Study Techniques

How to Study Manage Your Time Make a weekly schedule and devote a certain amount of time per day to studying. Make sure you stick to your schedule as much as possible. Make sure this study plan is realistic and not impossible. Pace yourself. Find the best speed for you to study and adjust accordingly. Some concepts or classes will come to you more naturally, so you can study those more quickly. Other things may take you twice as long. Take the time you need and study at the pace you feel comfortable. If you study more slowly, remember that you will need more time to study. Using Effective Study Techniques Use SQ3R. SQ3R is a study method that involves active reading to help you comprehend and start learning the material. The method gets you to preview the material and actively read so you are more prepared when you read a chapter or article. Start with Survey, which means to glance through the chapter to look for tables, figures, headings, and any bolded words. Then Question by making each heading into a question. Read the chapter while trying to answer the questions you made from the section headings. Recite the answers to the questions verbally and any important information you remember from the chapter. Review the chapter to make sure you include all the main ideas. Then think about why this is important. Research has shown that reviewing new material within 24 hours of hearing it increases your retention of that material by about 60%. If you want to significantly reduce the time necessary to prepare for exams, this is the way to do it. Use the THIEVES strategy. When you are beginning to study a new chapter, it will make the information it contains much more meaningful and easier to learn if you preview the chapter using THIEVES.Start with the title. What does the title tell you about the selection/article/chapter? What do you already know about the topic? What should you think about while reading? This will help you frame your reading. Move to the introduction. What does the introduction tell you about the reading? Scan the headings and subheadings. What do these headings and subheadings tell you about what you will be reading? Turn each heading and subheading into a question to help guide your reading. Read the first sentence of every paragraph. These are generally topic sentences and help you think about what the paragraphs will be about. Look at the visuals and vocabulary. This includes tables, graphs, and charts. More importantly, look at the bolded, italicized, and underlined words, words or paragraphs of a different colour, and numerical lists. Read the end of chapter questions. What concepts should you know by the time you finish reading the chapter? Keep these questions in mind as you read. Look at the chapter summary to get a good idea of what the chapter is about before going on to read the chapter as a whole. Remember to concentrate upon understanding. Don't simply read through the words. Any words which you don't understand you should look up. Highlight important details Use a highlighter or underline the most important points in the body of the text, so that you can spot them more easily when you review the material. Don't highlight everything – that defeats the purpose. Instead, only highlight the most important phrases and words. It also helps to make notes in pencil in the margin in your own words to summarize or comment on important points. You can also read just these portions in order to quickly review the material you have learned while it is still fresh in your memory, and help the main points to sink in. If the textbook belongs to the school, then you can use highlighted sticky notes, or a regular sticky note beside the sentence or paragraph. Jot your notes on a sticky note and paste it beside the paragraph. It's also a good way to periodically review in this manner to keep the main points of what you have already learned fresh in your mind if you need to remember a large amount of material for a longer period. Summarize or outline the material One good way to study is to write the material in your notes and in the textbook in your own words. That way you can think about it in your own terms instead of textbook language. If you have enough privacy, it also helps to recite your summaries aloud in order to involve more senses. If you're having trouble summarizing the material so that it sticks in your head, try teaching it to someone else. Pretend you're teaching it to someone who doesn't know anything about the topic. When making summaries, use different colours. The brain remembers information more easily when it is associated with colour. Make Flash Cards This is usually done with index cards. Place a question, term, or idea on one side and have the other side contain the answer. These are convenient because you can carry them around with you and study them when you are waiting for the bus, for class to start, or have a few down moments. Keep quizzing yourself until you get all the answers right reliably. Remember: "Repetition is the mother of skill." Break things into smaller parts One way to study is to break things into smaller sections. This helps you learn the information bit by bit instead of trying to understand everything at once. You can group things by topic, keywords, or any other method that makes sense to you. The key is to lessen how much information you learn at one time so you can focus on learning that material before moving on. Make a study sheet Try to condense the information you will need into one sheet, or two if absolutely necessary. Bring it around with you and look at it whenever you have downtime during the days leading up to the test. Take your notes and the chapters and organize it into related topics and pull out the most important concepts.