Top 5 Reasons Students Fail Exams

Every semester, in almost every major, you will be bombarded with exams. There isn’t much you can do to stop them; they will be coming for you. It is also likely the case that these exams count for a large part of your final grade. So, what is a college student to do? BE PREPARED. Below is a list of the top 5 reasons why people fail exams and how to avoid these pitfalls.

1. You do not study enough (or at all)

This is a situation easily remedied… study. Many students feel that they can pass a class without ever looking at the book, going to class or taking notes. For the most part, this is not true. Maybe in High School you had straight A’s and you never studied. College is different, you need to make sure that you read the book, go over notes and attend lecture.

When you go over your notes and read your book, make sure that you keep everything organized. One way you can do that is with the BookMarker. This nifty pen will let you take better notes, and add little flags to different areas in a book or notes for optimal organization. Dorm Co is here to help, check it out here and start taking better notes today: BookMarker.

2. Partying

Partying is great. Hanging out with your friends and people of the opposite sex is awesome. But while these activities are good for your social life, they can be killer on your academic life. If you have an exam the next day, it would be unwise to goof off instead of study. Drinking and partying might be fun at the time, but when you step into the room for the exam the next day, you may end up regretting the fact that you were “too busy” to study.

3. Sleep deprivation

This may be caused by partying, but what I mean here is chronic lack of sleep. Going to bed late and waking up early for classes will take a toll on your performance in school and on exams. One thing that you can do to combat this is to set up a sleep schedule: Go to bed every day around the same time, and make sure that you get about eight hours of sleep. If you are forced to wake up early for classes, go to bed earlier. You need to be able to get up and make it to class. So, stay off of late night Facebook and do your homework earlier in the day, the latter of which brings me to my next point.

4. Other classes

What’s this? It turns out that professors don’t care if you have two other exams the day theirs is scheduled. Some days you might have more than one exam and you have to do well on both. How can you do this? First, set up a schedule for studying (you can even combine this with a sleep schedule). Second, make sure that you allow yourself enough time to adequately study for both exams. Focusing on one and forgetting about the other will only hurt you in the end. However, while both exams need attention, make sure that you prioritize and study more for the class that you are having more trouble with.

5. Procrastination

There are probably many things that you’d rather do than study. In fact, even laundry and cleaning your room starts to look like fun when you have an exam. Sometimes you need to get your priorities straight. Giving yourself plenty of time to study before an exam is important. Cramming the night before may result in pulling an all-nighter and forgetting the information right after the exam. This sounds good in theory; however, it won’t work out well when you have a cumulative exam and need to remember everything from past tests.

Exams are scary things. They can be intimidating and that’s because they are so important. Exams are gauges to see how well the student is learning and how well the professor is teaching. If you fail an exam, remember it’s not the end of the world, but it will hurt your grade. Follow the steps outlined above and you will minimize your risk of failing an exam and doing poorly in a class.