The most important organ inside of your body is the brain, especially when it comes to the time when you are needing to sit an exam and need to recall some information. In order to ensure that this never happens to you, it is important that you do the necessary amount of revision before hand to be able to biohack your brain.
Whilst conducting some in depth revision, there are a number of things (or hacks) that you can do in order to make the information stick in your brain. These are all based on proven science relating to the functionality and physiology of the organ.
For those individuals who have the aim of doing well on the mcat they should follow the hacks below:
Do Lots of Practice
Practice reading through all of the content that you need to learn and how best to put that down on an examination paper. It is often the case that many students spend far too much time absorbing the content but not practicing their writing technique, thus not being able to transfer their knowledge. It is also important to practice how to impress the examiner looking at your exam paper. Just like anything in life, the more and more that you practice these things, the better that you become at them. This works thanks to your procedural memory when you biohack your brain.
Revise Just Before Bed
By going to sleep straight after doing your revision, you will be able to recall it better when it comes to doing so. So rather than doing large stints of revision and then getting very little sleep at night, it is better to take your books into the bath with you just before getting into bed at night so that the information goes straight into your brains and stays there. This is down to the workings of the hippocampus region of the organ, which place memories into your brain.
Use Association
At its very best, the human brain is able to hold anywhere between six and seven pieces of information at any one time. However, what is considered a ‘piece’ varies from person to person and so it can actually be quite a bit of information. The key to putting large sets of data or ideas together into a single piece is through the mental process of association, so that you are able to easily recall it at will. This theory holds true for long term memory and so is perfect for use in an examination setting. The reason why it is an effective method of remembering information is that the brain works via a large system of networks and by using the association method, you are able to create a new network.
Other ‘hacks’ that can help your brain absorb more information for the purposes of revision include spreading out your revision work to give yourself enough time for breaks, using visual aids. This is especially true if you are a visual learner. Armed with all of these techniques you should be able to make the most of your chance of doing well on and passing the mcat.
