How to study to get the best results in exams

As a student entrepreneur, I tend to draw similarities between what is required of an entrepreneur and of a student. The key trait of both is that the one who succeeds is not always the most intelligent but the one who plans and prepares the best.

Exams can be stressful, especially because your grades can potentially determine your career choices and higher education journey. 

To excel as a student it is important to try to be a smart worker rather than a hard worker.

The most clichéd yet most effective tip to prepare for exams is to create a timetable and to-do list of everything you want to study in a day. This list provides you with direction and motivation because the satisfaction of checking off each task on a to-do list is unmatched.  

Within this to-do list, it is important to mix up your tasks to break up the monotony. Subjects or topics should be arranged as a mix of easy and hard or between theoretical and practical to keep your attention and focus.

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Beyond a to-do list, students can use an approach called the Pomodoro Technique, which breaks your study into four sets of 25 minutes. This is relevant for those with shorter attention spans. I learned about this technique during my exchange experience at Indiana University, facilitated by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).