Students who are excited about MBLEx Exam Prep can learn how to be organized, motivated, and make efficient use of their time in order to improve their grades.
Living the student life is not as relaxing as most people would assume. This is especially true during the months when midterms and final exams are looming on every student’s mind. The best way to avoid excess exam stress is to stay motivated, reduce stress, and prepare efficiently. The following tips are designed to arm students with sound knowledge on exam preparation as well as the reasoning behind these tips.
How to Avoid Exam Stress by Staying Organized
Organization is the key to staying in good shape while preparing for final exams. Staying organized will allow students to gain positive study habits and will reduce their stress as exam dates loom. Students should prepare a comfortable schedule and be dedicated enough to follow it through. They should key in specific blocks of time dedicated to academics such as for going through notes, private and group study sessions, and research time. They should also ensure to key in time for rest, relaxation and sleep.
Stress is an enemy of students preparing for midterms and final exams and they need to allow themselves time to care for their bodies as well as their minds. The primary reason to reduce stress is that it has considerably more negative effects on students’ study habits than positive effects. Entwistle, Thompson and Wilson state that their psychological study shows that anxiety, depression and obsessive behavior are three key factors of study difficulty.
In short, relaxed, motivated students are better prepared to induce good study habits in themselves and are more likely to successfully prepare for their exams.
How to Stay Motivated During Periods of Study
Motivation is so important that it is noted by Entwistle, Thompson and Wilson in their article “Motivation and Study Habits.” They report that many lecturers attribute academic failure to a lack of motivation. Ways for students to increase their motivation in a positive way while preparing for exams include being aware of their goals in order to induce goal-oriented motivation.
Students must have a clear idea of why they are in the course they have enrolled in and what they wish to achieve from doing well in their exams. The result of this is a self-empowerment, as well as a reinstatement of the true purpose of the work students put themselves through in order to improve their exam results.
Assessing their goals and motivations also provides students with an idea of the “big picture.” They will become aware of what they personally expect of themselves and they should focus on these rather than what other people expect from them.
How to Improve Grades by Studying Efficiently
Preparing for final exams starts at the lecture hall, even before students get into “cramming” mode; it’s of vital importance for students to ensure that all lecture notes and past exam notes are sourced and collected. Students should base their exam preparation on key words and phrases as well as any special tips used by the lecturer, as these may be tested on the final exam. Students may find it useful to compare notes with friends and classmates to ensure all bases are covered.
Students should work on the ability to be able to cut out padded bits of information that may waste their study time. Going through past exam papers may be useful for some courses, so students must research whether or not material is usually repeated in consecutive exam years.
It is also important for students to ensure they are familiar with all resources provided by their schools. For example, some University libraries have online databases with entire collections of past exam papers which students can use, at the very least, to garner a good idea of what may be tested.
How Concentration Helps Improve Exam Results
It must be mentioned that students must employ a considerable amount of concentration both when they are taking notes and again when they are reading through them. Onwuegbuzie, Slate and Schwartz state that a finding in a study they conducted relating to students and study skills was that the majority of students took notes and read through their notes in a passive manner.
The result of this lack of concentration is a considerably less chance of being able to understand or recall the material even though they had spent time going through it. This is precisely why students must make use of their time efficiently and develop good study habits. It is not in how much time students dedicate to their midterm and final exam preparation that matters most, it is how they use the time that is available to them.
To conclude, there are several factors students need to address as they prepare for midterms and final exams. Students must be aware of the direct correlation between motivation, study habits, and how they approach their midterm and final exams with the chances of achieving improved exam results.
