<p>I can’t believe I forgot the obvious suggestion, but flashcards are great too. The act of making the cards alone counts as significant studying (at least in my book), then going through them and focusing on the cards you are getting wrong/having trouble memorizing. </p>
<p>I think Cornell also has a Learning Strategies Center which might give better advice regarding subject-specific studying advice. Starting out studying is always the hardest part because there really can be a lot of information to absorb. And yes, theoretically professors can ask anything and your only way to guarantee success is completely absorb every word in the textbook and lecture. Realizing that as largely not feasible, you have to figure out where to focus your time and as I said, read less and engage more. You’ll likely do better if you know 75% of the material really well rather than 100% of the material only kinda well. And if you know 75% really well, with that remaining 25%, you’ll be more likely to be able to figure the question out because you’ve been practicing thinking. </p>
<p>You also have to look for clues in lectures as to what will be emphasized. Know your professors well, but some good rules are:
- take note of anything that’s repeated
- take note anytime the lecture pace slows down</p>
<p>Like you, I frequently found myself taking too many notes from textbooks. If you are doing that, don’t stop there, Take a look at those long, exhaustive notes and try to summarize them. Then use your summarized notes as a starting point and if anything on them isn’t clear, look more deeply at that topic by reading your longer notes or the textbook.</p>