11 Reasons Why Students Fail in Exam

11 Reasons Why Students Fail in Exam:

Bad sleeping habits:

Having a good night’s sleep has been scientifically proven to make you REALLY REALLY REALLY HAPPY. Not only that, but it improves a whole load of other stuff such as memory, concentration and energy levels.

Staying up late with a multipack of Red Bull coursing through your veins may seem like a good idea at the time, but you’ll pay for it the next day (we’ve all seen THAT episode of The Inbetweeners, right?).

Put simply, there’s no better way to prepare for an exam than a solid eight hours’ in Snoozeville.

Lack of practice:

As a particularly annoying person once said, ‘Fail to prepare, prepare to fail’. Half the reason this person is so annoying is because they are, in fact, 100% right.

Past exam papers show you exactly what to expect - in some cases you may even see questions repeated from year to year - so if you go into exams without having a serious go at past papers then you almost deserve to fail. So there.

Stress:

As patronising as it sounds, worrying is genuinely a waste of energy. Time spent telling everyone how screwed you are and banging your head against the nearest available brick wall isn’t going to benefit anyone.

Relax. Kick back. Go for a run. Take a (purely metaphorical) chill pill. If you take a step back and simply get down to work in a calm and measured manner you’ll reap the benefits come results day.

Procrastination:

OK. You caught us. By writing this article we are in fact stopping you from revising. Sorry about that, but it’s important stuff, we promise.

During exams it’s not the worst idea in the world to stay of sites like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube altogether, but if you’re physically incapable of going cold turkey then limiting yourself to five minutes of ‘fun’ per hour of revision is the next best thing.

Not reading the question properly:

When you’re finally allowed to turn over the first page of an exam paper the instinct is to rush through it as fast as possible to ensure you answer all the questions.

The problem with this is that it can be all too easy to misread a question and get the answer all kinds of wrong. If you’re lucky this will just cost you a few marks, if not you could well see yourself resitting it in a few months.

As one of those frustratingly overdone posters might say... ‘Keep Calm and Read The F**king Question’.

Disorganisation:

Turning up to an exam with your notes scrawled all over crumpled sheets of A4 that are arranged in no apparent order and seeing everyone else bring out colour coded files before sharpening all their pencils to the same length will do nothing for you confidence.

Laying out your notes in an easy to understand way and ensuring you have sufficient stationary days or weeks before the exam leaves your mind free for the important stuff.

Poor diet:

As we all know by now, eating the right foods can have a real impact on how your body functions throughout the day.

Doing the exact opposite of a night on the Jagerbombs, ‘brain foods’ will help your memory and improve your focus. Such foods include oily fish, wholegrains, blueberries, pumpkin seeds, broccoli and nuts. Yummmmm. For more infor check out...

Ignoring the reading list:

Upon being given a reading list at the beginning of the year, thinking “I’ll get the top one or two and that’ll probably cover everything” is not uncommon.

Unfortunately, it’s the people who have done the reading that will get the best marks. Sorry... we don’t make the rules.

Bad memory:

You can remember all kinds of crap from when you were a kid, so WHY can’t you remember things that you read just a couple of days ago? The reason is simple. You’re getting old. You drink too much. You haven’t slept in 32 hours. You’re a shaking, jittery mess. You’d struggle to remember your name.

Sleep. Eat well. Relax. And on top of that give mnemonic devices a go - this is when you associate information with a certain visual image. Our smiling faces, for example.

You ran out of time:

If you’re not a rusher (see point 5) then chances are you’re the type of person who will spend far too long on a question. You may well end up with maximum marks on that question - well done!

Trouble is, you only managed to make it half way through the paper before the time ran out. Balls.

Plan your time carefully, giving yourself deadlines on each question. This will ensure that you at least finish the paper - you can’t get marks if you don’t answer the question!