#HOW TO STUDY# Studying is not reading. It requires a more intense and organised effort. To study effectively, you must have good planning, memory, reading, note taking and time management skills. To study effectively you must master certain skills: planning, memorising, time management, note taking, and sometimes managing stress. Everyone has a different “learning style”. Consequently, everyone has a different “studying style”. But the way that you are studying right now might not be the best for you. How would you know? Easy: If your grades aren’t what you’d like them to be, then you probably need to change how you study! A). A Good Study Place Although studying in a sitting room or dormitory room (for students in boarding schools), is convenient, it is often a poor place to learn. The dorm/sitting room has a plethora of distractions including sweet voices of your singing friends. If you want to improve your concentration and efficiency as a student, learn to study from the class, library or any other quiet place. You need a good study place to be prepared to study. You should be able to answer YES to all of the following questions: 1. Is my study place free from interruptions? It is important to have uninterrupted study time. You must maintain silence in class. Research shows that most students study best in a quiet environment. Study at the same time and at the same place, devoted to study only. This helps you to associate the time and place with studying and concentrating. You will find that you get into a habit of studying as soon as you sit down. However, change of environment may help in managing stress. 2. Does my study place contain all the study materials I need? Be sure your study place includes reference sources and supplies such as pens and pencils, paper, ruler, calculator, and whatever else you might need. 3. Does my Study Space contain a clean desk or table? While working on an assignment or studying for a test, use a desk that is free from other distractive materials. Allow enough room for writing and try to avoid clutter. You need enough room to store your study materials. Be sure you have enough storage space to allow you to keep your desktop or other work surface clear of unnecessary materials that can get in the way. 4. Does my Study Place have a comfortable chair? A chair that is not comfortable can cause discomfort or pain that will interfere with your studying. A chair that is too comfortable might make you sleepy. Select a chair in which you can sit for long periods while maintaining your attention. You need a good posture for reading. DO NOT SIT ON TOP OF YOUR DESK OR READING TABLE. Just like an athlete during a performance, your body should be relaxed, so that all your energy goes to where it matters – YOUR BRAIN. 5. Does my study place have enough light? The amount of light you need depends on what you are doing. The important thing is that you can clearly see what you need to see without any strain or discomfort. 6. Does my Study Place have a comfortable temperature? If your study place is too warm, you might become sleepy. If it is too cold, your thinking may slow down and become unclear. Keep your body at the temperature at which your mind and body function best. (E.g. on a hot afternoon remove your sweater) B) Manage Your Time Schooling is a full-time job. And managing your time is important. If you have an activity after class that you do just for fun or if you participate in co-curricular activities (whether school-related or not), keep your priorities in mind: Your academic work should come first! Set yourself a grade goal. If you don’t meet it, cut down on some of the activities you are involved in. C) Take Notes in Class & always Rewrite during prep time Good studying begins with good notes taken in class. Just as everyone has a different learning style, different teachers have different teaching styles: Some teachers lecture, some lead discussions, some “facilitate” individual work (as in a lab), etc. Consequently, different classroom settings will require different note-taking techniques. The following are some of the suggestions: i. Take Complete Notes The key idea of taking good notes in class is to write down as much as possible. There are several reasons to take notes that are as complete as possible: 1. It will force you to pay attention to what’s going on in class. 2. It will keep you awake (!) 3. There will be less that you’ll have to memorize that time since you have a reference. 4. It enhances understanding when you review your notes. But if you have incomplete notes, it will be hard for you to learn what you didn’t take notes on. ii. Ask questions and make comments If you have a question or something comes to mind as you’re taking notes, you have two choices: You can contribute to the class discussion by asking your question or making your comment. Or you can jot your question or comment down in your notes. I suggest always doing the latter, but also doing the former as often as possible. One reason that you should always put your question or comment in your notes is so that you won’t forget it; you can then always bring it up later, either in class or one-on-one with the teacher or a fellow student. By the way, if you have a question, especially if you need clarification of something that the teacher said or wrote (possibly because it was inaudible or illegible), ask it! Do not be embarrassed about asking it! I can guarantee you that there will be at least one other student in the class (and often many more) who will be extremely grateful to you for having asked the very same question that they were too embarrassed to ask, and they will come to view you as wise and brave for having asked it. (So will the teacher!) D) Study the Subjects that you feel challenging First Each night (or day) when studying or doing your homework, do those subjects first for which you need to be alert and energetic. E) Read Actively, Not Passively By ‘text’, I mean whatever you have to read: It might be a text book, a work of fiction, a poem, an essay, an article from a journal or magazine, or even a class handout. With one major exception, you should not read passively. That is, don’t just read the text straight through without thinking about what you’re reading. There are some other tricks for active reading: i) Highlight important points or interesting passages. ii) Make Notes in the Margin if it is your own note book F) Read before and after class Ideally, you should read the topic to be taught, before and after the lesson. G) Do your homework It should go without saying that you should do your homework and do it on time and do it well. H) Studying for exams • Manage Your Time When you have exams, time management becomes even more crucial. Begin studying early enough before the exams start. Try to spend the entire prep time (night or day) before the exam studying for it. If you have two exams on the same day, you’ll have to split the time in half. For final exams, try to spend as much time as possible studying. Do not be tempted, by any free time that you have during exam week, to do anything other than studying. (If you must take some time to relax, do it after you’ve done all your studying for the day.) If you have some free days, then some exams, then some more free days, then some more exams, etc., plan your studying so that you’ll spend approximately the same amount of time studying for each exam, making sure that the night (or day) just before an exam is spent studying for it. e.g., suppose you have two free days to study before exam number 1 then one more free day before exams no 2 and no 3. Think of each day as having 3 parts: morning, afternoon, and evening. Let’s assume that each exam is in only one of these parts (i.e., it’s not so long that it extends through 2 of them). You might divide your studying time as shown in the chart. Note that you should not delay studying for exam no 3 until after exam no 2; start studying for all exams right away. DAY PART OF DAY WHAT TO DO Day 1 Morning study for exam no 1 afternoon study for exam no 2 Evening study for exam no 3 Day 2 Morning study for exam no 1 afternoon study for exam no 2 or no.3 (or both) Evening study for exam no 1 Day 3 Morning study for exam no 1 afternoon take exam no 1 Evening study for exam no 2 Day 4 Morning study for exam no 3 afternoon study for exam no 2 Evening study for exam no 3 Day 5 Morning study for exam no 2 Afternoon take exam no 2 Evening study for exam no 3 Day 6 take exam no 3 • Make a study outline Use your recopied class notes, together with your highlighted text and notebook, to make an outline of the material. Try to put as much as possible onto the front sides of only 1 or 2 papers in form of short notes. Then do all your studying from these. • Write sample essays and do sample problems For subjects in which you will be expected to write essays, either “psych out” the teacher and make up some plausible essay questions, or get copies of old exams that have real essay questions on them. Write sample essays. Although the essay questions that you find or make up may not be the actual ones on your exam, you will probably find that much of what you wrote in your sample essays by way of preparation for the exam can be recycled for the actual exam. You will then be in the advantageous position during the exam of not having to create an essay answer from scratch but being able to merely recall the main ideas from a sample that you have already written as part of your studying. For subjects in which you will have to solve problems or write proofs, solve lots of sample problems from your text or from other text books are usually quite good in this regard. How will you know if your answers are correct? The best way is to form a study group of four to five fellow students: Solve the same problems and compare answers. If your answers agree, they’re probably correct; if not, go to your teacher. If you feel you are slow in learning it’s always better to ask for help from a teacher and have a specific problem or question to ask. • Make “Flash Cards” For any subject, you can make a set of “flash cards” or use the ordinary paper. Divide each page in half, vertically. On the left, write a “question” that requires an “answer”, e.g., a term to be defined, the statement of a law, etc. On the right, write the answer, (This could even be your study outline.) Memorize the questions and answers — but do not simply recite them by heart. Instead, write down the answers: Cover the right-hand side (the answers) with a blank sheet of paper, and write down the answers. When you finish a page, check your work and repeat writing the answers to the questions you missed until you get them all correct. People learn by making mistakes, so don’t worry about getting some answers wrong! Why write, and not merely recite? Because you will have to write the answers on the actual test; get used to writing them now. (If it’s going to be an oral exam, reciting may be better than writing. Still, one tends to skip details when reciting, especially if you recite silently to yourself, but if you write the answers and have a good memory, then, during an oral exam, you can “read” the answers with your mind’s eye.) • Work as a team Sharing information increases knowledge and deepens our understanding. You should have study groups (Group Discussion) of 4 members. • Eat frequent small meals Avoid eating a big meal before a study session. Too much food will send your body into a ‘rest’ mode. On the other hand, don’t starve yourself either. Frequent small meals are best. Eat a balanced diet. AVOID JUNK FOODS. • Have sufficient sleep You should have enough sleep. At least sleep 6- 8hours a day. • Study when you’re Sharpest Study according to your body clock. Are you sharpest in the morning or in the evening? Schedule your most challenging subjects when you are mentally at your best, and schedule the easier ones when you are mentally less efficient. • Drink water often Drink plenty of water during a study session, especially when you feel sluggish. • Take breaks It is important to take a break before you feel tired and lose your concentration completely. A regular break helps to sustain your concentration. If the work is not going too well and you have difficulties in concentrating, you may need a long break and go back to it later by reading something you find fun. • Stretch during your breaks Know and respect your concentration span which will vary from hour to hour and from day to day. When you sit for long periods, gravity draws the blood to the lower part of your body. When you take a break, take a few deep breaths and get more oxygen to your brain: try walking around and doing some light stretching for a few minutes. It will help to release tension in your body, and help your circulation. • Feel confident How do you know when you’ve studied enough? It’s not when you’re tired of studying! And it’s not when you’ve gone through the material one time! You should stop only when you get to the point that you feel confident and ready for whatever will be on the exam—when you’re actually eager to see the exam to find out if you guessed its contents correctly. • Prayer One must develop a personal dynamic prayer life. Be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education. As Santayana put it; “Prayer is not a substitute for work; it is a desperate effort to work further and to be efficient beyond the range of one’s powers”. Therefore, prayer is a means of adding power to the strength we already possess. Sometimes we know what is right, but we lack the will power to do it. • How not to study for exams Believe it or not, re-reading your textbook has “little or no benefit” when you are studying for a test. Most students don’t realise this, because they have an “illusion of competence” (that is, you think you know the material better than you really do) when they re-read notes and textbooks especially when re-reading passively instead of actively. One method of studying that is better than passive re-reading is the “read-recite-review” (“3R”) method: “Read the text, set the text aside and recite out loud all that you can remember, and then read the text a second time”. More importantly, you learn better and remember more from repeated testing (from both in-class quizzes and from self-testing during prep than from repeated reading. So when your teacher gives you lots of quizzes or tells you to memorize basic facts, don’t complain! That’s the best way to learn and to remember what you learn. The following are some suggestions on how to do this. J) Take Exams You should be in the examination room 15 minutes to time for you to relax and recollect your memory. Make sure you carry all that you need for that examination. Be in full school uniform and smart. Be positive and calm. First write your name and follow instructions Read the entire exam all the way through. For an essay question, do a “mind dump”: Write down brief reminders (keywords) of everything that you remember about the topic of the question. Develop an outline of your answer. Then write the essay. For an exam with problems to solve or proofs to write, do the ones you feel are easy first then do the others? Answer all the questions-Do not leave any blank spaces. Manage your time wisely during exams. Try to finish 15 minutes early so that you have time to review your answers carefully. AFTER EXAMS Do not discuss the paper or make reference after the examinations. Just concentrate on preparing for the next paper.
Posted on: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 05:59:02 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015