Here’s our special guide to failing your exam – which you should NOT follow.

Sometimes students enter the down spiral of studying the wrong way. Many students may spend countless hours studying, reading books, and researching, yet still find themselves receiving low grades.

We’ve gathered a list of ineffective studying techniques that will give you a hint of what to dodge. Here’s how you can epically fail an exam!

1. Reading to Read

Students spend hours reading but forget to learn what they read. Read to learn, not read to read. Your exams will come to you in points, testing your ability to remember significant information, and to express your answers effectively. Students can avoid this mistake by gathering their information, and stimulating their learning, according to the nature of the exam. This is called direct studying, which is more focused and, hence, takes less time. So start reading to learn!

2. Doodling Away

During class, many students bore out of spending hours listening to their teachers go on and on about a subject. It is tedious, we admit. And they resolve to doodling their way out of this boredom during class. But to their misfortune, they end up skipping significant information that would most probably be brought in exams. On the other hand, other students found that taking notes is a more useful method to handling the monotony, while still acquiring the essential subject points. Taking notes actually makes studying a lot easier, and is a great reference point for exam revisions.

3. Ticking Hours of Play

The dreadful mistake that many students do is not pay attention to the time in their hands. Time is an important factor of productivity. When utilized in the right way, you can fruitfully get things done in ‘no time’. Making a list of priorities will help you finish the most important tasks first. This will not only be an efficient means of studying, but will further motivate you to complete the rest of the tasks on your list. Dedicating useful time will construct proficient learning hours, and hence, a path to success.

4.Dispersing Attention

You’ve dedicated the time to study, and now you’re on your desk opening up your course book, just when your phone rang. You immediately set the book aside, answered your phone while the clock kept ticking. Your attention here is therefore dispersed. This is the basis of failing an exam. To avoid that, you have to know that your learning curve cannot improve without focus. Students who give studying the deserved time and effort it needs will find the grades rocketing. Their focus will, hence, automatically shift to their priorities, and will become more productive and efficient in their studying techniques.

5. Learning Passively

When students take the information as it is without analyzing and probing questions, this is when their learning process is passive. Successful students use critical thinking when studying their lessons by producing questions and seeking their answers. They may also initiate discussions with other students or teachers to increase their understanding of the subject. This way, the student is not only working his brain around the subject, but also enforcing his/her memory of the information acquired. This is when a student learns proactively.

6. Spending All-Nighters

Some students have it in them to spend an all-nighter before an exam. This is just biologically destructive when it comes to the real deal. Your mind and body need approximately 7-8 hours of sleep to rejuvenate substantial functions. Sleep deprivation can be your ticket to failing an exam. Not only does sleeplessness negatively affects memory, but it also affects your concentration and judgement of situations, as well as messes up with your diet and appetite. Eventually, it might even lead to depression. Now, can you imagine studying while going through some, if not all, of these sleep debt symptoms? No matter how hard you’ve studied before an exam, if you haven’t taken your good hours of sleep, you’re most probably going to face one or two of these symptoms. Sleep well and miracles may just happen.