16 Tips to Increase Productivity While Preparing for Exams

Today many people are more and more interested in various techniques and smart tricks for working quickly and efficiently. Especially when preparing for something as important as university exams. The experts of essaysadvisor.com website have collected the most important tips for increasing productivity during exam preparation and they shared them with us:

Do not leave your exam preparation for later

Go to the website of the university where you plan to apply and make a list of exams you have to pass. Register for them in advance and start preparing as early as possible.

Find out exactly how you are going to take the exam

What is the format: essay, test, oral response? How long will it last? How many questions will there be? Is there a list of topics and recommended materials for preparation? What is the passing score? If the information on university websites is incomplete, write them a letter with clarifying questions or call the admissions office.

Organize your space

Make sure your desk has enough space to spread out your textbooks and notes. Make sure the room is bright enough, your chair is comfortable, and you have everything you need from a pen to a highlighter handy. The important thing is to make sure you feel comfortable in the study space you've created and can concentrate. For some, this may mean complete silence, and for others, light music in the background. Some people want complete order, while others like creative clutter.

Make sure nothing will distract you from your studies

Turn off your phone or put it on airplane mode, turn off the wi-fi on your computer, and ask your family not to disturb you. That way you can focus only on studying for exams.

Visualize information

Imagine everything you read as diagrams, charts, so information is better absorbed and remembered. Try making mind maps.

Find previous versions of the exams

And work through them carefully. Be sure to check yourself on the answers and mark the mistakes you've made. This will help you find gaps in your knowledge and make a list of topics to repeat.

Don't forget to take breaks

You can't study 24/7. Take a break for 10-15 minutes every hour or work under the rule of 25 minutes - work for 25 minutes and then rest for 5 minutes.

Figure out your "golden hours"

If you're a morning person, it's probably easier to work in the morning, and if you're an owl, it's easier to work in the evening. Your productivity depends on it: in the waking hours you are full of energy, so at that time you can work on a difficult task, and leave something easier for the declining hours.

Start your day with the most difficult task

Americans call this technique "eat the frog."

Related: Ultimate "life hack" collection for a productive lifestyle

Get enough sleep

Sleep is a time for your brain to synthesize information, especially the topics we touched on a couple of hours before sleep. It is also your time to rest and reset, so it should not be neglected.

Related: Sleeping like a bear

Drink plenty of water and eat right

Keep your body and brain in shape by choosing foods that are natural, fresh, and rich in vitamins. It's healthy and will improve your concentration and memory.

If you feel "out of sorts," start by studying the most interesting subject or topic

This will help you get into working shape. For example, in English Conditionals scare you, but you like to learn phrasal verbs. So start your day with verbs, and then move on to harder ones. And don't forget that online helpers are always ready to help with your college assignments.

Make up your own ritual

For example, before you sit down to your textbooks, enjoy a cup of coffee and read a magazine. Then you put a glass of water on your desk, nuts or fruit for a snack, and turn off your phone. This helps set the mood.

Record lectures or answers to questions on a tape recorder

Listen to them while you're cleaning, walking the dog, etc. You can memorize not only by writing down the material but also by listening.

Find friends to study with

Talk through the material together, explain topics to each other that you don't understand, and exchange notes. Student services like Essay Writer Today will also help you study well. Its experts know how to write any kind of academic paper, prepare for exams, etc.

Make a chart and schedule

Reflect on the month and days you will prepare for exams. Also, note the types of preparation. For example, if you are preparing for the TOEFL exam, one day you will practice Reading, another day you will practice Speaking, and the third day you will solve mock exams. At the end of every month, review what you have done so far on a worksheet. That way you'll know whether your preparation was effective at this stage and what you need to improve. Below we tell you about the applications in which you can create a schedule for preparing for exams.

Exam preparation apps

You can use scheduling apps to help you organize your study, manage your time, and prepare for exams.

Chipper

This app will allow you to improve your time-management skills. It is an organizer, a to-do list, and a task planner. In Chipper, you can enter individual tasks and keep track of their due dates, and you can create a schedule to prepare for exams. A timer is a useful feature. When you get to work, you set the desired duration of the class and break time on the timer and follow it. The bonus for completing assignments on time is an imaginary paycheck, a good incentive to keep moving forward.

Todait

If you get distracted a lot while studying, install Todait, an app that lets you turn off notifications from other apps on your phone while you study. This simple to-do list app also allows you to schedule things based on criteria such as the number of tasks to complete, the number of pages to read, or the number of terms to memorize. Todait also keeps track of how much time you've spent studying and what percentage of tasks you've completed. This data is reflected in graphs that you can use to track your progress.

My Study Life

My Study Life will replace your paper planner. It has the same feature set as the two apps above. Plus, all tasks are stored in the cloud, so you can access the app from different devices, and you can also work offline.