Study tips are a simple but often overlooked part of an exam preparation.
While they don’t truly affect your performance on the day of the exam, they can make a huge difference in how you perform on the day itself.
This article on Study Tips Night Before Exam provides some cool tips to help you.
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Study Tips Night Before Exam
It’s easy to think that studying is something you have to do all at once, so it’s no surprise that you have to start studying way in advance of an exam. But before we go into this, let’s first talk about why studying is important and what makes it effective:
1. Stress Relief: Your body needs rest and relaxation for both physical and emotional reasons. When your body is stressed it does not produce enough cortisol (the stress hormone) which means your body doesn’t get enough sleep or adequate rest and thus becomes more stressed.
The more stress you feel, the less you are able to concentrate when doing a test as well as if you aren’t relaxed beforehand (which can also lead to an increase in stress levels).
So finding time for yourself before an exam is crucial for both mental and physical health (and probably also for your bank balance too).
2. Preparation: Studying before an exam gives you a chance to prepare your mind (and now your body) so that you won’t be affected by the stress of the exam itself during the actual test itself (when getting up early will be easier than when staying up late).
This improves your performance and helps you pass the course with flying colours!
3. Focus: Studies suggest that even just 10 minutes of study can significantly improve concentration levels [1] .
Not only does study help focus, but it also helps remove distractions so that you can more easily concentrate on what is being studied (this is called cognitive reserve ).
The more distraction-free space there is around you during an exam, the easier it will be to focus on what needs to get done next!
4. Time Management: It has been found that students who studied long periods of time before exams were much better than those who did not [2] .
It has been shown that forgetting information during tests made them perform dreadfully [3] .
These findings show us how important it is to study in advance; we should make sure we have time outside our exams so we can do it properly!
5. Stress Relief: One particular reason why studying can help relieve stress is through building social support through constructive debate [4] . And another one mentions
The Importance of a Good Night’s Sleep
In a perfect world, students would spend the night before their exam studying. It is no secret that many students have poor sleeping habits and that they can benefit greatly from getting a good night’s rest.
The following are some tips to help you get the most out of your sleep and study time.
Sources:
• If you’re going to sleep in, make sure you go to bed earlier than usual
• Avoid heavy food and caffeine consumption for at least half an hour before bedtime
• Make sure your bedroom is dark enough so that you can fall asleep easily
• Try exercising before bedtime to help increase your energy levels and release stress hormones in your brain and body into dormancy
• Avoid using electronic devices for about an hour before bedtime as this will likely interfere with your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. Disconnecting from the internet or turning off devices (e.g. cell phones) may be beneficial as well.
Understanding how important a good sleep is will allow you to get more out of your classes, exams and studying time in general, especially if you are lucky enough to have a body which allows for it (i.e., if it’s not too bad).
Rehearsing for Success
I remember when I first started out as a programmer my lifelong mantra was: “Just polish it, don’t improve it.” I didn’t like the sound of that, but what was the alternative?
So I would focus on messing with things and adjusting them until they worked better.
But then one day I realized that being a programmer isn’t just about fixing things — it is also about learning how to make things work better.
In other words, when you write code you are making assumptions about what you are doing. These assumptions are not necessarily wrong or right; some may be reasonable and some may be unreasonable.
But at the end of the day, your code will either work or it won’t. You can trade off one assumption for another, but there is no tradeoff between these two assumptions.
So, just like with any technical problem you want to solve, you should always be thinking in terms of tradeoffs between different solutions (giving up one solution for another) rather than working with a single solution that is always right (i.e., always working).
Having this in mind will help you avoid making mistakes that lead to unworkable solutions (i.e., not producing workable code) — and getting an A in this class is essentially a reward for avoiding these mistakes!
The Importance of Eating Well
You may have heard that part of the job of studying for an exam is to find the “right” time to study. However, it’s not just about finding the right time to study — it’s also about finding the right way to study.
There are many different ways to practice for a test, from working on your own problems to practicing with friends, but I am going to focus on how you can apply what you learn in class when you try for a test.
Avoiding Procrastination
One of the quickest ways to procrastinate is by setting a deadline which you don’t feel able to meet.
A good example is trying to enter a competition on a day before an exam: once you’re in the running, you can’t change your mind and extend the deadline, so you need to make your entry as quickly as possible.
How many times have you been disappointed by an exam that you managed to miss because it had been set too early?
In this case, if you are in a rush to get your essay done, then set it as soon as possible and work on it. If there is no urgency with the essay, go back and fix any errors until there is one.
The last thing you want is time wasted on things which are not important because of procrastination.
Being Prepared for Test Anxiety
Test anxiety is one of those concepts that is often misunderstood; it is not an “I can’t do it” kind of anxiety, but rather a feeling of uncertainty, anxiety and concern that accompanies being asked to concentrate on a task.
This type of anxiety creates a feeling of dread in the person who has to study for an exam, because he or she does not know if he or she will be able to handle the task at hand.
It is possible that there are physiological changes taking place in your body during this stage (dizziness, heart rate, blood pressure rise) and these changes can become cumulative from week to week leading up to the test.
How do you learn? Do you read descriptions? Answer questions? Do you focus on answers to questions which are already known?
You need practice: practice answering questions which are unknown. Practice practicing. You can’t just go out and spend $100/month on a private tutoring program as you go through each section of the exam.
You need to be prepared for this kind of test-prep work before test day arrives — in fact I personally recommend that people practice their tests several times over before the actual exam day arrives so they are not surprised by any unexpected results due to nervousness (which could lead them to wrongly answer some questions).
What to do 1 hour before exam?
If you are preparing for an exam, then you should know what to do one hour before the test. It is very important to have enough time to prepare for the exam because if you don’t, you may lose marks or fail the exam.
So, here are some tips that can help you get prepared for the exam:
- Eat breakfast.
- Drink plenty of water
- Take a warm shower.
- Practice some relaxation techniques.
- Do not study.
Can the Study Tips for Social Studies Also Be Applied the Night Before an Exam?
Yes, study tips for social studies can also be applied the night before an exam. Review key concepts, use study aids, and create a study guide. Avoid cramming and get a good night’s sleep to retain the information. Remember to stay focused and confident during the exam.
Exam Tips During Exam
- The following are some helpful hints for studying during the exam:
- Try to keep a positive attitude.
- Be aware of how much time you have left.
- Don’t panic.
- Read the question carefully.
- Think about the correct answer.
- Look for patterns.
- Use all your senses.
- Think logically.
- Keep calm.
- Avoid distractions.
- Write down key information.
- If you find yourself getting anxious, take a break.
- When you’re finished, review the material.
- When you’ve completed the exam, relax.
- Remember, there’s always another chance!
Conclusion
It’s not an easy task preparing for an exam (I say that as someone who failed one — very, very few universities offer any kind of pre-exam preparation).
The task is made more difficult by the fact that your exam is in 2-3 days and you are studying at home. It’s not a great situation, but it doesn’t have to be a disaster either.
Use these tips, and everything else I have written here will be more than worth it. There are no hard and fast rules but there are some basic principles to follow so as not to make the same mistakes twice (which is what I did). And if you follow those principles, planning for a test like this will definitely result in success.
