Consuming alcohol to the point of a hangover does not affect test scores the next morning, according to a study conducted by researchers at Boston University and Brown University released in late March.

Participants in the study scored no differently on a practice Graduate Record Exam and a quiz on a lecture after a night of drinking to a blood-alcohol content of .12 than they did without drinking any alcohol. But participants did show a slowing in reaction time.

The study examined 193 college students ages 21 to 24 over the course of four days and asked them to drink either beer or a non-alcoholic drink. The students then took a practice version of the GRE and a quiz on a lecture they heard in the afternoon prior. The participants took these exams both after a night of drinking alcohol and after a night without.

“We hypothesized that GREs wouldn’t be affected but the quiz on the lecture would be affected, and people would do worse under the alcohol condition because the knowledge they obtained was more recent,” said Jonathan Howland, a professor of community health sciences at Boston University and a lead researcher of the study.

The hypothesis was based on the difference in study time for the GRE and the quiz, Howland said. For the GRE, students learn the material over a long period of time, whereas the quiz in the study tested on information learned the same day the drinking took place.

Howland said he and the other researchers are happy they completed the study and most of the participants enjoyed taking part in the study. But he doesnÕt think the effect of the study will be large, he said.

“If I told you that smoking doesn’t cause Alzheimer’s disease, I don’t think a lot of people would start smoking,” Howland said. “It still causes lung cancer, emphysema. It’s sort of like, just because drinking six beers doesn’t affect your GRE testing the next day, (that) doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.”

Damaris Rohsenow, the other lead researcher on the study, a professor of community health and the associate director of the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown, said she thinks the results of the study will have little affect on students drinking the night before an exam.

“It hurts to have a hangover. It hurts to take a test. Do the math,” Rohsenow said. “You don’t want to have to take a test when you have a headache and are feeling fatigue.”

Though the study did not show test scores being affected, it did show a slowing in reaction times and attention that could affect the safety in driving or riding a bicycle the morning after drinking.

Rohsenow warned that these results only represent the blood-alcohol content of .12. Other levels may have different effects on test scores the next morning.

Rohsenow doubts students will drink to the point of acquiring a hangover before a test, but the study may serve to assure parents their children will not fail out of school if they drink, she said.

Alycia Hendricks, a senior retail management and marketing major at Syracuse University, said she usually doesn’t drink the night before a test. But given the results of the study, she said she would consider doing so if she felt prepared enough to not study the night prior to the exam.

“I don’t think I ever have gotten drunk the night before a test because most of the time I end up procrastinating and need to look things over,” Hendricks said. “But, if I studied beforehand and felt prepared, I wouldn’t see the harm in having a few drinks the night before.”

Though the outcome of the study may be little, Howland, one of the researchers, said the effects of alcohol have not been studied thoroughly and the team was able to find new information.

“We hypothesized there would be no effect with GREs, but with the quiz we found no effect either,” Howland said. “It’s more of a ‘hmm, how about that’ than a surprise.”

 

Published on April 11, 2010 at 12:00 pm