One of the most effective ways of learning for exams is by making mistakes. I'm sure you've heard people say that we learn by making mistakes. 

So why should studying for exams involve making mistakes?

How many times have you heard people say "don't make mistakes"? Lots of times I bet. 

In tennis, and any sport, mistakes and correcting them, is called practice. You know immediately whether you've made a mistake in tennis when the ball goes out of court, and you try to correct that mistake the next time. This is called "learning how to play tennis". 

In other words, learning is simply a process of making mistakes, finding out what you don't know, and correcting. By the time you get to Wimbledon you would have made heaps of mistakes, but you'll be a very good tennis player. 

So, do you agree that the process of learning involves making mistakes?

In the sport of studying for exams, when do we get the opportunity to make mistakes? Yes! In the exam when its too late. We even get punished for those mistakes by having marks deducted.

Usually, we don't even get a chance to learn from the mistakes we made in the exam because we don't often have our exam papers handed back to us so we can see what mistakes we made! 

This quote by Robert Kiyosaki, well known author and accelerated learning expert, sums it up very nicely: "Our education system teaches riding a bicycle by lecturing on the subject for fifty hours, giving a written test, and then punishing the student for falling off". 

In other words were not given the opportunity to make mistakes, and to learn from them.

I decided that my study system should let me make as many mistakes as necessary and not be punished. If we consider making mistakes as learning experiences, then I'd have a study system, which practices the art of learning from mistakes. 

Mistakes tell you that you don't know something that you need to find out. If you have any doubts about how important making mistakes is in learning, you just have to look at the animal kingdom. You'll find lots of examples of young animals making mistakes and learning from the experience. 

So, instead of mistakes being punished and suppressed, they should be encouraged. Does your study system for exams allow you to learn from making mistakes? If not, you should modify it so you can benefit from this very useful and effective learning technique. 

How to study for exams guide