why don’t you add some thrill while you review? Just simply divide all the topics or the lessons that you should review and when you already divided it, put one or more gummy bears onto each topic so that, for every topic you finish there will be a correspondent gummy bear that you can consider as a price!
Ooooops! Don’t get me wrong here, when we say “share what you have learned” that doesn’t mean that you have to share your answers during your examinations. What we are trying to say is that if you think you already gathered and stored all the things that you need for the exam and saw someone having difficulties with the lessons, do try to teach them what you learned. It is still best to give than to receive! But always remember, always share something you have in a manner that you won’t feel abused and don’t expect for any reciprocal. Share your knowledge, it is the only thing that you could give to someone that cannot be stolen nor forget.
Hope these things help you in achieving a good and nice review experience. Don’t forget to always do these tips and always remember that you should always have time to review every lessons that you’ve tackled in school, you can also have a study timetable wherein it will serve as your schedule of what are you going to do or review for a particular day. Most of all, before taking an examination never forget to always seek for His help because above anything else, it will still be the Almighty God that could give you the wisdom and the characteristics that you need in achieving anything.
Sources:
http://www.wikihow.com/Study-For-Exams
https://www.examtime.com/blog/study-hacks/
(written by Donna Marie Rodriguez, edited by Jay Paul Carlos, additional research by Lovely Ann Cruz)