WHEN you are a student, nothing is as scary as exams. And you can’t avoid them, so learn to survive them!

While studying is something that needs to be done all through the year, studying for exams, let’s be honest, is something you probably don’t do until just a few weeks before d-day. And for some of you, this time doesn’t arrive till the exams are just a few days away!

Here are some tips and tricks for studying more effectively even if you left it a little too late to study — which you shouldn’t have done. But as this isn’t the time to argue about the right time to start exam preparations, let’s get down to business right away. So read on and good luck!

Remove distractions

FORGET your Facebook password for the time being, keep all games and gadgets away, turn on the computer only for study-related purposes and avoid the TV as much as you can.

I know it’s a tall order, but you can do it — you have to do it if you want to do decently in your exams.

I haven’t included your sports stuff here because most of our time is wasted on gadgets than on good old sweat-inducing games and sports. Moreover, a few minutes of physical exercise, be it though sports and games — I don’t mean clicking the mouse or pressing a button kind of exercise! — does everyone some good.

Get set

YOUR study space should be well lit, clean, quiet and should have all your books and stationary at hand so that you don’t have to keep getting up to get something from the other room.

Once you get up, you are bound to get distracted by something happening at the other corner of the house and you will waste your precious time.

Time management

WEAR a watch or have a clock right in front of you to keep track of time. Though you do know all this and must be following it, we have to say it again — make a timetable of when to study what, depending upon the course and how little you have learnt it, and follow it.

Make every minute, not just every hour, count.

Be selective

IF you are well prepared, you should be revising everything you can by now.

And if you are just beginning to study seriously, then you need to choose what to study. I know prudence dictates that you should learn everything that’s going to come in the exams, but you can only do that if you have been studying well before the exams.

If you have not, then first start with the topics that are most important and which you don’t know much about. That’s because most of us don’t fall in the super genius category, so we tend to take longer than we anticipate to learn something. And when that happens, there isn’t enough time to cover all the topics.

So even if you are short of time at the end, you would have learnt the important and marks scoring topics. Then focus on the main ideas and learn key formulas. The details can be left for later on, if you still have time.

Cram, only if in a jam

TURN to cramming only as the last resort. We don’t recommend it but do realise that you need to cram sometimes and some topics. If this is what it takes to get marks, do it, but don’t make it a habit.

Use your senses

IF you involve as many of your senses as possible in learning something, you are likely to remember it. So read, write and listen to what you have to learn by reading it loudly to yourself or have someone else do it. And if possible, involve your sense of touch and smell too, which can be done to some extent in science.

Past exam papers

IF you can get your hands on past exam papers of your class, do so and solve them. Otherwise, review the questions done in the class, as homework and in class tests. Go through all worksheets. These will give you the idea of the kind of questions to expect and some hint about the important topics.

When you practice solving question papers, you will be better at comprehending and understanding questions when you are actually doing your own exam paper and will do it faster and better.

Sleep on it

YOU need to get enough sleep, especially on the nights before your papers. If you are sleep deprived, you mind will be too fuzzy to remember what you have learned.

Internet inspiration

TODAY the internet offers us a good alternative for learning if books get very tedious. Online material about every academic subject and topic is available in many forms — written material, videos, tutorials, PowerPoint presentations and even documentaries. If used wisely, and with an adult’s guidance so that you don’t waste time on material that’s not of your level, you can learn faster and easier on the web.

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But the risk here is that if you are not familiar with the right kind of learning websites suitable for your grade, you may end up wasting too much time, not to mention frequently navigating away to something ‘interesting’ but totally unrelated to your topic because it came up in the search result.

Studying isn’t one task, it’s many, involving many skills. You have to honestly analysis what works best for you and then follow faithfully to get the best results.

Good luck and get back to studying!

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Mnemonic devices

MNEMONICS are memory devices that help us recall larger pieces of information, especially in the form of lists. There are many types of mnemonics, with acronyms, being the most widely used among these.

An acronym is an invented combination of letters, with each letter being a cue to suggest something that you need to remember. Here the first letter of each item in a list is arranged to form a word or a phrase.

Example: For the sequence in solving or evaluating math equations — Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction — take the first letter of each word and it makes the acronym PEMDAS. Much shorter and easier to remember, no?

Expression or word mnemonic is also a very helpful learning tool. The first letter of each item in a list is arranged to form a phrase or word.

Example: The categories in the classification of life are ‘Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, Variety’. Remember the phrase ‘Kings Play Cards On Fairly Good Soft Velvet’ to get the right sequence.

Or, for Boyles’ Law, which is “At constant temperature, pressure is inversely proportional to volume”, remember the phrase, “Boyle’s law is best of all because it presses gasses awfully small.’