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Taking tests can be terrifying. You
never know exactly what's going to be on any particular test and most
of the study habits people are taught as children are downright
wrong.
Teachers have been telling struggling students to study more,
try harder, and pay more attention for years but that advice is bull.
Really... This is a teacher's way of saying they don't care enough to
find the real problem.
Studying more doesn't always improve grades.
Trying harder, when you're already making an effort, can often lead
to excess stress which just kills the grade more. A teacher telling a
student to pay more attention is just an admission that they don't
know how to stay interesting in class.
Learning how to pass any test is not a
difficult thing to do. It's not taught in school because it doesn't
fit the traditional education narrative. You might even get the
impression that these are a set of secret strategies employed by all
the highly successful slackers out there.
Too many students are getting suckered
into a culture that encourages work without considering results. When
you learn to get more done in less time, you get to do more. You can
tutor yourself into making test taking time easy. Many times, you
don't even have to study for exams. All you have to do is keep a
close eye on the test requirements and know your own limitations.
Scouting A Test
At least a week before any test, you
need to be looking at all the information you can find on the test.
If it's a standardized test then look it up online. If you have study
guides then look them over. If the teacher ever starts to talk about
the test, you clean your ears and listen close.
Teachers have a bias in this situation.
Teachers look bad when students fail their tests. That means that
teachers regularly give away all the information required to pass the
test. They may give you multiple chapters worth of dense textbook to
read but after you scout the specific information you can narrow it
down to pages.
Your first goal in preparing for any
test should be elimination. Studying can be stressful. The more
information you're able to eliminate from your study session, the
better you're going to perform on the test. Students that just sit
down with their textbooks to study everything usually struggle the
most with the test. It's better to figure out what you know you need
to know and focus on that.
Sometimes, this will lead you to
missing one test answer that comes out of the blue. That's okay.
You're sacrificing one hard point for tons and tons of easy ones.
Unless you're looking for a perfect score, you don't need to worry
about the information that you couldn't have predicted in advance.
Study Sessions
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I absolutely hate when people say to
study more.
That is the absolute worst possible
advice in 9 out of 10 cases. Do you study? If you study then you're
not studying too little. You're probably just studying with bad
habits. First of all, you should not be studying more than an hour a
day. NEVER. Don't even do it before a big test.
If you're studying right then after 20
minutes of studying you'll be worn out. Any more studying after that
produces diminishing results while encouraging you to develop poor
study habits. Worn out studying is a mistake. It's better to study
with better habits for less time than with worse habits for longer.
One of the most effective ways of
studying is creating multiple short sessions for studying instead of
one long one. Your mind needs time to process the information you're
trying to remember. Give it that time before loading more information
in there.
During those study sessions, remember
that reading is not studying. Studying requires recall of the
information. Flash cards are a great example of this. Just reading
information can help information stick but if you're not 100% engaged
in the moment then it's wasted. You can't get away without recall on
flash cards. You either remember it or you don't. The recall is the
important and stressful part of studying.
Also, never study distracted. When
you're studying, do not IM friends. Do not listen to music. Do not
daydream. Make sure you have plenty of privacy and quiet. You need to
only study. I understand that can be difficult. If you have to then
cut your study times down dramatically. Focused study for less time
is better than unfocused study for longer. Make it 5 minutes if you
have to.
One of the most important reasons to
study this way is habit. At first you might not get much out of it
but over time you're going to train your brain to study faster. When
you concentrate 100% on studying, your brain gets better at it with
new habits. Whenever you let yourself get distracted you get out of
the habits that let you study fast. Study or don't study. Don't just
pretend to study.
What about that test you didn't prepare
for tomorrow?
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Do not break the study habit by trying
to cram. It's a waste of your time. You
may gain a few points but
it's just going to encourage you to make the same mistake in the
future.Study less than an hour in multiple sessions during that period of time. Take enough breaks to know you're not stressing. After that accept that is all you can do.
The real problem isn't the few points you lose by not studying enough tonight. The real problem is that boatload of points you already lost by not starting your studying a week ago.
What if you don't think you need to
study for a test?
Well, if you scouted the test properly
then you know better than I do. If you're wrong, it's going to end up
biting you but that's a risk that you need to decide you take
yourself. There are many of tests that you don't ever need to study
for. You probably will end up with a slightly lower grade but it can
be very motivating to pass without ever picking up a textbook.
Test Taking Time
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Stress will completely destroy your
final score. You can have all the answers locked up somewhere in your
brain but they do absolutely no good without your brain being in
shape to find them. Getting worried was intended to let you run from
tigers, not to help you find answers tucked away in the nooks and
crannies of your brain.
Keeping the stress down usually just
requires you keep a clear perspective on every test you take. There
is nothing life threatening about failing a test. If you studied
enough, there is nothing else you can do anyway. If you studied too
little then you're just going to stress out worse if you worry about
it. When test time comes, your score has been decided before you even
answer the first question.
During the test, if you don't know an
answer, skip it until the end. Fighting over a difficult problem can
ruin stress levels for the rest of the test.
Don't feel the need to keep stressing
about a problem you don't know the answer to for the whole duration
of the test. I test take by this philosophy: I either know it or I
don't. Almost knowing an answer doesn't count. Every second you
stress out trying to find an answer is a second you're learning to
stress out during tests. You won't remember the 25 minutes of
breezing through the easy answers. All you'll remember is the one
answer you spent 10 minutes on to still not get right.
If you use the strategies taught in
this article, your grade will surprise you. You can often get away
with studying significantly less while improving your grades. You
don't need a tutor. You don't need a drug. You don't even have to
spend all that much time really trying. You just need to figure out
the test or exam, study with the right habits for not too long, and
then let yourself pass the test without pulling your hair out.
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