I was surfing around the web, searching for possible reasons for my not so good marks at college, and found an article which was very helpful to me. I'm going to select the essential ideas, but you can read the whole article here.
Researchers at the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff, United Kingdom, looked at the ability to recall information in the presence of different sounds.
The study found that participants performed worst while listening to music. They did the best in the quiet!
Music may impair cognitive abilities because if you're trying to memorize things, you may get thrown off by the changing words and notes in your chosen song.
When you hear something you like, it heightens your arousal and mood, which improves performance.
This research suggests that it might be better to study for an exam in quiet, or listen to music beforehand.
In conclusion: if you want to have a good study performance, you should listen to something you really like before you start studying, and not while you're doing it!
I should've known this in the last semester.. damn, lol.