3 Big Mistakes People Make When Revising for Exams
Last updated on January 20th, 2020 at 9:21 am
In this article, we share with you some of the common mistakes people make when they attempt to revise for their exams. If you avoid these mistakes, you’ll be doing yourself a favour on exam day!
Written by Lysette Offley
1. Marathon Sessions
Ever found yourself falling asleep during long study sessions?
Human beings have evolved with short attention spans! That won’t come as a great surprise to many people! But I wonder how many of us allow for this when revising?
It’s very unlikely that you can maximise your efficiency when studying for long periods of time. It’s perfectly natural for your mind to wander off and for you to find that much of your revision time has been wasted.
Many people, in an attempt to take their revision seriously, make the mistake of taking a few days off work or setting aside a whole weekend, turning down social invitations in the name of doing the right thing.
But that’s not the way your brain works best.
Far better to schedule in short bursts of time throughout the week and weekend. If you do want to spend most of the weekend revising, then you absolutely must give yourself regular breaks, or you’ll be simply wasting your time.
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2. Not Drinking Enough Water
I expect you know how important water is to our bodies. But I wonder if you know just how important it is.
The brain is made up of nearly 80% water. It can’t function properly when it’s not sufficiently hydrated. An average person needs to drink around 2L of water a day. (You need to check what’s appropriate for you, though. For example, if you are on medication for high blood pressure.)
Only 1 or 2% dehydration causes critical shrinkage of the brain, impairing neuromuscular coordination, concentration and thinking. It can alter the concentration of electrolytes, such as sodium, potassium and chloride. That also has a negative effect on your brain’s functioning.
Your brain can’t store water. So you really must drink even when you’re not thirsty. And by the way, as we get older, we tend to lose our sense of thirst, so count the number of glasses you drink. You may find it’s fewer than you think.
3. Not Being Well-Organised
Just think about it for a moment. How does anything get done? I mean, of all the things that you get done in a day, what do they have in common?
I bet the things you do are the routine things, the things you always do. I bet they are things you want to do, and I bet they are things that are scheduled to happen.
Let’s look at that for a moment. If your study time is routine – in other words, you are in the habit of regular study, I expect it gets done. If studying is something you really want to do, I expect it gets done. But if you find that the days and weeks are slipping by, and you’re not knuckling down to it, then schedule it, in advance, to your working week.
And then, just like all the other appointments and commitments in your calendar, make sure the study time that you’ve timetabled, actually gets done when you’ve planned for it. And that’s all there is to it!
