Studying Together, Winning Together!

Students who study in groups learn faster than students who study alone. If you don’t get a concept, you can immediately ask it from fellow group members who will help you understand it. Studying by yourself for an exam like NEET can be extremely boring and exhausting, especially when the syllabus is so vast and tedious. Becoming a part of study group can surely help you break this monotony and liven up your study sessions. 

When students prepare together in groups towards a common goal of learning, they tend to provide encouragement to each other to keep motivated.  In an efficient study group, where each member group commits to participate fully, students stay up to date to achieve their daily targets and prepare for quizzes and tests without cramming, as well as meeting their preparation goals in a timely manner. 

Darwin has always made sure to provide the best possible solution to all those aspirants who are preparing for NEET, AIIMS and other medical entrance exams. Apart from helping users with a rich question bank of more than 30,000+ quality MCQs, daily mock tests as per latest NEET pattern, revision tests, and on-spot analytics, Darwin had also introduced a feature called study circle which could help you fulfill the requirement of a study group, in a digital and efficient way. 

How it all started? 

It has been proven that students who are a part of study group feel more confident, comfortable and are more productive about reaching their academic goals. Arjun and Gautam, MCQdb’s co-founders, had realized this when they were a part of study group during their college days in IIT Bombay. So, while laying down the foundation of Darwin, they made sure to make study circle an integral part. 

According to Gautam, “Not understanding a concept/question and having no one around to resolve it, can be really frustrating at times. A major benefit of study group is being able to ask your friends if something doesn’t make sense during your NEET prep. Having someone to help you reinforce your mastery over weaker areas, saves majority of your preparation time. This theory formed the foundation for Study Circle.”

The Key Takeaways 

Darwin’s study circle analytics allows you to gauge not just your strengths and weaknesses but also allows you to see the performance of other members of your study circle. 

Arjun realized the necessity of this feature after interacting with several aspirants who used MCQdb’s app during their preparation. “In last year’s test, many users shared how they would sit together and solve the test together on the app. They will sit next to each other and say, ‘Option A is the right answer of this question. What do you think? How many MCQs did you attempt? What was your score?’ and several questions like these.”  

Apart from this, Study Circle allows you to create a challenge for you and your group members, where you can select topic(s), number of questions & even define a time limit.  

Track Each Other’s Progress 

Many students derive energy from being around other people and look forward to how others are performing. Being a part of study circle makes you more accountable and focus more with a healthy competition. Usually, while competing against each other, students can only see who won, not by how much. Darwin tried to be more transparent about who does what in a study circle; A way in which students can see how close they came to achieve their goals while competing against each other. Study Circle of Darwin enables members to compete as well track each other’s progress via leader board section. 

Apart from the score of custom challenges and test, it also allows to have a glance at total learning period on Darwin of all group members, for every single day.  

Balance – Studying and Socializing 

It is recommended to keep a study group between 4 to 6 people for maximum efficiency. With 4 to 6 people in your group, you can minimize socialization as well as maximize individual contribution. We decided to limit the capacity of study circle with 5 users at max, as bigger groups will not enable members to contribute as much and organization can be a big issue. On the other hand, members of a smaller groups will tend to socialize more.  

Best for those who tend to Procrastinate 

Being a part of study circle no doubt, makes you more accountable, especially when procrastinate a lot. There are, of course, other ways to create engagement and motivation, but nothing more efficient than preparing and competing with friends. If alone, a student could skip daily mock tests, might not prepare enough or put off regular practicing. However, when they are a part of study group, they got to be more accountable for each test and must be prepared to contribute to the study session. When you surround yourself by friends who are making an effort to score better for a highly competitive exam like NEET, it creates a peer pressure and motivates you to perform better too. 

There are always ways to enhance your studying methods/techniques in your study skills. Joining a study group will provide you the perfect opportunity to observe a wide variety of study methods and incorporate those techniques into your regimen. 

We hope study circle is the interesting beginning of how we can make competitions about more than winning. 

We haven’t yet addressed all the benefits of study circle in this post, nor have we begun to explore the advantages that can be gained through it. Team Darwin is rigorously working on study circle to make it even better with additional community-based benefits so that students can make the most out of it in future.  

If you also have a suggestion/advice, feel free to share it with us at [email protected] 

So, what are you waiting for? Create your Study Circle, invite friends, create a challenge, set a goal and crush it together!