4. LEARN A FEW STUDY TIPS

Read intelligently

In general, you'll find that textbooks are designed to emphasize the points you'll need to know - oftentimes there's a summary, recap, or question section at the end of each chapter. Knowing this area well will be far more useful than trying to memorize every word. Also, focus on whatever's said about that chapter in the table of contents: this will reflect the chapter's main function and highlight its important concepts.

When reading an assignment, first skim the chapter, keeping your eyes peeled for the subheadings and terms in bold type. Then reread the entire chapter, taking notes as you go. Check back to your class notes to see what areas your instructor emphasized, and any sections he or she may have told you to read extra carefully. You might even want to write a short summary of each chapter when you finish, to see how well you understand (and can explain) the material. Then go back and quiz yourself on all the terms in bold.

And what about the ever-popular highlighter? Feel free to highlight liberally, but don't turn the whole book yellow. Also, highlighting is only useful if you go back and read what you highlighted. Reading over your highlighted sentences is a breezy way to study during lunch without getting your notes all greasy.

Use outlines

An outline can be extremely handy because it allows you to boil down the all the material you're dealing with into a manageable, organized list. Actually, outlines are more effective if you don't think of them as lists at all, but instead as groupings of facts and concepts based on their relationships.

Here's an example:

I. Internet pioneers

A. Hackers - programmers
1. Vint Cerf

a. helped build one of the first Net protocols and interfaces in late 1960s

b. Now VP at MCI Worldcom

2. Tim Berners-Lee

a. Developed the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s

B. Crackers - users who break into others' systems to look around or make mischief (often called "hackers," though the original hackers hate this)

1. Kevin Mitnick

a. legendary for cracking into Defense Dept. and other systems

b. Just finished serving sentence in federal prison

You'll find that many of the topics you study can be grouped into such arrangements. Rather than trying to memorize lists, you'll be connecting concepts together on paper that you'll want to associate together later when you take the exam. If you look again at the table of contents in your textbooks, and even the breakdowns of the chapters themselves, you'll notice that they're arranged in this manner.

Sometimes your instructor may draw an outline on the board. While you should copy this down into your notes, you'll still want to fit the facts into your own outline, which may differ from that of your instructor (though it shouldn't differ too much). By putting together your outline yourself, you'll be better able to remember all the items and how they relate to each other.

Rewrite your notes by hand

You have five senses, as we all know (well, except for Haley Joel Osment). The more senses you use while studying, the stronger the information gets stored into your brain. Think about it: do you remember something better if you just read it, or if you read it AND copy it?

For this reason, one of the best study tips we can give you is that you should rewrite ALL of your notes by hand starting two weeks before the exam, and as you recopy, say the words out loud. This way, you're reinforcing the information on many levels: you're reading the notes, processing them to physically copy them down, speaking the words, and hearing yourself speak the words. With all of these paths going, it makes it much more likely that you'll remember the information.

Use mnemonic devices

In spite of your efforts to organize your information, you may still find that you have a big list of stuff to remember. While rote memorization may work for you-simply reading the list over and over and repeating it to yourself-you may have better luck using mnemonic devices.

Mnemonic devices are used to associate a sound with a concept, so that you only have to remember the sound. If, for example, the first letters of each item in the list can be assembled to form a word, even a nonsense word, you will have to only remember that one word in order to recall each item of the list. "ROY G. BIV" and "HOMES" are two of the most famous mnemonic study aids, representing the colors of the visible spectrum and the Great Lakes, respectively.

Mnemonics can work for long lists, too. "Howard Hughes Liked Being a Billionaire, but he Could Not Often Fly Near Nebraska, so he Made an Amazing Super Plane Sturdy enough to Carry him Across Kentucky and Connecticut," may sound like nonsense, but it happens to contain the first letter of the first twenty elements of the periodic table, arranged in order. But you recognized that immediately. Plus, it only took us about two minutes to make up. Easier to memorize that sentence than Hydrogen, Helium, blah blah blah.

Why is such a sentence helpful? Because you use more of your brain to remember visual and active images (such as Howard Hughes and Nebraska) than you do to remember just a list of items (what does argon look like?!). And as we said earlier, more brain means better memory. Think about it. (Or should we say, "Picture it"?)

Try study groups

Study groups aren't for everyone, but they can be a great way to motivate yourself to work and to get feedback. Here's our advice about creating and maintaining a study group:

  • Find a group of three to five other students, preferably ones who are in all or most of your classes. You'll want students as smart or smarter than you, but not too smart. If your understanding is on a higher level than that of your study buddies, you'll be wasting your time (though you'll feel like a genius). If your partners are too much smarter than you, you'll get confused, feel stupid, and become even more discouraged.

  • Pick a study group plan that works. For example, you could all do the same work, and then meet to discuss and compare notes. Or you could assign each member to take the most detailed notes for each class and do any supplemental reading, then share his or her knowledge with the group. Everyone should still go to the class and do the assignments, but each member will be able to focus most of his or her attention on the assigned class.

  • Even only one study partner can create a little added incentive for you to work (since someone else is depending on you). Just make sure it's not your girlfriend or boyfriend.

  • Choose members who are as committed as you are, and set some ground rules for remaining in the group: showing up (on time), coming prepared, and using the time to discuss coursework, not as social time. If you don't enforce these rules, you'll find that your study group eats up even more of your valuable time, without making your work any easier.

  • For more useful study tips, check out this web page on "Study Skills Self-help Information."

Flash cards

Flash cards don't work for everyone, but at least you'll reinforce the information through the process of writing all of the information down again. The more that you write the stuff down, the better you'll do. Just be sure to not go flash card crazy: keep it to less than 100 or you'll spend more time making pretty flash cards than using them.

Cramming

We know that everybody does it, but it doesn't make it right. Cramming the night before a big test will increase your anxiety and take away precious hours of sleep that you'll need to think straight. So start studying at least a week before an exam and be sure to get to sleep at a reasonable hour the night before it. In case we were too subtle, then allow us to be blatant: DON'T CRAM.

Practice exams and review sessions

Many schools offer the possibility of getting access to previous exams that the professor gave. Our advice: USE THEM. What better way to figure out what to expect than to see what the professor has asked previously. It's even better to get a bunch of old exams because then you can see if the teacher asks the same questions every year (letting you know what to expect) or if he/she asks different questions every year (again, letting you know what to expect). But be sure to use the practice exam toward the very end of your studying. Treat it as if it were the actual exam, and see how you do. If you have to pay for the practice exam, then get some friends in the class to split the cost with you and make copies. It's not illegal or wrong to use old exams if they're available - that's what they're there for!

Many teachers also hold review sessions before an exam. You should prepare at least 3 questions for a review session, just in case others are scared to ask first. You should go to the review session because a lot of professors will accidentally slip and give a hint about what's on the exam. So even if it's incredibly boring, suck it up and go. You can always quietly test yourself with your pretty flash cards until something you need to know comes up.

Subject-specific advice

While we can't take the test for you, we can offer some subject-specific advice. Here are the main ones:

History: Timelines are invaluable. Write out timelines for each major event so that you can get a sense of cause and effect. You can test yourself by later rewriting that timeline from memory. Highlight the different people involved in different colors.

Science: Flash cards are your friends. You have so many confusing terms to learn, that sheer memorization is going to be your biggest hurdle. Mnemonic devices tend to work particularly well with science terms.

Math: Practice is key. Do as many practice problems as you can (especially the hard ones) until you feel like you can breeze through the questions. Math is not the kind of subject that mere reading will help you with; you must invest the time to practice.

English: Read over your notes and become extremely familiar with the different literary terms and techniques that your teacher reviewed. Plot summaries are also useful. Finally, create a list of examples from each book that you are very familiar with so that you always have some material to write about.

Foreign language: If it's a vocab test, then you're back to the flash cards. But if it's an essay or grammar test of some sort, then it's much more important to become familiar with the various verb tenses and conjugations. If it's an oral test, then grab someone else from the class and spend a couple hours only talking in the foreign language. It'll improve your fluency and comfort, and you'll learn from each other.