Student-to-student: Tips for scoring high on your exams

If you’re given a study guide or practice exam be sure to complete them throughout your studying time slots. These materials are crucial, as they were likely created by the professor who also wrote your exam.

The most important meal of the day! Whether it’s a bowl of oatmeal, eggs or peanut butter toast it will help you to stay focused and feel good throughout your entire exam. It will also help to improve your memory.

According to some studies , chewing gum will help you to concentrate, if you chew gum while you study and that same kind of gum in your exam. However, don’t let your gum chewing bother other test takers by popping bubbles and be obnoxious.

Not only do you not want to fall asleep during your exam, but a good night of sleep will help retention of information. According to the National Sleep Foundation, the quantity and quality of the sleep you get throughout the days of study and the night before a big exam will help you with learning and remembering information.

Asking the professor in advance how many questions to expect can help you to prepare how much time you can allocate to each question. Spend more time on questions that are worth more points. Don’t overthink the easy questions — that will eat up your time. Wear a watch so you don’t have to search for a clock in the room or be tempted to look at your phone. If you are done early, cover up your answers and rework the problems to see if you get the same outcome.

Getting the questions that you know the answer to done first will give you confidence and momentum to push through the rest of the exam.

While you have been answering the easy questions, your subconscious brain has been thinking about the hard questions and trying to solve them. Circle any key words in the questions that you are still working to figure out. This will help your brain to focus on the main point of the questions and hopefully help you recall the correct answer.