Study Fast When Exams Are Near

If you are stressing out, STOP, and RELAX. take a deep breath and count to ten. meditate if you have to! keep your mind clear for a sec and focus! don't even have a slight thought about anything else except your studies. This is very important for a steady mindset when studying.

Next, when you study, these are some helpful methods, (It's different with everyone) : 

1. Use flashcards, go to a store that sells index cards.. write the question on one side then the answer on the other.. flip through them over and over again.. until you have everything engraved in your mind. what's great about flashcards is that you can take them anywhere, when you're waiting in line at a store, or on the toilet, you can study them. 
2. Take notes while reading. it helps a lot when you're reading a section, and you want to remember something in particular, write a question down about it so you can sort of quiz yourself later on. please, do not re-write the text that you're reading. this is the difference between good and bad note-taking. if you copy the whole book, then you're just starting from scratch.. but if you write down keypoints, which could be from one word to a sentence to a question, that can help you remember things faster. "Keep It Short and Sweet." 
3. Find someone to help you out. Study with a fellow classmate or a friend. Two brains are better than one. it'll relieve some stress about cramming and it will benefit both of you. 
4. HIDE your movies and guitar and anything else in your room that can distract you from studying.. put on some light music if you'd like or if you're some people, maybe you like studying with complete silence. 
5. Take brief breaks between sections. when you're done studying a section or subject or whatever, take a quick 1 minute break, walk around in your room, stretch out, grab a snack. Your brain is like a computer, you want to allow some time for it to " settle in " your brain. once you feel refreshed, start the next one. 
6. Read things out loud. you may not have to literally shout out everything you read, but it helps a lot when you read something a loud, like you're reciting a speech or something, because speech helps it drill it in your head more efficiently. 
7. My most favorite method. (however, this may or may not work with you, depending the kind of person you are). read and scan through your text over and over again until your 2nd or 3rd time reading, you will start to remember the things that you have read before, and be like " oh yeah, i remember that " and when it's time to take the test, you will remember the things that you read and studied about. This helps because you are training your mind to retain information in a short amount of time and see how long it stays in your brain. 

Finally, when you have studied up and everything, you think you're good to go, and there's still enough of time (days) before the exam, don't stop, just keep studying, NOT cramming, read over, refresh your knowledge with your studies so that you don't go blank when it comes to taking the exams. 

I recommend not studying (but it's up to you personally) the day before the exams. It is just because you have spent days studying and your brain needs to recover from all the battle damage before taking the test. play your guitar, watch a movie, just don't stress out about the exams. and don't try to data-dump all the hard studying you've done which will become totally worthless. 

Important tips prior to taking your exam : 

GET A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP. from my experience, believe it or not, a good night's sleep helps the brain to be well-rested and strong for the difficult challenges you will face on exam day. you want to be able to focus and concentrate on the question rather than sleeping. PLEASE, don't stay up late. 

EAT A COMPLETE BREAKFAST. important as sleep. cereal and fruits will help you stay awake during exams. drink some OJ, don't eat a real heavy breakfast because you'll get the " ITIS " where you'll start to doze off because feeling full feels so good that you have to sleep. 

DO NOT STRESS OUT. the more you stress out, the more likely you will forget things. remember everything that you studied and you will succeed. If you are stumped on one question, remember it, skip it, and go back to it later, answer the easy ones first, sometimes the next question have a bit of a clue for the previous one. 

Once you have passed your exams (hopefully), reward yourself, this is the time to play your guitar, do whatever you want, because the hard part is over.