Reports have shown that some students have no clues about how to study effectively for exam. The likes of these students, more often than not, prepare inadequately for exam, and, therefore, their hopes of getting A’s remain a mere dream.
Having A’s in most of your courses can be a very difficult task, but it turns out to be entirely easy if you avoid the costly mistakes that will be discussed below.
Luckily, these costly mistakes will be explained in details. Also, ways to avoid them are also explained so that the costly errors will not affect your performance in your courses.
In fact, if you read and digest this article well, it will help you in achieving your great desire: first class result.
What are those mistakes you should avoid while studying or preparing for exam?
Let’s go.
- Starting Late
Procrastination is deadly. In fact, it is not an ideal habit if you want to have good grades in your courses.
In a situation whereby your mates have started studying couples of week before the exam, while you skip every day without reading, you are driving towards failure.
Be reminded: no miracle will happen a night before the exam. If you think you can finish reading a course in just one or two nights, you are far behind those that will have good grades in the course you’re studying for.
According to a popular saying, “procrastination is the enemy of progress”. If you default in your primary duty, and you think god of success will help you in your exam, you are swimming in the pool of failure.
Guess what? You will, ultimately, turn out to be worst reader if procrastination is what you worship every day.
Studying for exam requires more time and energy. So, the idea of dying-minute preparation is not a good habit for students to imbibe.
- Failure to Plan
Failure to plan is preparation to fail. One of the costly mistakes students make is that they fail to plan before studying.
Before you start studying for that course, know the most important parts you should study. Knowing what to learn from the material for that course will give you a particular direction to the essential parts you should study.
Also, in your plan, you ought to know the best learning strategy you can use to learn the important parts. There are some strategies that fit different courses. You decide which one that fits each course before you start studying.
Part of your plans is that you should know the best books or materials that can help you in your courses. How to study the materials effectively so that they will be helpful to your understanding of your courses is one thing you should also prioritise.
And above all, you should work towards particular grade for the course you are studying. This will help to work hard so that you can achieve what you aim for in the course.
- Cramming
This is one of the biggest mistakes you can ever make while studying. I have seen some students who still study like elementary or kindergarten pupils.
Cramming is not helpful for students in university. If all that you do is cramming the concepts in your courses without understanding them, you are bound to failure.
For instance, let’s assume you cram all the ideas in one course, unfortunately, the questions asked turn out of be slightly different from what you’ve crammed, what will you do?
Definitely, you may have little or no clue about how to start. Rather you will start abruptly because you only cram the ideas, you don’t understand them.
All in all, instead of memorising the concepts you are taught, first of all understand the concepts. Understanding them will help you a lot whenever you want to apply the concepts in different areas.
- Overlooking Self-Assessment
When you practise or assess yourself, you become perfect. Self-assessment will not only give you confidence, but self-belief that you truly understand the concepts you are studying.
6 out of 10 students overlooks self-assessment, with the belief that they truly know all the things they have studied. However, they turn out to realise that they are far less prepared for the exam when they get to the exam hall.
Researchers have called practice and self-assessment an active recall. Why is it an active recall? Reports have shown that students who self-assess themselves remember information quicky than those who overlook it.
Besides the above, self-assessment is an ideal study strategy for students who have low retentive memory or those who forget what they read easily. Self-assessment and continuous practice will help such students to remember what they have read, and at the same time, sharpen their memory.
As a student, which one of these mistakes have you ever made? Do you still make such mistake? If you don’t, tell us how you stopped commiting such error.