How to study efficiently

This is the beginning of the back to school season on this blog. Stay tuned for more school related blog posts in the following weeks!


Most people probably know this situation: You're sitting somewhere, trying to study, but all you do is checking your twitter, tumblr or instagram. So here are my golden rules to successfully writing good exams.


#1 - Pay attention in classes! No matter how much fun it is chatting with your friends, try to pay attention to what your teacher says. Most of the time they actually try to explain the things to you that you'll have to know in the exams. If you understand what your teacher is telling you, you'll have to study way less for the exam at home since you already understood what to do in class.

#2 - Do your homework. Homework is not only torture, it also makes you practice the things that you'll have to do in exams. And if you already solved a similar assignment it'll be way easier to solve the exam assignment as well.

#3 - Don't study just anywhere. Choose an environment with only very little distractions, like a clean desk. Tell people not to interrupt you and don't listen to music with lyrics in it! Instead, try OSTs of movies since they're created to make you focus on the movie, and if there's no movie, they'll make you focus on whatever you're doing.

#4 - You need to have the actual will to study. If you don't want to study anyways, you won't be able to focus on what you're trying to study. Instead, you'll just let everything distract you.

#5 - Don't study for hours. Your brain won't focus for that long and you'll either confuse yourself after a while or basically just waste your time. Try to study for 30 minutes and then have a break. You're more likely to remember all of what you read and did in that time compared to studying for 4 hours straight.

#6 - Reward yourself. Studying is almost never fun, but you'll probably hate it less if you get something you like after you finished studying. Like chocolate, ice cream or twenty minutes on tumblr. Whatever floats you boat.

#7 - Get help with the things you don't understand. If a YouTube video on that topic isn't enough, ask your class mates, friends or parents to explain it to you.

#8 - Don't stay up the night before the exam studying. Start studying early enough so you know everything you need to know at least one day before the exam so you can get enough sleep the night before the exam. Writing an exam when you're not tired works so much better!

#9 - Read the assignments twice before starting to write. It'll keep you from losing time by doing something you're not asked to do. Also, it'll probably keep you from doing the wrong things, so you can't really lose anything.

#10 - Take notes before starting to write a text. It'll help you structure your text better and also makes it easier to sort out information you don't need to have in your text.

#11 - The bubblegum hack. Apparently you can remember things more easily when you chew gum during studying and then chew gum of the same flavour during the exam as well. Also, chewing is said to help you focus on things more easily.

#12 - Don't wear too comfy clothes during the exam. Comfy clothes make you feel more relaxed, because you usually wear them at home when you don't do anything. So don't wear your "chill"-clothing during an exam. It'll make it more difficult to concentrate. Instead, wear the same kind of clothing you always wear to school and also wear that during your studies.



So yes, that's my secret to writing good exams. Do you have other tricks and hacks for studying? Share them with us in the comments!

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