ThePastryPoet’s Studying Tips for Examination Success

When I was a kid, I was one of those children who was way too eager to get to school. I loved it, and vacations or public holidays were literally a punishment for my eight year old self. I would sit at home, thoroughly bored, and dream about classrooms and learning and homework. As a fourteen year old girl, I’m still the same.

Not.

There are SOME parts of school that pretty much any student loves. Meeting friends, torturing substitutes, making fun of the meanest teachers (that’s a personal favourite in our class). If you have taught me at any point of time during the last five years, and you were one of those teachers who we ridiculed playfully, then I’m sorry on behalf of my class and myself. Sometimes we can’t help it. There’s going to be some laughter from a ninth grade class when our chemistry teacher is showing us how to make models of molecules, and starts off by saying “I have different types of balls here. We need to use the big ones.”

To be fair, the boys started it.

(That’s a good tip too. Equality is great and all, but you’re more likely to stay away from the Principal’s office if you have long hair and mood swings. Us girls got it good. At least, up until the time we’re spending seven hours in a classroom)

ANYWAY.

As I said, there are some good things about school. There are also some things about school that make you want to strap yourself to a railway track.

Namely, exams.

I’m not even going to give a description here. You’ve been in school, you know how they feel. The thing is, a lot of people think that those who get good grades consistently, actually LIKE studying. NO.

Just, no.

I’ll be honest, sometimes I go crazy and study, voluntarily, for hours at a time, enjoying it thoroughly and being crazy productive. 875496376 chapters in three hours? Pshhh, big deal.

Unfortunately, this is NOT the case most of the time.

So here are some studying hacks that I use to keep my report card in tip-top shape all year round (ish).

1. You know those post-its you haven’t used in forever? Get them out, and make a schedule.

I make schedules for EVERYTHING. I love having a plan all set out in front of me, and for good reason too. The thing about studying is, it’s a drag. Well, to make it less drag-y, you should make a routine and pin it up somewhere where you can easily see it. First, set goals for your study sessions. What do you want to accomplish? And for god’s sake, be realistic. Ain’t nobody finishing the whole book in half an hour, not unless you’re in the rare maniac-productive-mode I mentioned above. You should break up the lesson into parts, and write down which parts you hope to cover in how much time. For example, 1:00pm to 2:00pm – Unit 2.1. Having your goals in front of you is very motivating, and ensures that you stay focussed on the job, and don’t even get me started on the satisfaction when you can tick finished items off the list. You’re much more likely to get things done this way. Unless, of course, there’s a Harry Potter marathon on TV and chocolate ice cream in the freezer………

Whatever. That’s irrelevant.

Moving on 🙂

2. Bribe yourself.

This isn’t as strange it sounds, I promise. Studying is usually so boring because we don’t really get anything out of it. Well, except gaining knowledge. But it’s just knowledge, ya know? Big whoop. No, what you have to do is convince yourself there will be a reward waiting for you after you accomplish your goal. What this is, depend solely on you. It can be a movie that you’ve recorded and are dying to watch. It could be an hour of swimming with your friends (although, breaks longer than 15 minutes are fatal for studying, because you’ll find something much more interesting to do and it’ll be hard to enter ‘the mood’ to study again.). For me, it’s usually food. What’s that? There’s a chocolate cupcake on the counter? Well, I’m going to have to make sure it stays on that counter until I’m done with ‘the central nervous system’ or whatever. Having an incentive is a great way to get a task done, and the reward will be even better once you have accomplished something. Of course, one could completely throw away any signs of self control, eat that cupcake before the book is even open, and procrastinate spectacularly, convincing yourself that there’s plenty of time to get that chapter done later. It’s a tempting path, but trust me, your report card’s not gonna like it as much as you do.

3. Notes, notes, notes

A personal favourite. As you might have heard countless times before, there are different kinds of learners. Kinesthetic, visual, auditory, reading/writing, etc. If you actually figure out which one you are, then this is great for you and the productivity of your study sessions. However, I haven’t had any luck trying to fit myself into any one category, although I guess I’m mostly reading/writing. Well, regardless of which learner you are, I can GUARANTEE that taking notes is helpful. In the past, I used to have a separate notebook for notes. I would religiously convert every section of every chapter into my own words and write it down in a way I could easily understand and remember. I really wish I could still do this, but my portion is way too big, and I just don’t have enough time to do that for so many subjects. Solution? Simple. Take notes on the textbook page. The margins in your textbook don’t have to be just empty space. My process is R.U.N – Read, Underline, Note. Your notes should be short, to the point, and in your own words to be as effective and time-saving as possible. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and it is super helpful.

That’s a wrap for todayyy 🙂 !

I hope this was helpful for you guys. Hopefully it will be easier for you to face the demon of finals when it makes its next appearance.

I actually have a few more tips, so let me know if you want a Part 2!

Questions? Comments? Well, that’s what the comments section is for 🙂 feel free to use it.

ThePastryPoet, signing off.