By admin 8 December 2017

Simple Yet Effective Strategies to Overcome Exam-Preparation Challenges:

There are numerous challenges students face while preparing for competitive exams; these numerous challenges may range from – trying to make sense of a heap of notes, trying to decrease internal and external distractions and finally trying hard to overcome the anxiety on the exam day. This blog identifies some simple to follow strategies to overcome these challenges:

So, let’s get started:

Divide Big Tasks into Multiple Small Ones                     

The biggest challenge during preparation for a competitive exam is where to start from. We all know that syllabus for any competitive exam is extremely vast and this makes things too large in your mind. A five-minute trick works well to fight this large thing. Cut up the task in to small chunks that can be done in short periods of time. You can start with the first few tasks of five-minute duration. After completing the first task of 5 minutes, take a break. This will train your brain that you are in a study mode and eventually you will be able to concentrate for long durations. Repeat this until you are well on your way to completing the whole syllabus.

Motivation Is Important – Try With Positive Results

If you do not have enough motivation, try reminding yourself about the benefits and positive outcomes you will get if you do your preparation well and finally clear the exam with flying colours. Build up these positive results in your mind. You can even try rewarding yourself for putting extra efforts into study.

Some people instead of trying positive things, look at the consequences of not doing the preparation well. This might work well for a few but can lead to depression for others. So, our suggestion is that you must look for positive outcomes and stay motivated.

Build Up Self-Belief

The belief you stick to regulate your actions, which mean if you think you are not good – you end up not practicing enough. It is important to break this cycle and for this you must follow these steps, which is dividing a big task into chunks and develop a positive outlook.

Use Distraction as Reward

Being distracted easily is the most common challenge that students face during exam preparation. In a conscious state, your brain is trained to do one thing at a time, which means your attention can flick from one task to other going around you very easily and this is frustrating when you have an important task to do, which obviously during the exam is PREPARATION.

Another inbuild training that your brain has is – motivated towards pleasure, and study being a tedious task, makes your brain look around for pleasurable activities. So, here is the trick- make a list of things you love the most, with most pleasurable on top and coming down to the least pleasurable, but obviously that you love to do. Now use these listed distractions as a reward for your efforts. This will help you keep your brain focussed to the job you need to do as you know finishing the same will get you to your favourite distraction.

Reduce your use of electronic gadgets

People often complain about poor concentration level and they even know the reason as well, which is lack of proper sleep. And trust us, they even know the reason behind their sleep problems – bright light from laptop screens, phones and tablets that they tend to use before going to bed.

There is science behind this whole problem – let’s explore the fact – ‘sleep’ comes with pineal gland releasing a chemical named melatonin (it’s a night process), so when a person is engaged with his laptop or phone, the bright light from these gadgets prevent this release and disturbs the whole process (it takes long time for the brain to recognize that it is dark and it is time to sleep). This reduces the number of hours you get for your sleep and you feel tired and exhausted the next day. So, the best way is to keep these gadgets away from you at least an hour before going to bed and see the difference.

Share Burden with Time-Saving Technology

Students across the globe are utilizing new ways to learn and the best in the list are video lectures, for instance – if you are preparing for a Bank PO exam, video lectures for Bank PO would be a great medium to help you understand and memorize the content.

Get a Mentor

There are specialized coaching centres which help students overcome the common exam preparation challenges. Online classes for Bank PO and other competitive exams are really helpful for many competitive exams. These courses are quite affordable as well.