1. Trying to read everything: You would think that the more information you can force into your brain on your subject the better. This is all very well in theory but no matter what your intelligence level your brain has a limit for the amount of information it can hold. You must prioritize. There are only so many questions the examiner can ask you. Go back through past papers and ascertain the frequency with which certain types of questions appear. Make the most popular questions your priority. Also ask your teacher or lecturer what they feel may come up on this years paper. Over time the lecturer is likely to have gotten a feel for the trends.
2. Only studying the stuff you are good at: This tip may sound like a no brainer but it is human nature to be drawn to the things we feel confident about. It does feel terrific when you work your way through a set of practice questions and get them all right but there is little point if what you don’t know is going to end up out weighing what you do. Once you have worked out, in broad strokes, what categories the questions are likely to fall into divide your time between all of these things. It may be hard but make sure you spend a little more time on the things you find difficult, it will be worth it in the end.
3. Last minute cramming: Do you ever see those people standing outside an examination room still frantically trying to stuff information into their heads? They are making a huge error. Nothing positive can be achieved by this kind of studying. This activity is in fact actually likely to be counter productive. You are highly unlikely to force the one fact into your head that will make the difference between a pass and a fail grade, much more likely is that you will encounter something you did not know and send yourself into a tail spin of self doubt and panic. Once the morning of the exam arrives accept you know as much as you are going to and concentrate on entering the room well rested and calm. Attitude is going to be much more important from this point on than cramming.
4.Using caffeine to excess: Drinking loads of coffee has almost become a studying cliche but you should be very careful with this part of student culture. Most of you probably know that caffeine in whatever form you take it, coffee, mountain dew, pill gives you an energy spike and that may seem like just what you need at the time but apart from all the unpleasant physical side effects loads of caffeine can have it can also throw your timing way out. Once you consume copious amounts of caffeine you cannot just switch the effects off whenever you wish, therefore, when you are done studying for the evening and want to get some rest you may be wide awake. The effect of that is that the next day when your mind would usually be at its most receptive for receiving and processing information it will instead be tired and sluggish.
5.Failing to run through practice papers: Everyone has their own ways of studying and for the most part it is each to their own, whatever works for you but one thing that should be common to everyone is running through past exam papers as practice. Not just once but about once a week for a month before the exam. Taking a dummy run of the paper has so many advantages. It helps to focus you on the types of questions that pop up, it will familiarize you with the lay out of the paper so there are no nasty surprises like answering the wrong set of questions or accidentally missing a page, and it will also get you used to the timings of the paper. Running through past papers under test simulated conditions is the single most useful thing you can do to prepare yourself for an exam.
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