Tips For General Study

From time to time, give yourself a break. Hours and hours of continuous study may not be effective after a while. What you need to do is to be strict about the amount of time off you plan to take. If it’s ten minutes, don’t take fifteen! During those ten minutes, do something you really enjoy.

Always avoid just ‘reading over my notes’. You have to do something with your textbooks and notes in order to take in what they say. You could try summarising a chapter of a book in as few words or as few bullet points as you can, for example, or put the most important ideas and facts on post-it stickers which you can spread around. But don’t just ‘read’.

Draw pictures, graphs, use your highlighter (so long as you don’t over-highlight) or make notes. This may help your recall. Try to do something when you revise. Talk ideas out loud, draw pictures/diagrams, make abbreviated notes: Don’t just read.

Organise content of your revision well in advance. Make a revision timetable with realistic time slots and carefully planned content, which will cover what you need to revise.

If you have the knowledge to compile web pages, put together a web site or at least htm pages for your course as if you were writing notes for someone else, with links to different pages for similar or connected topics.

Work when you feel energetic. If you’re a morning person, do it then. If you’re a dawn, dusk, during-lunch person, do it then.

Forget about pulling the all-nighters. Once your brain is tired, it will not function properly. Hence, your 4am stare at your notes will be virtually useless.

Use a desk or table. Ensure that you’re not lying down on your bed, sitting in the garden, in front of the TV or lounging on the floor.

Working with a study partner can keep your focus on the subject and produce easier ways to memorise subject matter. Just make sure that your friend is in it for the same reasons.

Make audio tape recordings of your notes and then listen to these as you are falling asleep. Your brain is at it’s most receptive in this ‘alpha’ state. You may be surprised to know a lot more when you wake up.

Review briefly what you have learnt or revised the session before using bullet points and colours, thereby building on what you know and can use.

Don’t try to revise what you don’t understand in the first place. Ask your teachers for clarification. That’s what they are there for!

Short, sharp bursts of activity are better than sitting for hours looking at a page and thinking you are revising.

 

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