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[A_Fey_Dwarf]

Up until now I have had an easy ride through high school. I managed to do pretty well in most previous years exams without any need for studying. I would maybe go over a previous test paper a day in advance of the exam but that was it. This year however (my final senior year), I haven't really been able pick up on the things in class as I used to. I figure this is because the level of understanding required has significantly increased. With only 18 days left before national examinations begin, I have just discovered that I am terrible at studying/revising. I really have no idea what the best way to go about studying is. Even if I did manage to figure that out, I have another problem. I constantly put the study off. I planned to start maybe some three weeks ago. There is always something else for me to do. In fact only this morning I woke up and told myself that when I got back from school, I wouldn't turn my computer on. I would just head straight to my desk and get stuck into studying... Obviously that never happened. Instead I booted up my PC, played some system shock 2 and chatted/ played mafia on IRC.

Any advice that would help me get started would be great.

[ajar]

A good memory is your tool. You don't even have to have external memory or xhiits, it's enough if you are good at memorizing. I recommend that you would read this book at least because it really works. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Memo-Easiest-Improve-Your-Memory/dp/0980326907

Keep up that study thing.

Less DF and more Total war, I mean school eh

[Mondark]

I personally have found that I have issues with getting sidetracked while studying.  Personally, I have to remove either any source of distractions from my area, or remove myself from any area containing distractions.  Even if that means disconnecting my computer from the internet, or shutting it down completely.

Good music can also help too, I find, so long as it isn't too attention grabbing itself.

[Neruz]

Don't study for more than a few hours at a time, you 'learn' things when you take down time, somone who studies for 6 hours straight will know more than the one who studied for 3 hours and then rested for 3 hours, but the one who rested, but the one who rested will remember what he was studying tomorrow, the one who didn't will not.

In a similar line of thought, don't study for things the day before you have a test; you won't have enough time to set the knowledge in your mind (sleep is vital for this. Your brain stores the things it learned throughout the day while you're asleep.)

Basically, don't push yourself. You learn better if you proceed at a steady pace and rest well than if you push to your limits.


As for the laziness problem, the only way you can get over that is to get over it. I got over it when i came within a hairs breath of failing year 10, at which point i decided i didn't have any choice; i was going to have to go to school, and if i was going to go to school i was bloody well going to do it properly.

I then half-assed my way through school to a 79 ENTER score, but hey, i did do the work in the end.

[Cthulhu]

Does anyone else never study?  I listen to the teacher/professor in class, skim through the textbook, and almost always remember everything I need to remember for the test.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Does anyone else never study?  I listen to the teacher/professor in class, skim through the textbook, and almost always remember everything I need to remember for the test.

I did this until I failed my AS Exams.
Now I'm trying to actually study.

[DJ]

Does anyone else never study?  I listen to the teacher/professor in class, skim through the textbook, and almost always remember everything I need to remember for the test.

It worked great for me until I got to Uni, and then I failed miserably.

[Eidalac]

Does anyone else never study?

I didn't through High School, but I payed dearly for it in College.

As far as making time, it helps to have another person who is willing to steal your power cable to force you to do it, but that can be hard to find.

You may find it easier to, rather than going home, have your materials ready and go somewhere like a lounge/quite restaurant to study.  it's easier to walk away from the PC then it is to not turn the PC on, i find.

[buman]

somone who studies for 6 hours straight will know more than the one who studied for 3 hours and then rested for 3 hours,

don't study for things the day before you have a test

this just isn't true, you need to learn how to relax while studying and take smaller breaks for lunch etc. I guarantee that if you take a 3 hour break then you are not going to go back to studying afterwords. Just don't do all of your studying the day OF the exam.

What I find works best for me is to head into school just after lunch with enough snacks to choke a horse and stay there until dinner time. Removing yourself from your house and not having games on your laptop works wonders. Obviously this would only work for collage where they will be open on the weekend. For high school you could try the community library on the weekend, or possibly the school library during the week.

First go through your text book and mark pages with important information with little coloured post-its, then when you are doing problems you can quickly flip back the section explaining it. Once you have gotten to the point where there is not going to be any new material taught before the exam then you want to make a study sheet.

The study sheet(s) will contain every important piece of information you could need for the course. It then replaces your textbook in your studying and you should be able to do any problem using the formulas etc on the sheets.

Do problems and try to learn everything on your sheets ( you need to make sure you have everything you need on the sheet, double check the textbook/your notes)

Then the day of the exam spend an hour or so just looking at the sheets to get all the images in your head, take an hour break before the exam starts and walk around or talk with friends etc. Bring candy to the exam and enjoy

[Muz]

I listen to the teacher/professor in class, skim through the textbook, and almost always remember everything I need to remember for the test.

Believe it or not, this works. 1 hour of lectures is worth 3 hours of studying. But only if you're ahead of the class! As soon as the lecturer writes something you can't understand, it doesn't work. And that's why you have to study if you're lagging behind the classes.

This is why cramming is bad. Catching up to classes is an uphill effort.. you learn less and less per hour in class when you're lagging. If you want to have it easy, study up to the point that you have no trouble understanding everything from classes, then you can get by with minimal effort.


But since you're already behind, I think your problem is that you have no idea how to start. The best thing you can do is... just do it. It's like starting to exercise, the first few hours are the hardest, after that you get used to it. You no longer really care how hard it is once you start.

When you're studying and get stuck on a problem, you have the tendency to keep working at it or find info elsewhere. This makes your brain want to do nothing. Force yourself to just keep doing it. Some of the highest graded PhD graduates I know aren't very smart at all, they're just persistent. They have bad memory, have trouble with some basic stuff in life, but when they study, they put in full focus and only switch books to get references.

If your computer is really distracting you, unplug it, pull out the hard drive, and hide the Internetz (ethernet cable/wireless). If it's more effort for you to start up the computer than to study, you're going to end up studying. Just don't procrastinate by doing something else. It's going to be tempting to clean the bathroom, do laundry, anything to avoid studying.

[Cthulhu]

Oh wow.  Wow, wow, wow.  I think I may have just curb-stomped my math grade.  I missed four homework assignments (We do them two at a time) because I'm retarded and I wasn't thinking straight.  I tried to do Wednesday's homework on Monday, and couldn't figure out why nothing was working, so I gave up.  Then on Wednesday, apparently that thinking carried over because I thought I didn't have any homework (Today was a test, I apparently somehow got it into my head that all we did on Monday was review) and since I didn't get that practice in, I didn't know how to do like 8 or 9 of the problems on the test.

tl;dr I need to check my syllabus.  If Homework is a small part of the grade I might be fine, since the lowest three or four are dropped and the lowest test is dropped.

Pray for me.


EDIT:  Good news, everyone!  Homework is 10% of the grade, and there are 21 homework assignments, so my horrible week lost me approximately two percentage points.  I am so many different kinds of happy right now.

[Neruz]

this just isn't true, you need to learn how to relax while studying and take smaller breaks for lunch etc. I guarantee that if you take a 3 hour break then you are not going to go back to studying afterwords.

Your guarantee isn't worth much, considering i've been doing exactly that for four years now.

[Jimmy]

If you're cramming, make flashcards. Put a topic or question on one side and the answer on the other. Try to aim for 200 per subject, and spend 6 hours per day for 2 weeks memorizing them.

That's how I got my Bachelor degree.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Does anyone else never study?  I listen to the teacher/professor in class, skim through the textbook, and almost always remember everything I need to remember for the test.

Yeah, me.

Well, for Math and Physics only.
I'm terrible at Social Sciences. And Biology. GOD DAMN IT BIOLOGY

[chaoticag]

I find that paying attention during classes does most of the work. If your textbook is one of those that includes a review section at the end of each chapter, use that, it generally has everyting you need to know. Also, if you take notes in class, copy those notes onto a seperate notebook, without using whatever shorthand you use.

As for laziness, set yourself a schedual, and never deviate from it. Giving yourself something like a headband can actually help, as you will start thinking "now that my headband is on, I cannot slack off".