How Long Should I Study For A Test [and Get Results]

How long should you be studying for? Does it really make a difference if you spend all week studying and missing out on fun, or just pull an all-nighter before the exam?

The first thing you should *really* do to improve your studying is work on your ability to focus and retain information. Doing this sooner rather than later means you can do in 3 hours what most do in 6. You get a massively unfair advantage from doing this. Download the free audio-book from a chess grand-master ‘Unlimited Memory’ and watch your results improve dramatically.

Pulling an All-Nighter

You know the drill, your teacher or course tutor announces a test, midterms are coming up, finals are approaching… but Netflix is more interesting. It’s fine, you can just pull an all-nighter and cram, right?

Unfortunately, no. Cramming not only has major drawbacks in the long term, it doesn’t even pay off in the short term.

Pamela Thacher, associate professor of psychology at St. Lawrence University, conducted a study and found that students who crammed all night before an exam and found that those who did so regularly had lower GPA’s. She found that the lack of sleep led to poorer decision-making skills and analytical thinking, critical skills for exams, and it also meant that students could not recall facts well enough.

Going to sleep late the night before an exam interferes with your sleep patterns and means that you won’t get enough REM sleep which aids memory building. According to Dan Taylor, director of a sleep-and-health-research lab at the University of North Texas, when we lack REM sleep, our brains cannot recall accurately which means that all the cramming will have been in vain. The best thing to do the night before an exam, is to go over the hardest material and then get a good night’s sleep.

So how long should you study for a test?

How long will it take you?

It’s very important to know how long things take so that you can plan for them and organize your time effectively. You know how long it takes you to eat, how long each class or lecture takes and how long your commute is. That information allows you to structure your time so that you can fit everything in during your day. You have to do the same with your studies.

How can you measure such a seemingly arbitrary time scale? It’s simple. Start a study session for a small amount of information. Say two pages of your textbook or syllabus. Write down the time before you start and after you have studied and feel that you know the information well, jot down the time again and work out how long it took you.

Now you can work out how long it will take you to study for all of your material.

Don’t study for more than an hour (… per session)

One hour per study session. That’s it. One hour and then a ten-minute break, during which you should move around, take a drink and keep your mind off your study. Our brains can’t focus for too long before they stop taking in information efficiently. Your brain needs to process the knowledge you have just studied, but it can’t do so if you keep cramming more knowledge in.

Taking frequent breaks after no more than an hour, keeps you awake, calm and processing the information effectively.

You do you

Of course, it depends on you. If after 45 minutes, or even half an hour, the words start to swim, take a break. The point is that you shouldn’t study for more than an hour, but if you struggle to focus even for an hour, then take more frequent breaks. The breaks shouldn’t be too long, although every three hours, there should be a half an hour break, you have to find out what helps you to learn most effectively.

Some people find that if they learn in 25-minute bursts with 5-minute breaks then they will really take in the material. You do you.

Start at Least a Week in Advance

Obviously a week is subjective. For small exams, you are always given a week’s notice, and that’s when you should start reviewing the material from. For midterms and finals, you should start a month in advance at least. Give yourself enough time so that you will not be anxious and stressed as the test comes nearer. Leaving enough time also means you can review more, which increases your chances of doing well in a test.

Additionally, when you start in advance, you are more likely to be processing smaller chunks of material that can be integrated into your long term memory, enriching you for life, not just the duration of the exam.

Remember, cramming causes anxiety and the worst enemy to academic success is nerves and anxiety. Plan to start studying well in advance so that you can stay cool and calm.