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REAL LIFE NEWS: HANGOVERS DON'T AFFECT EXAMS

by Hazed

Here's a survey that will make students everywhere sigh with relief. Apparently, getting drunk the night before an exam does not affect your performance.

The research was carried out by researchers in Boston, who says that this is the first study to examine the connection between academic performance and drinking in a controlled experiment.

They gave 193 students either beer or non-alcoholic beer, then made them sit a test the next day. A week later they repeated the experiment, this time swapping over the kind of drink each student got.

The beer drinkers reached average breath-alcohol levels of 0.12 which is the equivalent of drinking about 7 pints over the course of four hours.

"The result was that intoxication in the evening did not affect the students' next day scores on academic tests requiring long-term memory, or on tests of recently learned material."

Great news. Cheers, make mine a double!

Except that the professors were a bit worried by these results, and eager to prevent students immediately rushing out to down as much booze as they could afford, they qualified the result:

"We do not conclude that excessive drinking is not a risk factor for academic problems. It is possible that a higher alcohol dose would have affected next-day academic test scores. Moreover, test-taking is only one factor in academic success. Study habits, motivation and class attendance also contribute to academic performance; each of these could be affected by intoxication."

Spoilsports.

Still, if this experiment stops the killjoys in their attack on all the things that make you feel good then it is excellent news.

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