Pulling off a miracle

Photo: Darshan Chakma

Are you reading this article when you're supposed to be studying for a test? Did you promise yourself eight months ago that this time you would be organised and get everything done on time? How's that working out for you? Well if you're anything like 90 percent of the students out there, you probably said 'yes' to the first two questions and cried a little when you saw the third. Here's a guide that'll help you get through this mess and actually do well in your exams (maybe):

Be Antisocial: Time is your enemy. And if you're preparing for an exam, time is like the Flash who drank too many energy drinks. So if you check Facebook every five minutes or get lost in YouTube looking at cat videos, you've got a problem. Thankfully there's a solution. 'Cold Turkey' is a computer application that you can download for free. It lets you enter a list of websites that distract you and temporarily blocks them for you. So when you decide that you're going to study for three hours, you can just open it up and set the time and you won't be able to access those sites for those three hours. No more deactivating, no more self-discipline. God bless technology.

Mocking Way: Ideally, you should just have to revise the syllabus before a mock. But this isn't an ideal situation; this is damage control. Instead of vaguely glancing over the whole syllabus every night before a mock, just study one topic very well and take the mock. The next time, study the next topic very well and revise the previous one and take the mock. So what if you flunk a mock or two? At least by doing this you're actually learning things, which is much more helpful in the long run when you give the one exam that counts.

You Snooze You Lose: Cramming at the last minute just wouldn't be the same without an all-nighter. However, a paper published in the Journal of Sleep Research has shown that sleep deprivation has a lot of adverse effects like bad decision-making, slower reaction times etc. What you really need is to study on time and get a good night's rest. But what if you messed up your body clock so badly that you can't go to sleep before 4 am? Puzzle Alarm Clock is a smartphone app you can download. It's sleek, stylish, and extremely annoying. Instead of hitting snooze with one eye half-open, you have to solve puzzles and math problems to shut this app up. So when you get something like 545*7+765, the mini-workout you do by searching frantically for your calculator and punching in the numbers is enough to snap you out of your slumber. A few days of this and your sleeping schedule is as good as new!

Get Help: If you like to shut yourself in your room with your books, don't. There are probably hundreds of students like you who are pulling their hair at all the stuff they have to do. It's much easier and quicker to learn something from a person than trying to figure it out by yourself. So a friend could help you with something he/she is very good at and you could do the same. Nothing like friendship during disaster.

Note: If you have a phone, give it to your mother when you study and impose a Tk 100 penalty every time you want to use it. It helps. Also, this is supposed to help you study efficiently, not make you a genius overnight.