5 Top Tips for Exam Season
Helping you to use your time properly and revise efficiently.
So summer exams are upon us, and suddenly it is not just the warmer weather causing a sweat. As revision begins to take over, it is easy to start neglecting our health & wellbeing: we pull all-nighters, live off a diet of caffeine and £3 meal deals and find ourselves chained to the desk chair. During my 4 years of university, I am guilty of all of these things, so at first I questioned whether I was qualified to write this post. But over several exam season breakdowns, I have learnt a thing or two about taking better care of myself and how to revise more efficiently. Here are my top tips…
To-do list
Revision timetables have never really worked for me. But writing a to-do list at the beginning of the day helps set some achievable goals. I think it works better than a revision timetable because it is more flexible and allows you to consider other activities that have come up for that day. You can also estimate how much time each task is going to take to ensure the workload is manageable.
Test yourself
A key part of the exam format is that it tests your memory retrieval ability. Testing yourself in your revision, whether that’s with flashcards or past papers, is vital to improving your ability to recall the information when it gets to the big day. Whilst using pre-made flashcards can be useful in some situations (cramming), there is a huge benefit to making the flashcards yourself. Doing so allows you to pick out the important bits of information and create something new with it. The brain feels comfortable to read and write notes, but you will find with testing and recalling your revision it will actually be quite tiring. This is because your brain is working harder as it is enabling stronger neural pathways to form. There’s a real science to it, promise!
Continue regular activities
It’s easy to convince yourself that you don’t have the time to keep up your regular activities, and that every free minute should be spent revising. Too easily society associates success with the last person in the library, when actually quality can be much better than quantity when it comes to revision. You shouldn’t be scared to take an hour out of your day to go to your regular yoga class, have a coffee with a friend or just read a few chapters of a book before bed (non-textbook, of course). By keeping up with your activities, you are less likely to burn out and you’ll find your endurance when it comes to studying improves.
Eat well
It’s common for coffee and energy drinks to become our main sources of energy over exam season. But whilst these may give us an initial boost, they don’t provide the nutrients our brain needs to keep on going. Good snacks for those long library days include almonds and dark chocolate. These foods have been proven to improve your ability to process information and reduce stress.
Stay focussed
Staying focussed can be difficult and procrastination is inevitable. But I have found the app ‘hold’ to be really helpful in keeping me off my phone. It works by giving you points for every 20 minutes you don’t go on your phone. You can then redeem the points in the store for rewards like free popcorn at Vue Cinemas or donate them to Unicef for school supplies for children in need. Alternatively, the app ‘Forest’ works in the same way, but instead of rewards you can plant REAL trees.
So there it is, my tips for a successful exam season. If none of these ideas work for you, take a moment to think about the advice you would give a friend if they were feeling stressed. What would you say to them? Most of the time the advice we give our friends is actually the advice we need to take ourselves.
