Studying for examinations might seem like one of the least important things you do in college, but it can actually be one of the most important.
Depending on what your major is, and what career path you plan to take after graduation, exams can help you land the job of your dreams, or prepare you better for the job you already have.
You would probably like to know how to study effectively for exams in a short time too.
With that in mind, this guide will help you understand why studying for exams is so important and how you can do it better to get the results you need!
Why studying for exams is important: 3 benefits
1) Helps you retain information longer
The moment a test ends, so does your ability to remember what you learned. But studies show that students who study daily are able to retain more information from lectures, which means they’ll have less cramming to do before tests.
In my experience, says Dr. Lisa DeRoo, a psychologist at SUNY Adirondack, students who are regularly reviewing their class notes over several days or weeks do better on tests than those who wait until right before an exam.
In fact, just one week of review can boost recall by 25%. Students with longer periods of time between their last review and an exam do worse on tests.
How much time should you spend? Students should try to get in as many practice questions as possible, she says.
If a student has two weeks between studying and taking an exam, she recommends three practice quizzes per day—one in the morning, one at lunchtime, and another after school—for two days before it’s due.
This will help cement knowledge in long-term memory (which we tend to access when answering multiple-choice questions) rather than short-term memory (which we use when recalling facts).
2) Increases recall in the long term
When you study, you are actually making memories of information that can be recalled later. When recalling facts from memory, your brain uses a different path to retrieve them from when they were simply read or heard.
Research suggests that people who regularly engage in studies tend to retain more information over time than those who don’t do so frequently.
The two major ways of doing it include
- (1) active recall and retrieval, which involves using a reminder to bring an idea back into your mind; and
- (2) practice testing, where one tests oneself without any hints or reminders.
By actively recalling material during study sessions, we allow our brains to build stronger pathways between memory structures and encode more connections between neurons—this will lead to better learning and stronger recall abilities in long-term memory.
It also leads to faster retrieval because our minds have become used to accessing these areas quickly.
In fact, research has shown that students with greater academic achievement perform better on multiple choice tests because they have spent more time practicing retrieving information from their memory instead of just reading it once and moving on.
This same skill applies even if you’re not in school anymore! If you’re trying to learn something new at work or want to learn how to speak another language, for example, try recalling key concepts first before looking up details online or rereading notes.
3) Exam knowledge will help in employment
If you’re looking to get a great job, there’s no way around it—you have to ace your exams. Employers will ask if you have high grades and if so, they’ll want to see proof that their money will be well spent on someone who can actually do what’s required of them.
The interview process in itself can be very stressful (and overwhelming), but knowing that employers are expecting excellent grades as part of their criteria gives you peace of mind and improves your confidence as an applicant.
Your ability to perform in interviews with confidence means they’ll be more likely to offer you a job based on your suitability and skill level. So by investing time into learning from your exam results, you’re improving both your chances of getting a job and how much money you’ll make at work. Win-win!
You’ll understand why something works: Exam results provide useful insight into how things work or why something is happening within an industry or field. For example.
If you studied business economics at university, then maybe a company has cut its workforce and laid off some staff members—but still made a profit overall.
Knowing how businesses operate from a macroeconomic perspective will help give context to such decisions. Understanding these types of scenarios will enable you to understand why they happened (or why they didn’t happen) rather than being baffled by events out of your control.
