Nut's Academic Tip of the Week

[NutBrnHair]

Get enough sleep the night before your exam (8 hours). You need at least 6 hours of deep sleep for transfer from short-term to long-term memory. Staying up late the night before a test will slow down your responses of your neural transmitters the next day and for the next THREE days, even if you get a good night's sleep the night after your test.

Raise your endorphins to prevent anxiety which stimulates adrenaline production causing the release of cortisols, which prevent recall during tests. Do one of the following to raise your endorphins before your exam:
*Read a joke before an exam.
*Have a Hershey's kiss.
*Take a short walk down the hall.

If you start to feel anxious before or during the test, pause for a minute, take three deep breaths to get oxygen to your brain (it needs oxygen in order to have fast firing of your neurons ) and to break the cycle of panic which can send out the adrenaline and cortisols that block memory and recall.

"Get physical" A study has shown that students who did calisthenics while studying French learned it better than students who used traditional methods to study French. Repeat vocabulary and formulas out loud to yourself.Draw "pictures" of scientific, economic, political, historical processes. Write notes of difficult points over.

Practice. You need repeated "hits" on subject matter to recall it, but not all of them have to be "in-depth" hard hits. In other words, it's not only more effective to do a 30-minute review daily of material for two weeks than to study for 7 hours on the night before a test, it is also easier and less stressful. And this will allow you to go to bed at a decent time the night before an exam.Take your lecture notes, fold the paper over, and ask yourself the question out loud , recite back the answer out loud without looking, and check your answer. If you're right, go on to the next question. If not, repeat the question, recite the answer, and check it until you're right. Use the same technique with your reading notes: read the question aloud, recite the answer aloud without looking, and check your answer.

Form a study group with 3 or 4 students and meet regularly to quiz each other using your lecture and reading notes and other study aids such as visuals and vocabulary flash cards.

Take a one-a-day vitamin, which includes B, B6, C, and folic acid, all very important in memory development and retention.

Eat a breakfast that includes protein (eggs, toast, oatmeal, or meat) and some carbohydrates, especially blueberries, which have been shown to improve verbal memory by 35%. Your brain needs amino acids that come from protein to properly function, and you need some sugars in order for the neurotransmitters to fire rapidly.

Avoid excessive amounts of coffee as the caffeine has been shown to kill brain cells, and once killed, they are gone forever, and caffeine can raise your anxiety levels, something you do not want to do before an exam, if you want to easily recall information







http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/~leilani/preparingexam.html