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Studying for exams can be a tedious and very stressful task. At the same time, immersing yourself in your notes and spending hours and hours repeating and memorizing can be very frustrating, especially when time passes and you can’t get past the second page. Who has never spent an hour in front of a book without being able to open it to begin with? Although it seems a lie, there are small techniques with which it is possible to assimilate more content, in a better way and in less time, to yield more when studying.
To prevent this from happening to us and transform the study period into something lighter, and certainly more productive, we are going to propose some strategies. These are all simple things that, at first, may seem difficult to put into practice. However, with time and persistence, following these advices will transform the act of studying into something lighter and obviously more productive.
Tips to do more while studying
The environment
Where to study? Many people find it difficult to study at home. The causes are usually too many available distractions or too much noise. Since noise can be more difficult to reduce, a clean space free from distractions is ideal. That’s why many people prefer libraries. Though it can also be a danger if our peers constantly interrupt us. The ideal is to organize breaks according to our own needs.
There are certain elements of the environment that will allow us to do more when studying for exams. However, we cannot control many of them. If we can adapt them, the ideal is that the noise level is minimal, that the light is natural – better than fluorescent – that we can sit in a comfortable chair in front of a table and that there are no distractions.
The planning
When preparing for an exam, taking breaks is just as important as studying. Our brain gets tired after 40 minutes performing the same activity. This is where we often find it difficult to concentrate and stay focused. Therefore, we recommend planning study times of between 15 and 40 minutes separated by intervals of 5 to 10 minutes. In this way, our minds will be freer and we will have renewed strength to study.
The same thing happens with the subject we studied. Studying the same topic for more than 40 minutes in a row reproduces the effects mentioned above. Changing the topic every 20 or 40 minutes will help make the study lighter.
The goals
To get more out of studying, it’s essential to set goals and not stop until you’ve met them. However, they also need to be sensible and short-term goals. If such goals are too long-term, you will likely lose interest. Therefore, each one, aware of his possibilities, must set his own realistic goals.
Techniques to memorize
There are techniques for memorizing that are out of the ordinary, but they are very useful for some people. These are called mnemonic techniques. We can find an example in the television series “Sherlock”. In it, the protagonist who plays Sherlock Holmes imagines a building where he can find different elements in each room.
This technique, called the loci method (or memory palace), can be used by allocating each room to a piece of knowledge we are studying, while adapting the mental image of the house to our needs. Other mnemonic techniques are creating songs that rhyme with elements or associating words with images or sensations. In this sense, the ideal is to test them all and use the one that works best for us.
test yourself
Asking yourself questions, besides serving to test the acquired knowledge, will activate us. On the other hand, these mental tests serve to consolidate our knowledge by reviewing what we’ve already seen. In addition, they also serve to show some needs or gaps that we may have. On the other hand, in the next section we’ll see that doing this in a group can also have other benefits.
study in group
Studying with more people can increase your income for several reasons. Of course, the study cannot always be in a group, but getting together once in a while will help you to know your own needs. As a group, it is possible to see the flaws and the different interpretations, but also the strengths.
This will generate a feeling of competition that will stimulate our motivation. Another reason is that the later ones will be driven by inertia, tending to match the more advanced ones in the group. Despite this, the possibility that the more advanced ones will become stagnant also exists.
In short, putting these strategies into practice will improve our performance. In fact, over time, we will end up adapting these techniques to our preferences and the study will no longer be tedious. In this sense, knowledge can bring us more than it seems to offer at first glance.
