EDU10445: Strategies for Study Management - Critical Evaluation

This essay critically evaluates four study management strategies employed by a student during their Preparing for Success Program (PSP). The essay delves into the effectiveness of meditation, adequate sleep, pen-to-paper note-taking, and physical exercise as tools for academic success and exam preparation. The student reflects on the implementation of each strategy, referencing scholarly sources to highlight their strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, the essay outlines how these strategies can be adapted and improved for future academic endeavors, emphasizing their role in enhancing focus, concentration, and overall performance. The essay highlights the importance of these strategies in improving memory recall, reducing anxiety, and building confidence, ultimately leading to better exam results and a more effective approach to learning.

Running head: STRATEGIES FOR STUDY MANAGEMENT
Strategies for Study Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1STRATEGIES FOR STUDY MANAGEMENT
Preparing for an examination can be a daunting experience, while studying for a unit test
or assessment the night before is no less of an intimidating experience either. I for one, am a
person who is quite easily susceptible to pressure and who can crack easily on the night before a
test or an examination, even if I am well prepared. Of late however, I have been making use of a
number of strategies for managing my studies, especially on the eve of crucial events like an
examination, which have turned out to be quite effective and useful and which I will therefore
discuss and reflect on in detail, in the course of this essay.
One of the most important and effective study management strategies that I have utilized
is the art of meditation. I have engaged in the use of meditation on the night before a
mathematics examination and I have found that it has helped me to focus and concentrate on
numbers far more easily and quickly than I was able to before. Indeed much of the fright
associated with a math exam was combated for me because of the fact that I took recourse to
meditation to improve my ability to concentrate. Meditation is an activity that helps an individual
to gain calm over his sense of being and it assists in the improvement of concentration skills
while leading to a significant enhancement in attention span at the same given time (Valone,
2019). The weaknesses of meditation are few in number but it can be said that the only
weakness associated with this particular strategy is that it takes a long time to master (Farias,
2019). I for one had to practice meditation over a span of three to four weeks in order to be able
to engage in it for ten to fifteen minutes at a stretch. I will make use of mediation in the near
future, if I have a mathematics exam again to sit for or any other examination that requires me to
focus on numbers and to think logically and rationally. The use of meditation definitely proved
to be effective on the night prior to the math exam. I was able to concentrate on what I was

2STRATEGIES FOR STUDY MANAGEMENT
studying, I slept well and I was able to answer the exam questions the next day with a
considerable degree of ease and calmness.
The second most important study strategy that I have made use of at the time of preparing
for an examination is to sleep well on the night before an examination. I know that a lot of
people stay awake up to the wee hours of the night, studying and cramming every detail written
in their textbooks into their brains so that they are able to answer the exam questions well the
next day. However, my strategy was to get enough sleep, that is, at least, six to eight hours of
sleep on the night before the exam. According to academics and people who are employed in the
teaching profession, getting a good night’s sleep before an exam or a test or any important
activity is imperative as it helps to get the individual to be calm, to relax his nerves and to face
the ordeal that he is about to face with the tranquility that allows for success rather than failure.
Impatient and anxious exam participants are often seen to answer their questions incorrectly even
though they may be knowing the right or correct answers all along, all because of the feeling of
nervousness that prevails (Ashworth et al., 2015). Thus the attribute or strategy of sleeping well
on the night before a test is one that is positive in nature. The only weakness that comes with this
particular strategy is that it can make a person a bit too relaxed or complacent before the exam,
not providing the person with the alertness that is needed to pay attention to what is being asked
in the course of the exam (Ashworth et al., 2015). However, this weakness is rare. To sum up, I
found the strategy of sleeping well one night prior to giving a test or exam very effectively. It
worked quite well for me and it helped me to remember of the things that I had studied the
evening before.
The third vital strategy that I put to use in order to do better in my studies was to put pen
to paper. This meant jotting down on a piece of paper all the important points of the subject

3STRATEGIES FOR STUDY MANAGEMENT
matter that I am studying, at the time of study. While I know that many people take recourse to
the use of a laptop or a netbook to do this, I am old fashioned in this sense and have a diary and a
pen which I use for this purpose. Whenever I read a scholarly text I make it a point to underline
the phrases and the words that I find difficult and jot down the key points that are being made by
the author in the diary or notepad. This helps me to remember all the crucial points pertaining to
a specific academic text and I am able to frame and write my answers to questions in
examinations far better as a result of doing so (Curcic & Platt, 2019). At any rate, this is a
strategy that has helped me to improve both my writing as well as concentration skills.
The final important strategy that I have made use of, and which has helped me to perform
better academically, is to exercise. By this I mean physical exercise. While this may seem
surprising it is actually not so. I have partaken in physical exercises on the night before an
English examination. While English is not a subject that I find very difficult, I always get
nervous before any exam and decided to hit the gym to do some exercising before appearing for
my test the next day. According to experts, physical exercise especially rigorous physical
exercise is something that works up the muscles, and relieves all the stressful energy that is pent
up in the body and this is something that I found to be quite true (Wilson et al., 2016). I
exercised for about two to three hours at a stretch and I found that the next day, I was not only
quite calm and composed before the test but was also able to sit for it without feeling any sense
of anxiety or agitation or doubting myself. Exercising made me calm, helped me to study all
essentials in a proper manner, and boosted my confidence, enabling me to sit for my test as a
successful candidate (Ruegsegger & Booth, 2018).
Thus, the strategies that I have mentioned above, such as exercising, meditation, getting
adequate sleep and putting pen to paper are all strategies that have stood me in good stead when

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it comes to studying for my degree and studying for examinations in particular. I have been
positioned to remember course content effectively and use them in the manner desired to answer
exam questions better than ever before with the help of the various strategies that I have
discussed in this essay and which I will continue to use in the near future.

5STRATEGIES FOR STUDY MANAGEMENT
References
Ashworth, A., Hill, C.M., Karmiloff-Smith, A. and Dimitriou, D., 2015. The importance of
sleep: attentional problems in school-aged children with Down syndrome and Williams
syndrome. Behavioral sleep medicine, 13(6), pp.455-471.
Curcic, S. and Platt, S., 2019. Improving Writing: Focus on Elementary-School African
American Male Students with a Learning Disability. International Journal for Research
in Learning Disabilities, 4(1), pp.59-73.
Farias, M., 2019. The Buddha pill: Can meditation change you?. Watkins.
Ruegsegger, G.N. and Booth, F.W., 2018. Health benefits of exercise. Cold Spring Harbor
perspectives in medicine, 8(7), p.a029694.
Valone, T. F. (2019). Modern Meditation Training. The Wiley Handbook of Global Workplace
Learning, 415.
Wilson, M.G., Ellison, G.M. and Cable, N.T., 2016. Basic science behind the cardiovascular
benefits of exercise. Br J Sports Med, 50(2), pp.93-99.