Study hacks

Hello again everyone!

There are two kinds of people in the world:

• The ones who love spring, because everything wakes up, flowers bloom, birds sing from morning until midnight and the days get longer.
• The ones who believe that spring is the most stressful and unpleasant time because they have to study from morning until midnight relearning everything forgotten in preporation for the one week in which their future depends. I am talking about graduates (obviously).

So for this issue I have decided to give you some useful tricks on how to be organised and get over revision for all of your exams (any kind of them, not just Maturita) easily.

A mess in your notes will lead to a mess in your brain, so try to make your notes organised and maybe put them into groups according to a certain topic or in chronologic order.

This will test if you actually take in anything that you read. Look away from a textbook and try to remember the key figure/fact you just read. If you can't, keep going until you can.

The brain responds to visual triggers, so highlight important passages to ensure they jump off the page. Assign certain colours to facts that can be used in conjunction with each other, and hope to God that you've got a photographic memory.

Knowing what the format of the exam will look like is half the battle. If you're comfortable with the format, you're less likely to make a timing error on the actual day. Also, make sure you can complete the exam in the allocated time - set an alarm when you practise and check how long it takes you to complete the exam in a decent time.

If you can't explain the subject to your sister/mother/cousin, then you don't understand it well enough.

That is about the *one* topic that you're absolutely hoping will not come up in the exam. The more scared you are of the topic the more time you should spend revising it. Keep going over the subject until it's something you're hoping WILL come up.

It's no good drawing up a detailed timetable if you're not going to stick to it. Be firm with yourself, and think about how frustrated you'll be if you see your results and know you could've done better.

 If you get up earlier you can get more things done and revise the topic you are not 100% sure about a little bit more. However, wakening up at 1 pm just isn't going to have the same effect on your motivation.

 Don't just copy down old notes in a prettier style of handwriting; you're not going to learn anything by that. Always try to rewrite or condense your notes into the shortest, snappiest paragraphs you can think of. If it helps, try and imagine how your favourite celebrities/fictional characters would rephrase the topic, or read the notes in a different accent to make the information instantly more memorable.

It’s been proven that exercise can boost your memory and brain power. About 20 minutes´ exercise before an exam can improve your performance.

 The SelfControl app can help you to avoid distractions by blocking websites for a certain amount of time.

Studies say that meditation can help students stay focused when studying. Not only will meditation help you concentrate when studying but it will help reduce pre-exam stress as it improves both mental and physical health.