Studying Tactics to Help Your Brain Retain Information When Preparing for an NCEES Exam

If you're preparing for an FE, PE, or SE NCEES exam, you've probably recently been searching for the best studying tips. 

Psychologically speaking, it's important to find tactics that help your brain retain information better or to learn concepts better. We've broken out 3 studying tactics and tips that will help your brain retain the information needed to pass your chosen NCEES exam: 

Table of Contents

1. Quiz Yourself Prior to a Study Session

2. Switch Up Your Studying Environment

3. Avoid Long Study Sessions

1. Quiz Yourself Prior to a Study Session 

It's common practice to test yourself after a study session to see what you've actually learned. While that is still a good practice, quizzing yourself before you actually start your study session is extremely beneficial. By quizzing yourself prior, you will be able to gauge what information you retained while not studying. The results of the pre-study quiz can also help determine what you need to focus on in that specific study session. Finding an online quizzing tool for an NCEES exam is a great way to quiz yourself prior to a study session. 

2. Switch Up Your Studying Environment 

Are you one to study in just one place? Perhaps at the same desk or at the same coffee shop? While familiarity may seem like a good thing while studying, studies have shown that studying in differing environments can actually help you psychologically. 

By changing your study environment periodically, you're allowing your brain to retrieve the same information, but in different environments. This helps program your brain that the information it is retrieving in different environments must be important. 

3. Avoid Long Study Sessions

If you're one to study hours upon hours at a time, your efforts may not be as rewarding as you think. You may think that by studying in large chunks, you are covering a large amount of material. This is true, but it's not likely that your brain can retain much information after you study for hours. In layman's terms, don't overload your brain! 

Instead of trying to cram information in a longer study session, try studying for only an hour at a time. In fact, neurologists found in a study that the hippocampus region of the brain encoded brain synapses much easier when a subject studied in smaller intervals when compared to a subject studied for hours at a time. 

So, instead of studying for 4 hours at a time, for example, try studying one hour at a time with 20-30-minute breaks in between sessions. During your study breaks, take a walk, watch TV, or eat a snack- pretty much dedicate your break time to allow your brain to rest. 

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