Binge Drinking and Exam Performance

The effects of binge drinking on college students' next-day academic test-taking performance and mood state.

Contrary to popular belief, college students do not drink as much as people the same age who do not attend college; however, studies have shown that college students binge drink more than non college young adults.  This aggressive drinking behavior leads problems, such as injury, death, legal problems, property damage, and physical confrontations, but among all of these none are as frequent and prominent as poor academic performance.

Reckless drinking behavior results in missing classes, poor attentiveness when students attend class, and less time spent towards classwork.  While tolerance and amount of alcohol consumed vary from student to student, the average effects of academic performance are noticeable; however, a surprising characteristic of student binge drinking and test taking, based on the study, indicates that binge drinking the night before an exam does not have a serious impact on the result of the test.  While the study indicates this odd observation, student motivation, attentiveness, and awareness are all lower than students who were in the control group.  This is most likely the group of sleep deprivation and poor REM sleep when sleep is attained.  In conclusion, even though the study indicates that test taking skills are not downgraded by excessive drinking the night before exams, the time spent drinking could be better allocated towards additional test preparation or additional sleep to benefit exam performance.  Another key characteristic of participants in the study is all of the people were over the age of twenty one, which suggests that they have been exposed to alcohol in the past and their bodies were suit to handle the alcohol better than younger college students.

Works Cited:

John Hermos, et al. "The Effects Of Binge Drinking On College Students' Next-Day Academic Test-Taking Performance And Mood State." Addiction 105.4 (2010): 655-665. Academic Search Alumni Edition. Web. 27 May 2013.