We all know that classmate, the one who says that they didn’t even open the book, or they just attempted only a few questions from the test, and yet they manage to outscore, outrank and even outwit everyone else. You know who we’re talking about. Yes, the class toppers, yes them, the ones who not so surprisingly come up with stellar performances, every single time. But what you don’t know is how they manage to do it. That’s precisely what we’ll try to reveal because if you ask the class topper about this, they will think twice before telling you their techniques. Hey, nobody likes more competition right? But don’t you worry, because here are three simple hacks that’ll help you ace your exams, you know, just like the class topper.
Break it Up
Instead of going about covering all the topics, all at once, break them into smaller bits so that you can increase your focus on those bits alone. Also, don’t go on reading for hours, break that up too. The ideal study session length should be just about 50 minutes. Spend these 50 minutes on nothing but this one module/task. Three such sessions with intense focus will yield better results than hours of distracted study.
Beat distraction by writing down your excuses
This might sound strange but bear with us for a moment. Writing down all the tasks you need to accomplish sounds pretty straightforward right? Well, it is. But then again, that’s what everyone does. What no one ever thinks about is why they couldn’t finish those tasks. So write down the reasons you couldn’t complete your tasks, the chances are that when you see ” I logged onto Facebook” listed as your excuse for not finishing your work, you’ll think twice before getting distracted again or giving in to procrastinating for the nth time.
Use the three Ps to get ahead
All those days of preparations, long night-outs, group studies, all come down to the “Test” day. No matter how well you’re prepared, there are times when you can experience a sudden brain freeze and start feeling anxious. In times like these, the three Ps will come to your rescue.
Planning
Just go through the test paper, figure out which questions you’ll be able to answer right away, allot some time to each one of them while keeping a healthy buffer time for the end. Planning your responses out will ensure that you can go step by step instead of just looking at the questions as they appear and figuring out then and there how to go about answering them.
Proceeding
As the title suggests, once you’ve planned things out, proceed to answer the questions, pick the easy ones first, answering them should give you some encouragement and bring in the pace you would need to tackle any time-restricted test paper. Once you’re done with knocking off the easy questions, take on the hard questions and allot the remaining time to do some serious perspective crunching on those tough but totally solvable questions.
Proofreading
Last but not the least, use the buffer time to check for any mistakes or look out for any information you might have missed out on earlier, and add them to your responses. It’s easy to skip this last part and finish things off early, but this and many little things like the ones listed above separate a topper from an average performer.
Now that you’re armed with these simple but effective hacks, go ahead, get cracking those exams and keep getting better every day.
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