So it seems as if you’ve done all the preparation that you need to do on your exam checklist: you’ve incrementally studied way before, avoiding that dreaded overnighter, you’ve incorporated killer study habits, you’ve had a good night’s rest, eaten a hearty breakfast – is there anything else you can do to raise your chances of getting that elusive A?
Well, according to a research done back in 2010, exercise might just boost the possibility of you getting a higher grade! Hold on a second. Yes, we know that exercise does make the brain sharper, boosting cognitive and mental function. However, the aforementioned research actually takes that a bit further. Apparently, they’re suggesting that aerobic exercise right before the test, would boost scores of children, as opposed to not doing anything minutes before the exam.
The researchers repeated their tests with many different children, across different ages, and with more complex testing and measuring methods. However, the results always came back the same.
The MRIs showed exactly how it worked. In the brains of fit children, exists a significantly larger part that aids attention and focus, allowing the active children who would be running around right before a test, to coordinate thoughts and actions more fluidly. The children whom they observed had very similar variables, only the factor of being fit or not showed any significant difference to that part of their brains.
Obviously, this study has been isolated to children, and have yet to be proven on adults. However, the researchers genuinely believe that these parts of the brain work almost identically in both children and adults, hinting at the possibility that this carries on to adulthood. Exercise might just become one of the things in the examinee’s checklist of things to do before an exam in the future. Then again, it might not.
However, the research is quite promising. Despite all the controversy, though, it’s still a very widely accepted fact that aerobic exercise does indeed help cognitive processes and plays a significant role in mental ability. If you are desperately seeking ways to up your grade, though, you might just want to take the 15 minute walk to school.
