We’ve all been there: you come home after a long day at school and, right when you’re about to fall asleep, you realize you have an exam the next day. Studying is difficult and takes a lot of time because there are many topics you need to study in one quiz or assessment. On top of having to do such, most students have sports, heavy workloads, art conservatories, and more to deal with before going home to study. I, for one, have to practice volleyball and piano later in the evenings, so figuring out my quizzes and tests after my extracurriculars can be stressful. In insidehighered.com, students are said to have “reported experiencing negative emotions while studying, like anxiety (41 percent), boredom (39 percent) and frustration (37 percent)…” From history to science, it’s difficult to study for big tests and quizzes, so here are 10 study tips to help prepare for any assessment.
1. Morning Studies Rather than Late Night Sessions
Studying at night might not be the best option. Studies show that “Students’ brains tend to be sharpest in the morning, after a refreshing night’s sleep and a nutritious breakfast. … With a more alert brain, students have a better ability to recall details like names, places, dates and facts.” (oxfordlearning.com) People at Mayfield can study before school with the given late start days or morning free blocks. Personally, the late start days have allowed me to study and prepare for tests and quizzes many times. I was also able to retain information with more ease during the tests I took when I studied in this way.
2. Feynman Technique
In this technique, the goal is to reword a material learnt into simpler terms. In other words, it’s kind of like teaching someone else how or what you are studying. Doing this will help make the topic studied easier to remember and can also help to gain a deeper insight into your material.
3. Active Recall
Flashcards and practice quizzes can help to remember study material by forcing the brain to recall definitions and can help to remember terms later during assessments. Some good websites for flashcards online can be Quizlet and Brainscape. If you feel like you need to test yourself, you can take practice quizzes using websites such as Kahoot! and Wayground. Ms. Melissa Tighe, a math teacher at Mayfield. She uses these methods in her classroom often and says that these techniques result in faster and more durable learning. She also recommends for students to, “put things they discover they have forgotten into their flashcard sets so that information will get into their long term memory so it will be there for next time.” This helps to make flashcards more customized towards you and your learning needs.
4. Participate in Class
Rather than just listening in on class lectures, be a part of it! As stated in news.harvard.edu, “…though students felt as if they learned more through traditional lectures, they actually learned more when taking part in classrooms that employed so-called active-learning strategies.” If discussing with the class might be difficult at first, just start with small, brief, comments to feel more comfortable with expressing your thoughts and ideas. Also, keep in mind that a lot of the people around you are probably also a little shy when speaking too, so everyone is in the same boat. Later on, once you gain more confidence, you can move on to discussing more with your peers and teachers.
5. Minimize Distractions
Sometimes, the attention and memory span of the brain isn’t the best due to the distractions around. Trying a new environment to study might benefit it as some might focus better in a different setting.
6. Pomodoro Technique
For those with very short attention spans, use this technique. Here’s how to do it: study for 25 minutes, take a break, then repeat the process until you finish studying all you need to study. The break is good for resetting the brain since it’s possible to exhaust the brain when studying all at once. This technique happens to be popular with many teachers like Ms. Tighe, who says “I recommend students to use time block planning and the Pomodoro technique to plan out how to fit in all their learning time and to stay motivated.”
7. Motivate Yourself
Creating motivation through prizes encourages studying and makes it slightly more fun. For every section of studying, reward the hard effort with something you really like (ex. a chocolate piece). Also, once finished with studying the material in the sections, it’s good to review the content one last time to make sure the content is remembered.
8. Make a Study Guide
This is the most efficient and helpful thing possible to study. Creating a study guide reviews knowledge of the content studied and provides opportunities for creating in depth analyses for the material your teacher has provided.
9. Get Good Sleep and Good Food
This may sound silly, but getting a lot of sleep and eating healthy food can greatly influence a brain’s capability to remember and retain information. Even though these two changes don’t seem important, they are very impactful to one’s memorization and brain function, whether it be for the better or for the worse.
10. Space Out Your Studies
It is very helpful to space out studies and learn material a little at a time. This basically forces you to not procrastinate. As learningcenter.unc.edu mentions, “The most effective practice is to work a short time on each class every day. The total amount of time spent studying will be the same (or less) than one or two marathon library sessions, but you will learn the information more deeply and retain much more for the long term—which will help get you an A on the final. The important thing is how you use your study time, not how long you study.”
These tips and tricks can help you to study better if done properly. Once it is done for a while, it can formulate good study habits, which leads to a better studying experience. Overall, through tiny steps at a time, these good habits can build up and make studies much easier than they were before.
