I Kept Studying More. My Marks Kept Getting Worse.
I kept increasing my study hours but my marks stayed the same. Once I started testing myself instead of endlessly rereading, I studied less and learned more.
Where it started
I used to think the answer to bad marks was pretty obvious: study more. So after getting a test result I wasn't happy with, I started doing exactly that. Longer hours, more chapters, more notes. I would sit at my desk for hours and feel productive just because I hadn't moved. But somehow my marks weren't improving.
Where I got stuck
The annoying part was that I genuinely felt like I was working hard. I'd read the same page three times. Highlight half the chapter. Watch another explanation because the first one 'didn't fully click.' Then I'd open an actual question and get stuck. That made me study even longer. For a while I blamed my memory. Then the teacher. Then the difficulty of the paper. It took me a stupidly long time to admit that maybe my way of studying was the problem.
What changed
I stopped measuring study sessions by hours. Instead, I started measuring them by what I could actually do afterwards. Could I solve the question without looking? Could I explain the topic without opening the book? Could I remember it two days later? I also started doing questions much earlier instead of waiting until I felt "fully prepared." At first it was uncomfortable because I got a lot wrong. But at least now I knew what I didn't know.
After that
My study hours actually went down. My scores went up. More importantly, studying stopped feeling like this endless thing where I was always behind. I still have days where I waste time pretending to study. I'm not magically disciplined now. I just... catch myself quicker.
What stayed with me
Working hard and learning aren't always the same thing. Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is stop counting how long you studied and check whether you can actually use what you learned.
