Board exams: How to Break These Bad Study Habits

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Board exams are crucial in a student’s life. A lot of students get distracted, feel stressed, and come under pressure to score better marks. However, they get into bad study habits which can hamper their board exams. These bad habits change their lifestyle and mess up their daily routine. 

While students sit to study, they tend to procrastinate a lot and do not study properly. Lack of preparation along with the added pressure from parents and teachers, and the obstruction of these bad habits act as a barrier between scoring high in the board exams.

A lot of students get addicted to these bad habits and find ways to undo them. Here are a few tips on how to break these bad study habits.

• Identifying the bad habits or distractions: Before leading on to the ways to break the bad habits, one must know what are their bad habits. These can include social media networking sites, mobiles, television, long call hours, or something else. Once we find the root of our distraction that is causing a hindrance in our academics, we can try to get rid of it.

• Design a timetable by prioritizing your goals: Set a goal and prioritize it. Design your timetable in such a way that it focuses on completing the set goal. There might be a lot of other things that might need your attention, but setting the right priorities when the exams are near is very important. Try visualizing the bigger picture while doing so, as it motivates the students to keep going.

• Quit procrastinating: When you sit to study, concentrate and focus on what you are studying. Most students tend to lose focus while studying and think about different things that are not necessary. With complete focus and concentration, you will not have to study it again as you have understood the concepts.

• Attend the classes and avoid missing tests: A lot of students do not attend the classes regularly and tend to miss out on important topics. This makes them behind in their academics. When the teacher is taking periodic tests, they miss them due to a lack of studying and understanding the concepts. Taking periodic tests keeps you up to date with the ongoing syllabus and prepares you for the board exams.

• Misjudging the distractions: Most students do not evaluate what their distractions are and do not follow ways to stop them from obstructing the daily schedule. They tend to spend an extra hour on their video game time, or surfing the internet and do not realize that they have lost precious time. They do not see how it affects their study time and the quality of information they can absorb if the distractions were not present.

• Not eating healthy food: Most of the students eat junk food in between their meals. They overlook the fact that junk food or fast food has excessive calories and fats. The body needs to get the right amount of minerals and nutrients to support the functioning of the brain. Surviving on fast food or snacks makes your body lazy and you lose focus.

• Long breaks: It is normal to feel stressed out and out of focus after studying for a long time. It is important to take breaks to keep your mind at ease and attentive. This does not mean that you take longer breaks that allow you to skip your next study session. One must follow a 30-minute rule. This rule suggests that the student studies for 25 minutes and takes a break for 5 minutes. This method has proven effective for most of the students as it keeps the student’s minds attentive and relaxed.

• Verify your work: Due to lack of attention and tiredness, most of the students forget or overlook verifying their work with others or their teachers. Cross verifying your answers and finding your silly mistakes allows you to correct them and never repeat them.

• Ignoring difficult questions: Physics and Mathematics are the subjects where there is room for mistakes and you may not get the answers in your first attempt itself. Most of the students get demotivated and leave the problem in the middle. They think it is out of their potential to solve them. Try to get your teacher’s help or ask your friends to explain the concepts or their application. You can also refer to the CBSE solutions to check the method of solving the question, where you get stuck.

• Get physical activity: Most of the students do not stay attentive and become lazy due to a lack of physical activity. Design your timetable in such a way that you get physical activity in a day. This can be walking, running, jogging or any other sports such as badminton, cricket, etc. It allows your brain to focus and be alert during your study time.

• Do not stress over failures: A wise man once said “Until you taste the flavour of failure, you can never taste success”, and that holds for all students. Most students tend to get demotivated when they score less in periodic tests, quizzes, etc. Until you make mistakes, you won’t learn. Take time to evaluate and analyze your mistakes from your answer sheets. Pick your mistakes and spend time correcting them and focusing on your weaknesses.

• Write everything you learn: In this era of technology, most of the students rely upon the laptop, tablets or their mobile phones for making notes. Instead, try writing everything you learn and make points on important topics. This allows you to remember everything in a better manner and avoids room for distraction. 

These bad habits can get in the way of shaping your career. If you want yourself to get into better colleges or universities, it is important to distract yourself from the distractions. This is the only way to get your work done and succeed in your studies.