Study Tips and Exam Prep Advice - Feeling Overwhelmed!
Hi Everyone!
Hope you're all well✨
I'm reaching out because I have a few exams coming up within the next week and I'm feeling very underprepared. I’m getting a bit overwhelmed with everything I need to review and could really use some advice. Does anyone have any effective study techniques, methods, or hacks that have worked well for them?
Specifically, I'm looking for strategies that can help with time management, retaining information, and staying focused. Whether it's a particular study schedule, note-taking method, or even an app that helps with organization, I would love to hear about it. Any tips on managing exam stress would also be greatly appreciated!
Thanks so much for your help! 💜
Best,
Watermelon_Stegosaurus
Comments
[Sorry for the late reply, but maybe this might be useful for future exams you may have.]
Thank you so much for sharing this, as a student I understand what you may be feeling.
For time management, what really helps me is using a student diary where I document the things I need to get done and the due dates for assignments. When I can see a visual representation of when my work is due I find it easier to get those tasks done. Similarly for exams, I make a checklist of all the topics covered in the exam and for example, if there were 5 topics then I'd start revising 5 weeks before to give myself a week per topic. I feel that a week per topic gives me enough time to consolidate my knowledge without stressing last minute, although for some last-minute revision works the best (I wish I could do that)
For retaining information, I have found using flashcards really helpful and also quizzing my friend (and vice versa). I make different sets of flashcards for each topic and go through them with my friend, and if I don't get some of them correct I review the flashcard again and again until I get it right. I understand that creating flashcards and then revising them may be a bit of a hassle (how I used to feel), but for me, they have significantly improved my grades.
For note-taking, I follow a very traditional approach. I like to take notes using my notebook, as writing helps me remember the information better.
I, like many, get distracted by social media so I recently downloaded an app called AppBlock and I find that useful.
Lastly, I want to mention that exam preparation can take a toll on our mental health and sleep is crucial when it comes to studying and maintaining focus. So please don't forget self-care and take the time to do things that bring you happiness.
I really hope my contribution was helpful and please reach out if you have any questions!
Kind regards,
the_amazing_goose 🙂
I have been where you have been before, and it can be a tricky thing to navigate.
For time management, something that helped me was overestimating my time if I think something will take an hour I will say it takes two instead. This gives me time to focus on particular topics that I struggle with or extra time to write extra notes. I also found breaking them down into chunks a topic every couple hours so I was able to give each section a proper look.
For practice and retrieval I found that quizzes worked best or just reciting it out loud can help organise my thoughts. I also found Quizlet was something that helped me with cue cards and practice that were really effective. I can also help organise your notes and topics if you need to.
I found that note-taking having a list of keywords/phrases at the start of the page or in a separate one helps. A lot of the time the same concepts will come up in another topic from the class. This can help reduce your amount of writing but also make it easier to extend your knowledge of those words or phrases since you'll likely remember that it came up in a previous topic.
Personally, a diary doesn't work for me to keep track of time and what I am going to do for the day but I do have friends for whom it works particularly on a study schedule. It helps them keep track of their day better and what they are focusing on.
I hope some of these help and all the best with exams. I also want to recommend a good night sleep the night before and drinking and eating plenty so you have lots of energy. It can make all the difference.
Hey @Watermelon_Stegosaurus I deeply resonate with this post as someone who has always struggled with studying - especially maintaining focus!
Something that revolutionised my world last year was discovering app/website blockers for my phone and computer (I chose Freedom but there are so many out there)! I am a total procrastinator so having all my go-to sites and socials locked for a few hours while I studied really changed my approach - it stopped me from jumping from my phone to notes every few minutes and let me get into that focused state much quicker! I basically would have no choice but to study until my apps unlocked lol
What helped this even more was getting to a library for these study sessions - not being able to jump in bed/clean my room/chat to my parents as a distraction and having the "commitment" of walking or commuting somewhere often gave me more motivation to achieve my study goals (+ it's totally boring there when you can't doom scroll on TikTok).
Good luck with your exams & try to balance your study with downtime even if you're feeling a bit behind - you won't take in as much info on a tired mind!🤗🌱✨
I have an exam in two days, so I definitely know how you feel! We can do this!!! 💪💯
I like to quiz myself on stuff, whether that be through palm cards or getting someone else to read me questions.
Depending on the content of your exam, watching youtube videos on the topic also helps me to retain information because I'm hearing someone else discuss it.
And @Sloth also mentioned relating content to your own personal experience, which is also super helpful! This has helped me a lot for my upcoming exam.
You've got this!! 😊
Hey @Watermelon_Stegosaurus
One of my courses in my Psych degree had a small module at the end that taught us about these "desirable difficulties" which aim to improve retention and recall rate of information. They go as follows:
1. Retrieval Practice
When creating notes and reviewing past content, it will always help to give yourself a mini test to see how well you can recall the information and identify which knowledge gaps you have. Making your own questions and creating your own answers to these questions will only help with consolidation. A tip I got from one of my peer mentor groups back when I started Uni, is that when you are writing notes based on lecture or tutorial content, make your topic headings questions, e.g "What brain regions are implicated in memory recall?", as opposed to "Brain regions in Memory Recall".
2. Spaced Practice
This is one that everyone always says, cramming is only good in the short term. The idea of spaced practice is that you want to space your study blocks apart, rather than a tedious long block of content. The goal is to distribute your practice into different time periods, to avoid being burnt out/bored and to ensure that you stay focused on the current task. A helpful tip, would be to combine 1 & 2, so go through, let's say, a 30 minute content revision, 10 minutes to make your questions. Then take a 10-15 minute break, and at the start of your next content revision block, try to answer the questions you made at the end of the previous revision block (that was a lot of words, but I hope that made sense).
3. Elaboration
This will help with deep encoding, and long-term/remote memory retrieval of information. What does elaboration look like? When reading material or reviewing content, try to avoid relying on highlighting content as this promotes shallow encoding, which is not as effective for long-term memory retrieval. An example of elaborating on content could be using the self-reference effect, whereby you relate the material you are reading to your own personal experiences. For example, say I was learning about the developmental period of babies/infants. I have a younger cousin, who when he visited my place, walked for the first time, and this was when he was around 1 year old. Through self-reference to this experience unique to me, it helps me to remember that babies usually tend to walk around the 1 year age mark (give or take a couple months). Another way to elaborate is to generate your own rules or stories based on the information. An example would be that in my Psychology Statistics course, we learnt about many different methods of data analysis, one being Bonferroni (weird name), and the other being Scheffe (also weird name). The Bonferroni was a "planned" analysis, and so you would define this before you do an experiment, while the Scheffe you run after you have the data. It helped me to distinguish between these two by thinking about the alphabet (which was my rule for this), as Bonferroni starts with a B, which comes before S, for Scheffe.
If that was too long to read, some very simple tricks that worked for me was a 30-on, 5-off method. Do 30 minutes of work, then take a 5 minute break, then rinse and repeat. These numbers are flexible (feel free to do a 25-10, or a 30-10), whichever suits you best. Also planning out the day, such as setting small goals to achieve within a time frame, i.e by 2:30p.m I want to have finished reviewing this subtopic.
I hope this helps, and good luck with your exams! You've got this 💪!
Something I found super useful in retaining information is teaching someone else the course material. It also helps me identify any gaps in my knowledge that I need to focus more on in my revision.
If none of my friends/family are available, I sometimes resort to pretending to give a lecture to no one lol, just to practice explaining the concepts out loud. It really helps in organising my thoughts.
Best of luck with exams ❤️
Hey @Watermelon_Stegosaurus ,
Exam season can be super overwhelming, and I can see that you’re feeling under prepared. It is so great that you’ve reached out for support around strategies, methods or hacks to get yourself on track. I encourage you to explore this topic on exam stress and setting goals as they both include a number of articles that could be useful for you. I’d like to learn more about whether you’ve felt unprepared and overwhelmed previously around exam time? If so, how did you navigate these emotions?
