5 Ways To Boost Brain Power While Studying

Mental gymnastics is essential for sharpening memory and enhancing thinking abilities. Playing memory games isn’t enough to boost the brain power. There are many other memory improvement exercises that keep the brain active and fortify the complex nerve connections.

SantaMonica, the most trusted global educational consultancy in Kerala, suggests five simple ways through which you can easily activate the brain’s little-used pathways and keep it fit and healthy.

Physical exercise is important: Improve the health of your brain by combining mental exercises with the physical ones, such as swimming, aerobics, running or cycling. It will boost the flow of oxygen, strengthen brain cells and stimulate new neuronal connections, making the brain sharper. Improved learning and memory skills will allow you to absorb more from books or lectures.

Socialise for better brain performance: Socialisation renders many cognitive benefits. Countless studies have proved that healthy relationships and meaningful interactions between individuals help in stimulating the brain cells. Active social life not only promises good emotional health, but also offers many memory-boosting advantages.

Keep a tab on stress: Your brain’s biggest enemy is stress. It affects the hippocampus, a part of the brain that’s primarily related with memory and spatial navigation. Stress busting, therefore, is extremely crucial. It might involve activities like breaking out of the monotonous daily routine, expressing your bottled-up feelings to dear ones, maintaining a healthy balance between work and leisure, making new friends, having a good laugh, trying new sports, meditating, and so on.

Do not ignore your health problems: Health and lifestyle imbalances lead to multiple mental disorders. Therefore, timely identification and treatment of health issues is very important for proper functioning of the brain. Ignoring health ailments will not only take a toll on your physical strength, but also affect memory and emotional stability.

Indulge in sound sleep and power naps: A good night’s sleep works magic when it comes to improved critical thinking, better creativity and enhanced memory consolidation. Also, taking some time out for a rejuvenating power nap in your busy day is enough to repair and replenish the brain cells for improved learning power and superior problem-solving abilities.

At Santa Monica Study Abroad PvtLtd, we have multiple teams of skilled educationists, trainers and counsellors who assist students in achieving their career aspirations. We help students with Scholarship Tests, Career counselling, Visa, Travel, Relocations, and, much more. Visit http://www.santamonicaedu.in for details.

GRE Essay Writing Tasks: How To Use The 30 Minutes

GRE refers to the competitive Graduate Record Examination for admissions in graduate schools in the US, the UK, Australia and Canada. GRE's Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) is specifically created to test a candidate’s critical thinking abilities and analytical writing skills. Sound written communication, thus, forms the basis of a GRE writing test .GRE’s Analytical Writing Section involves two writing tasks: Analyse an Issue and Analyse an Argument.

Breaking down the 30-minute AWA writing task

• Reading: 2 minutes
• Skim through the provided passage quickly
• Read it twice and retain some pointers in your mind
• Argument Task – Create a quick distinction between the main conclusion and the supporting premises
• Issue Task – Focus on the cause-and-effect relationship

Ideating: 5 minutes

• Brainstorm and create ideas
• Define your position on the given argument’s issue or analysis
• Design a rough outline in your mind
• Pick a single sentence to summarise the entire essay
• Generate a four-paragraph structure that has an introduction, two supporting sections, and a conclusion.

Typing: 20 minutes

• Follow varied vocabulary and sentence structure for different paragraphs and passages
• Elaborate the points that you noted while ideating
• Use a coherent rhetorical structure
• Stick to the specified word limit

Editing: 3 minutes

• Keep this time for proofreading and editing
• Do not write anymore
• Read the essay twice
• Check grammar and spellings
• Use formal English with precise and clear ideas

Points to remember

• The Writing section is not computer-adaptive
• Tests are marked by real examiners, not computers  
• No spell-check or grammar-check is available for the writing test
• Scores vary from 0-6

Ace the timing, and you’ll crack GRE. Get professional assistance from our experts at Santa Monica Study Abroad Pvt Ltd. The best overseas education agency in India, Santa Monica (Cochin) provides counselling and training to students to help crack, GRE, IELTS and PTE competitive exams.

How to Improve Problem Solving Skills

Problem solving is a vital skill in routine life, which is why employers are so keen on it. “Problem solving is all about applying logic to a given situation and come up with an intelligent solution”, says the owner of Santa Monica Study Abroad. The success of Apple’s Co-founder, Steve Jobs, lay in the fact that he was the greatest problem solver of his time. Therefore, many companies today are looking for problem solvers. Here is how you can utilize your time to enhance your problem-solving skills:

1. Identify the problem

In a nutshell, problem-solving skill is the ability to identify the nature of a problem, analyze it and plan an effective set of actions to address the prevailing challenges. Great problem solvers try to identify the nature of a specific problem which can be noticeably distinguished, tackled and ultimately solved.

2. Label the key elements of the problem

The next step in problem solving is an ability to break down the problem into smaller and more manageable bits by defining the key elements of the problem. It is a crucial step and a skill to develop both managerially and psychologically.

3. Analyze the possible solutions

Finding feasible solutions is a very tricky step in the problem-solving process, as initially it appears like most of the work is already done and the ultimate objective is close. Actually, you must not look for simplistic ways to deal with the elements of the problem. You should discover the most effective ways and change them into an opportunity to make a great success story.

4. Seek lessons to learn

Now, once the problem is solved, you must sit down with all your problem-solving strings and action plans, either alone or jointly if it is a group project. You must look back and see if there is a need to enhance the work that has been completed and learn lessons for future.