Hello I’m new here to this forum and I get really concerned when graduate friends of mine tell me to “learn how to study”. I’m not really sure what this means and how to actually do it. Can anyone offer any insight? Usually I don’t need to study to get a’s in honor classes but when I see top students who are #1 on the board fail an AP Lang. Test I get scared.
If anyone is a senior or in college and can offer insight on “Studying” and how to properly do it can help
Thanks
Any advice would help thanks.
For some kids classes have always been easy and they find in college it’s much different. You mention honor’s classes. Have you taken AP classes? If not, that would be a good place to start to learn how to study “better”. It will help you prepare for college. College is a much faster pace. How would you handle preparing for doing twice as much in the same amount of time? How to “learn to study” could be spending more time reading the material or how to become more efficient. Some students may find writing note cards helps. Others may have to read in a quiet location without distraction. These are just some examples, but if you can define what works for you now, it will benefit you once in college. Good luck!
For me learning to study was slow, and was quite different for (i) languages; (ii) humanities (with reading and papers); and (iii) math and science.
For languages the main thing for me was to have more exposure to the language that I was trying to learn. This involves things like watching movies or TV in my non-native language, and having chats on a regular basis with native or fluent speakers of my second language. Watching or listening to news was helpful since I had already heard the news in English, and therefore had some idea what they were likely to say.
For humanities, the main thing for me was learning to read more quickly. I am not quite sure how (or if) I got there, but I know that now there are courses on how to read more quickly, and practice helps. Another issue was to learn to do research (reading and so on) to figure out what to say on a paper, then make a written outline of what I want to say, think this through and fill in the outline with more detail, and then write the paper. At some point I may have discovered that to do well I should pick a subject that the professor didn’t know anything about (eg, I did a paper on the Riel Rebellion for a revolutions course – I bet you have never heard of it either and I got a better grade than I deserved). Sadly, for humanities in many cases to get a good grade you seem to need to write what the professor wants to hear. Perhaps this is one reason (not the main one) that I didn’t like humanities.
For math and science, I was particularly slow learning to study because I didn’t need to: I was good at this one. The main issue here was probably to learn to keep ahead on the reading and homework. Once I got to hard math classes (year 3 of university through graduate school), doing the reading and homework the day that it was handed out meant that I understood things a little bit better, which meant that the next lecture was a bit easier to understand.
In all of the above, keep ahead on the work. This makes everything easier, for example because lectures in any subject are easier to understand.
Some people find that it helps to keep organized. Keep track of what you are going to need to do, how long it is likely to take, and when it is due. Expect that some things will take longer than you have planned. If you do a piece of homework early and it ends up being easy, then you are done and can relax. If you do it early and it ends up being difficult, you still have time. Of course if you do the work when it is handed out, then it is done and you don’t need to organize it. However, if and when you get to a place where school is hard, you may still need to recognize when something is just taking too long, and you have to hand in an imperfect result (even if you get a B or a C) and get onto the next task.
I used to be that person who never needed to study and still aced exam (I’m sorta still that person except there’s a clear difference between when I do/don’t study). Learning to study is based on what you’re trying to study and how you learn information. I’m the type of person that has to write everything down while taking notes. If I don’t write it, I’ll probably forget it. Sometimes just writing it is enough for most of the information to sink in, but I’ll still have to revisit the information before the test to make sure I know it.
Secondly, I study by teaching. I help friends with assignments and studying all the time and I found that to be extremely useful for studying. When I help friends, I have to find a way to explain a concept or process in a way that makes sense. Because of this, I have to take my knowledge (or reading) of something and put it into my own words. I always feel like things make more sense when I put it in my own words. For this, I recommend creating study groups. Get together with your friends, make flashcards, and go over study guides. This also makes studying more fun.
Also, make sure you have ample time to study. The first time you look at a study guide shouldn’t be 30 minutes before the test. Plan time to where you can start studying AT LEAST a week or two before the test, preferably more. Having more time means you don’t have to study as much in one sitting. You can have time to take breaks and relax without always being stressed about a looming test. If you want to do a quick refresher before the test that’s fine, but remember that it’s not studying. Information will not have enough time to sink in and you can forget what you just “learned” by the time you get midway through the test, especially during long exams.
Ultimately, there is no “proper” way to study. It all depends on you and the subject area. My best advice would be to try out different studying techniques and find out which works for you.
It completely depends on which class you are studying for.
For math courses, I find the way I learn is to do practice problems. If your teacher assigns the odd problems for homework, do the evens as well. Look online for extra problems. Repetition, repetition, repetition is key. If you are struggling with a concept, look at Khan Academy for explanation videos.
For science courses (the bane of my existence), it tends to be a lot of memorization (Bio, psych) or practice problems (in which the math advice applies).
For language, exposure to the material is important. Listen to the radio in the language, read articles, speak to natives, etc. Vocab flashcards are important.
English- just read a lot. Interact with a multitude of different texts.
History- memorization and contextualization.
General techniques I find helpful are creating my own detailed review sheets and teaching the material to others.