Around the exams, we are more concerned than usual about squeezing performance and quickly achieving good results. The best formula is continuous study, so that we appease the saturations and nerves that are usually given at exam time, even so I am going to expose you strategies and tips that are always useful to apply. Many of them you probably already know, others you can clearly perceive as productive and some may seem a bit useless, but believe me, they will all help you to improve the study and lead to higher performance along with better results.
1. Tidy up your room or study area. If you order your environment, your internal ideas and your cognitive schemes will also be ordered.
2. Clear the study area of objects susceptible to distraction, the mobile phone mainly.
3. Prepare all the necessary material during the study so there are no possible distractions when you have to go in search of something you have forgotten.
4. Show good attitude. Your posture, your gestures, your way of studying ... everything influences to perform more or less. If, for example, you have a reluctant posture, it will cost you more, if you feel correctly, energetic and willing to learn, your performance will be more efficient and you will achieve more in less time..
5. Take the same habit every day. He is used to always establishing the same time and place of study. If your body gets used to a routine, it will perceive it as necessary.
6. Plan for yourself daily so that you allocate a convenient time for study and another for your leisure and rest.
7. Try to organize yourself to bring the study up to date. Do not binge last minute, they will only serve to saturate and overwhelm you, they will make you feel bad, you will lose confidence in yourself, the energy will weaken earlier than expected and it is likely to cause blank spaces in your mind that can betray you. at the time of the exam.
8. Control study time to get the most out of it. You can help yourself with a stopwatch, hourglass, etc. as long as it does not suppose a new distraction.
9. Motivation above all. Look for something that motivates you to study, whether it is a satisfaction or reward at the end of it or your own self-realization when you achieve what you set out to do.
10. Paper and pen always in hand. If your hands are busy and they are also active writing, you will avoid being distracted by looking at the ceiling or thinking about the shrews. In addition, the information will reach you doubly and you will force your brain to process it in order to write it. You already have part of the study won.
11. First reading and approach to the subject to study. Before you start studying as such, familiarize yourself with the subject. It is enough to reread it so that the mind starts working and associates it with other ideas.
12. If you are alone and do not bother anyone, it would be advisable to read the key points aloud to listen to information as well as read it: double input of information by sight and hearing, and ordering of ideas.
13. Set small short-term goals. Don't pretend to get everything at once. It is better to take small but firm steps and leave feeling progressively fulfilled, than to want to achieve too much at the same time and not achieve it.
14. Repeat, repeat and repeat. You can get what you studied quickly stay in your short-term memory but if you want to keep it for longer you will have to repeat, re-read and rewrite. We learn mainly by repetition.
15. Make your own notes. Detect main ideas, underline, annotate, and make outlines. From there, relate ideas, make your mind work and rewrite what you have learned by yourself as a summary. By processing the information, learning is taking place. Do not think that it is a waste of time, on the contrary, you will have much progress.
16. If you have doubts about something in particular, write it down and later look up information, either with the help of the dictionary or encyclopedia, with a partner or with the teacher.
17. Use mnemonic strategies to memorize difficult names or more complex information. Associate the new with something you already know or that is easy for you to remember, our cognitive capacity acquires new learning by associating new ideas with others already known, thus modifying and enriching our mental structure.
Example: to learn the name of several rivers in Spain such as: Tajo, Duero, Tormes, Ebro, Guadalquivir, Turia, Jucar, Segura ... You can invent acronyms, words or phrases that are funny and easy to remember to group the eight names: tadueto, eguatujuse. Or tdt, egs sj.
18. If you get stuck, move on to something else. Don't waste time thinking you have to learn that piece, forget it. You will return to it at another time that you are more receptive to understand and retain that point.
19. Take breaks. For example, every study hour takes a ten minute break. The mind gets tired and needs to be renewed. After approximately fifty minutes of continuous study, attention and retention capacity is usually lost or severely impaired. The Pomodoro technique can help you in this regard.
20. Check that you know what you have studied. Repeat the lesson studied to yourself or someone else or rewrite it without looking at notes. It is advisable to wait at least half a minute to check if you really know what you have studied, since short-term memory retains information for 20 or 30 seconds and what we are interested in is that it passes to long-term memory to keep it and remember it in the future
21. Review. When you return to the study, reread what you saw the day before to avoid diluting the information. If we do not remember what we have learned, over time it is lost. Otherwise, we reinforce it.
22. Give yourself an award or treat for a job well done. It can be a motivation to continue next time and you will feel better.
23. Disconnect at the end of the study time and do everything that you had pending or simply what you want. Study time is over, don't saturate your mind with the same, relax.
Although we have studied following effective steps, sometimes at the key moment of the exam it seems that everything disappears and it is difficult for us to face the evaluation. Don't let your nerves betray you, For this you can take into account these tips:
24. Breathe. If you have ever done yoga, surely you know effective methods for correct breathing and relaxation. If not, you can use the 6 + 6 + 12 method. Breathe in for 6 seconds, retain the air for another 6 and finally slowly expel the air for 12 seconds. Repeat it at least five times. These breaths can also be used for other situations that you need to calm down, such as during job interviews or difficult moments in which anxiety attacks you..
25. Confidence in yourself. You have studied, you know it, there is no reason to worry, if you feel safe your nerves will evaporate.
26. Believe in yourself. Positivity, feel that you can. If you really feel it for sure you will get it.
27. No last minute reviews. They will only serve to confuse you and make you doubt what you know or not. Forget about studying, that time has already passed. Now is the time to show what you have achieved with your effort. When you are in front of the page, eject the information they ask for, it will be good for you.
28. While you are taking the exam, try not to stop or get distracted unless you really need to (breathe, drink water, remember ...). For two main reasons: you can lose the thread of information and you lose valuable time that you will not be able to recover.
29. If you doubt at any point, go to the next. If you waste a lot of time you can leave without answering things that you do know well.
30. Last review. Try to give yourself a little time at the end to give a final review. We may have skipped some point, have confused information that we do know, spelling errors that make it difficult to understand the exam, data that we have noted apart ... If you give a good review and correct silly mistakes you can earn extra points.
I hope that all these tips and tricks have seemed interesting to you, take them into account and help you achieve good results.
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