Knowing the harmful habits you should avoid before exams could make a big difference between having good grades or failing your exams

As a student, especially if you are an adult student or a student mom and dad, there are things you are not supposed to do before exams to make sure you could have good grades.

If you fail to identify these things and deal with them once and for all, it might affect the outcome of the exam.

Attending higher education is a long marathon, it’s a challenging task that could last for years, depending on the duration of your study.

Going back to school as adult students when you are most likely to have other responsibilities such as your work or family to take care of, or even both, could be exceptionally challenging.

Therefore, developing an effective and efficient study habits is a must, as well as having good time management, considering that as adult students and student moms and dads, you will not have much time to study, and must make your study time as productive as possible.

One of the most important things during your study period is your exams. The results will have a great effect on your study.

Finishing your exams with flying colors will open many opportunities, such as getting an internship at a reputable company even before you graduate, an offer to become a research or lab assistant, getting an opportunity to score scholarships, funding, et cetera.

On the other hand, getting bad results in exams could cost you dearly. You could fail your classes, need to re-do your classes in the next semester, and so on, which could lead to a delay in your graduation, pay another tuition for an extra semester, and other problems.

Thus, you need to prepare yourself well for your exams. Try to look at study tips and applies them. Get to know yourself and your situation better and find out what study methods works better for you.

Most importantly, find out what are the things you should not do before your exams and avoid them completely. Here are some of them:

1. Procrastinate.

Procrastinating will definitely have a negative impact on your ability to perform well on your exams. In university courses, exams are usually held at the end of a term or semester, which happens once in a couple of months, every 3-6 months depending on the program.

Thus, students tend to think they have enough time to study and prepare themselves for the exams. But unfortunately, what they ended up doing is to procrastinating until the very last minute to study, and trying to cram everything in several nights, even a night before the exam.

As an adult student and student mom and dad who has many other responsibilities, and very little time to study, you must avoid procrastination at all costs.

With so many things going on in your life, nothing is predictable. On the weeks of your exams, perhaps your boss gives you unexpected extra work with tight deadlines.

Or maybe one of your children got sick, or your spouse needs to go on a business trip so you will have to be fully in charge of the children at home and will have very little and no time to study, for example.

If you are not procrastinating and prepare yourself for the exams long before, these things will not be going to be a problem since all you need to do is refresh the study materials, you are ready anyway.

 2. Over-cramming The Study Materials the Night Before

One of the bad habits which prevented students from performing the best in their exams is the habit of cramming the study materials the night before.

Some might say that it is practically the same as the bad habit of procrastinating, but I beg to differ. A couple of years ago, I went back to school to pursue my master’s degree (graduate school).

I had some friends who deliberately choose to study the night before the exams, since they believe studying and preparing themselves weeks before will not going to give better results, because they said they will forget everything, no matter how much they re-read and study the materials.

Although it might be working for some people, if you can, avoid cramming the night before the exams, especially if the exam is one that is inclusive of all the content for the semester. 

There is too much information to attempt to cram into your brain at the last moment. It simply isn’t feasible to expect to retain it all.

3.  Spending too Much Time on Social Media

In this era, social media has been an important part of our day-to-day activities. It’s almost impossible to have even a day without social media.

In the rare cases when a social media platform becomes down and inaccessible even for only a day, it is already enough to cause an international concern and make news headlines all over the globe.

But spending too much time on social media could give a significant number of distractions for students since they spend the time that they should use to study for their exams on social media instead.

If you are a student, especially an adult student or a student mom and dad, the solution to avoid having bad grades is to discipline yourself, by limiting your time, not only with social media but also with your phone.

Allocate a certain time every day to check on your social media and other use of your phone which are not related to your study purpose, for a maximum of one hour per day, for example.

Discipline yourself. Do not use them more than the time you allocate and don’t use them more than you allow yourself to do (like watching movies, browsing mindlessly et cetera).

4. Multitasking, Studying More Than One Subject at the Same Time

When you have a lot of things on your plate, sometimes multitask.  is the only option to get things done. 

But when it comes to studying, multitasking as in learning several subjects at the same time is not recommended.

Trying to study more than one course at a time will only make you more confused and distracted. 

Moreover, you will risk having information sitting on top of each other and getting information mixed up with one another.

If you want to pass your exam with flying colors, make a study schedule and start your study preparation early to give yourself ample time to learn one subject after another.

Let yourself comprehend and completely master one study subject material before moving on to the other.

Get all the information you need to master from one subject and enough time to sink into your brain before you start studying for another subject with a whole set of completely different materials.

5. Comparing Your Preparation with Your Classmates

This may sound simple but could be crucial, especially if you don’t have enough confidence in your study preparation.

When I went back to school a couple of years ago, my daughter was just 4 years old. I was alone with my little family there, in a foreign country. Studying abroad as an adult student, a student mom, and an international student.

I had to do everything on my own. I had my husband’s support, but most of the time he was also busy working. We didn’t have any support system such as families who could help babysit or something like that.

I studied everywhere, in public transportation, in the park while my daughter was playing, in the swimming pool while waiting for her to finish her lessons, and all the odd places, trying to use my time to study as much as possible.

Needless to say, I had no confidence whatsoever when it comes to my study preparation for the exams. Thus, comparing notes and engaging in discussions about the study materials with my classmates before the exams only make me anxious.

Your classmates might say or explain something within the study materials that will make you doubt yourself, make you feel confused since you understand certain topics differently, feel like you don’t master the topic well enough, or might never hear about that certain topic at all before.

You might panic, which is going to be a huge disadvantage for you. Going into an exam without enough confidence will make you doubt yourself and hesitate more, or even worse, you could get blank and completely forget what you’ve studied before.

To avoid those awful circumstances, don’t engage in discussion shortly before exams. If you want to have a discussion with your classmates regarding the study materials, set up a study group a week or two before the exam weeks to cover the study materials together.

Therefore, if from the discussion you discover a topic you haven’t comprehended completely or haven’t covered at all, you will still have time to master it before the exams.

6. Not Having Complete Study Materials

One of the benefits of having a study preparation schedule is that you will still have time to complete your study material if you missed them.

Check all the textbooks and other literature used in each subject. Do you have them all? If not, where should you get them? Can you find the materials online? Do you need to buy a certain textbook? Or borrow them from the library?

What about the notes? if you missed some of your classes, make sure you borrow or copy your friend’s notes from that particular day to make sure you don’t miss anything.

However, make sure that you only need your classmate’s notes because for some reason, you couldn’t attend the classes and that you have your own notes for every class you attended.

The biggest piece of study materials you will gather throughout the semester are likely the notes you take during class. 

If you don’t have a solid process for taking and reviewing notes, your likelihood of having success on the exam goes down significantly.

A note belonging to your friends can also make you confused as it may be different from the way you make notes. 

Thus, taking good notes in every class you attend is important, and only rely on other people’s notes only when you really need them.

7. Not Getting Enough Sleeping and Not Eating Well

Our brain needs enough nutrition and good rest to function well. Therefore, eating nutritious food and having enough sleep are important.

Sometimes we skipped a meal or eat junk food because we are too busy to eat properly. Unfortunately, eating fast food will leave you feeling lethargic and tired because they are filled with sugar, salt, grease, and fat.

For your exam, you will need your body and mind at their peak state in order to function at their best on exam days.

Thus, start to build a healthy diet and healthy eating habits by eating vegetables and fruits that can help nourish your body.

If you don’t think you can change your eating habit drastically, at least try to eat healthy before and during your exam days, and gradually start to add more and more healthy options to your diet.

Most likely, we are also “overdosing” ourselves with caffeine to keep ourselves awake and to give us that energy to pull through.

Overdoing it with caffeine will likely lead to a poor night’s sleep, which is bad for you since one of the most important things you can do before your exam is to get a good night of sleep.

Avoid caffeine to make sure you get at least 7 hours of good sleep the night before your exam. Having enough time to sleep and rest will prevent you to walk into your exam feeling tired, groggy, and exhausted.

Over to You…

One of the most important parts of your back-to-school journey is the exams. It’s a great way to assess what the students have learned with regard to particular subjects.

In higher education such as university, good grades could make a big impact on the student’s future career after graduation.

Therefore, students need to prepare themselves well for the exams to make sure they understand well the materials and be able to pass the exams with flying colors.

Therefore, there are certain things to avoid before exams, to guarantee a student gets high marks for their exams, especially for an adult student or a student’s mom and dad who doesn’t have much time to study.

Avoid procrastinating and over-cramming the study materials the night before. Avoid spending too much time on social media and multitasking by studying more than one subject at the same time.

You will also need to stop comparing your study preparation with your classmates and avoid not having complete study materials.

Most importantly, avoid not having enough sleep and not eating well before your exams. All those long hours you spent studying and all those preparations will be worthless if you got sick or do not feel well on the exam days.

What do you think? Do you agree with the points I mentioned above? Do you have anything else to add? Share them in the comment section down below and help other students to prepare for their exams better.

Pin the post and share it on social media if you find the tips helpful, it will mean the world to me…

Thanks so much and till next time!!!

Related Articles:

• 7 Back-to-School Compelling Benefits for Student Moms and Mature Students
• How to Stop Your Phone Addiction and Become More Productive Adult Students
• 7 External Factors We Often Overlook That Prevent Us From Studying Better
• How to Avoid Burnout When You Go Back to School as Adult Students

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