But recent studies show that a lot of students have resulted to superstitious rituals, midnight revision sessions and drastic changes in their diets to prepare for the dreaded exams.
BIC stationary took a recent poll and the results show that 65% of students are superstitious during exam season and 33% use lucky charms to increase their chances of success. Surprisingly, 30% of students admit to wearing ‘lucky underpants’ on exam days and other students believe in the power of lucky jewellery, toy mascots and lucky pens.
A revision and education expert Patrick Wilson says that the best exam preparation is to ensure that you have put adequate revision time before hand. However, these studies show that 23% of students only began the revision process the day before the actual exam and an outstanding 61% stay up late to cram in all of the course material. Another superstition that students often give in to is that certain foods can increase your concentration levels. 53% of students eat oily fish for its energising effect and 46% eat more fruit and vegetables leading up to their exams.
Patrick Wilson comments on these superstitions by saying that ‘With nearly half of students admitting they don’t study for exams as much as they should, it’s unsurprising that so many are putting their faith in charms or adopting rituals to feel more assured. The best way to feel truly confident, and help beat that stomach-churning ‘exam angst’, is to prepare for each exam in advance, making sure you have a dedicated structure for your revision schedule.’ The study shows that 40% of students resort to pulling ‘all-nighters’ and the average time calculated for students to stay up till is 2:19am.
A third of the students said that they spend their time revising months in advance for the exams. However, 28% blame their lack of efforts on tiredness, 20% blame it on illness and 18% say that they go out with their friends to avoid the stress of revising. The study also shows that female students are the most likely to be swayed by social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, whereas, the male students are procrastinating by playing video games. Nearly one in ten students rated ‘happy hour’ as the reason why they skip the revision process and a cheeky 6% of students still use the excuse that the dog ate their homework.
Students in the classroom
Ulrike Amaya a marketing manager from BIC said ‘We know that 59% of students say they would benefit from having help to plan their revision, which may explain why the average student ends up staying up so late the night before an exam. With this in mind, we’ve teamed up with the revision expert, Patrick Wilson, to develop a series of online revision tips. Simple and digestible, the tips give handy hints and advice to students to help them make the most of their revision in the run up to exams.’ You can find the link to these revision tips here: https://www.facebook.com/BICcreativity
Even though students are resulting to procrastination, silly superstitions and healthy diets to achieve exam success, the only preparation that is proven to work is revision. Students need to avoid all distractions, sit down at their desks and revise in plenty of time before their exam to ensure great results. And if students still think that wearing lucky underpants will get them good grades, well I guess there is no harm in that. Â
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