Find out what study techniques you can use to make your next exams a success. Preparing in advance is essential to ensure that you get that good grade you want to achieve. The better prepared you are for the exam, the less nervous you will be when you take it. Take advantage of these study tips.

It's always the same when CCNP 350-401 exam time approaches. Nerves are inevitable, you want to pass them and you want to do it with the highest grade possible, but you don't know how to study... Are you one of those who wait until the last minute to start? If there is something that can ensure your success in your next exams is to start studying in advance and making use of some of the most common study techniques.

What are the best study techniques?

There are many effective study techniques you can use to prepare for your upcoming exams. Choosing any of them and putting them into action will bring you much closer to the possibility of passing that exam you have pending. And you can even get a good grade. Do you want to know what they are? We recommend you to keep reading and also download the following free Ebook that we provide you from Universia.

10 techniques and tips to study:

Use 350-401 dumps: Exam dumps allow you to get closer to the type of questions that may appear in the test, and to think about the answers beforehand. There are times when you have the possibility of accessing exams from other years. Or even previous ones from the same year. That way you can understand what is the format generally proposed by the teaching team, giving you the possibility to create a simulation exam.

Make combinations: If you have many topics to study, you can divide your study days in different moments that allow you to study them simultaneously. A time slot for one subject, another for another... until the study session is complete. This way you will avoid forgetting the things you studied at the beginning. Reinforce this technique by writing down by hand the most important ideas.

Remember your voice - Record yourself: Learn the songs in the same way you learn a song. Don't you listen to it over and over again, paying attention to how the singer says it? Do the same with your songs, you can even record yourself saying the whole song and then listen to yourself. This way you will be able to relate the questions more quickly to those songs you have been listening to for so long. We know that not everyone likes our recorded voice but you should try this technique.

Writing can be a great exercise: Writing by hand is what we mean. Visual memory is a very important factor, so the best thing you can do is to exercise it. If you write by hand on a sheet of paper the important ideas of each topic and also use colors or drawings you will be able to see the concepts in a clearer way. You can also complete it with information from books. This way you will ensure the assimilation of the most important ideas and you will be able to visualize them once you are in front of the exam.

Divide the stimuli: Assuming that you have 4 hours to study today and that the first three hours are dedicated to the study of new topics and the last one to review them. We recommend that the last one be separated from the other two. In that case you would be duplicating the daily stimulus to two different study periods and that can help you to fix knowledge since the review part can be done better rested than if you try to do it after 3 hours of reading or studying.

Rewrite or explain to someone else: It is a way to fix what you have learned and at the same time to notice where you need to reinforce the study a little more. These are ways of self-evaluating, while at the same time perhaps helping someone else. Standing from the side of the person who listens to the explanation is also a good exercise, going back to receive the contents and also correcting in case of error or doubt.

Making outlines / structures: These are better fixed in the brain, so they can be easier to remember.

Key associations: Previous knowledge on a topic allows linking it with new aspects. It is easier to retain information if it does not accumulate too much, therefore, it is advisable to review what you saw the previous class before attending the next one. Continuity has positive effects on memory because it strengthens connections.

Reading aloud: As we said before, involving different senses in retaining information will help you retrieve it later. Reading aloud implies that your eyes and ears are participating in the process to apply the data when necessary. You can even use this method when studying with other people, so that everyone concentrates their attention on the same subject.

Memorization techniques:

While reading and repeating ad nauseam are the main or best known memorization techniques, and have already been surpassed by others and falling into disuse, there are other study techniques related to memory that can be very effective:

Study techniques for people with visual memory: using highlighters to differentiate subjects. The use of audiovisual material. Making flashcards. Create concept maps and infographics. Eliminate distractions and take notes by hand to pay real attention.

Educational materials such as videos, documentaries, infographics, photos, maps and graphics that require the eye to use, help to digest the information more quickly. In addition, messages are conveyed more quickly and overall comprehension is improved. Involving the senses in the learning process makes it easier to recall a memory. Remember the famous saying: a picture is worth a thousand words.

Push your memory: Before jumping into your textbooks and class notes, read the table of contents and see how much you remember about each topic. When you include the material in the review, it will be easier to understand it because your memory has already been forced to retrieve some of the information.

Handwriting: Writing ideas on paper requires more effort than doing it on a computer, because you invest more time and your brain participates more actively in remembering the shapes of the letters, arranging the physical space of the paper and adding symbols created by you to act as winks. It is a method fundamentally linked to comprehension.

In addition to study techniques, there are other tips that we know and want to give you, which are related to the study and can help you to get better results in your CCNP exams. We leave them here below:

How to study better:

1. Slow, organized and safe: Do you have the feeling that so far every time you study, you forget everything at once? This is very common when you do it just a few days before the exam. If you really want the knowledge to be fixed in your memory, you should start much earlier.

Why not create a study routine? By dedicating some of your time to it every day, you will be able to assimilate the knowledge progressively. Then, when the time comes to take the 350-401 encor exam, you will not have to dedicate marathon days to study, but you will be able to read and review everything you have learned so far.

2. Find a meaning: We assure you that everything you are going to study has a meaning. Of course, you won't find it if you study just before this CCNP exam. Take your time to read thoroughly and you will be able to realize how each topic is related to the previous and the next one. This will make you process the information better and be able to reason it out. This way you will be able to understand the material much better and you will not have to learn it by heart without making any sense of it.

3. Change the place: Almost everyone always chooses the same place to study. A place where you can concentrate, where there is silence.... But there are scientific studies that show that there is no place better than another to study, but that changing location favors the study. It is a way to encourage the brain to work at full capacity so that the knowledge is more affirmed in the memory.

4. Review at night: Yes, we believe that before going to sleep the best thing you can do is to distract yourself after the whole day. Check your social networks, watch a movie, read something? And why not do a review? We are not saying that you should do it just before going to sleep, but reading as a review of what you have studied during the day can help you to fix your knowledge better. During sleep the brain fixes the knowledge acquired during the day so? Why not take advantage of it?

5. study schedule: There are many people who find that the study routine and having non-flexible schedules for it, is the way they get better results. Being those hours of study, all the other pending activities are relegated and allows that the concentration can be greater. It also eliminates in some way the possibility of the typical self-boycott of saying "I do that first and then study". The hours chosen can be at any time of the day, and it is necessary to try them all to know where we have better concentration.

6. group discussions: Share with your friends what you have learned, forming study groups in which you discuss the different contents to explain to each other those ideas that you do not fully understand. You can resort to a face-to-face meeting or take advantage of new technologies to set up Internet forums, Facebook groups or Skype or Hangouts conversations.

These study techniques are very easy to apply so you should not hesitate to try them. The key? Prepare everything well in advance to avoid last minute nerves and stress.