Here’s how you’ve probably been told to study: Pick a special place for studying, and stick with it. Focus on one thing at a time. And remember your learning style (visual, right-brain, left-brain, etc.).
Wrong, wrong, wrong, say a couple of studies of studying, recently reported in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html). When psychologists examine how people really learn things, a lot of popular, well-meaning advice turns out to be wrong. Variety, it turns out, works a lot better than repetitive, blinkered drilling. Vary the place, vary the material (as athletes and musicians have been doing for a long time). And so a new strain of well-meaning advice is born.
Now that you’re back in school and hitting your stride, we figured you’d have something to say on this topic. What have you been told about studying? What do you actually do? How do you like the results?
What I’ve been told:
-study a little every day and at least 1 hour the day before the test
-start well in advance
-reward yourself with breaks periodically
What I do:
-I don’t really do anything at first, usually procrastinating until the end. My best story is when I put off studying for Biology (my worst subject) until the evening before the test, then managed to stare at the papers for about 15 min because I quit out of panic/boredom only to find I somehow photographed the pages in my memory (I got a B, not having read through all the papers).
-In fact, I usually learn the most in class and by reading over things before class. Or by talking them through with my dad (this works best for science-related stuff).
-Rewarding myself with breaks NEVER works. It stops me from concentrating and I always end up taking early breaks and eating anything nearby and then I get hyperactive.
-Walking up and down while repeating something really helps me when I’m nervous.
First post?
Actually, that, in post 0, is exactly what the Luna half’s animal phys prof told the class the week before the exam: That not only should we not study animal phys for 8 hours straight–because it’s no better–and, in fact, worse–than studying two hours Saturday, two Wednesday, two Friday, two Sunday, or whatever. And that we should change locations, not study in our “studying place”, because this stimulates learning if you’re changing locations, and that we should mix up what we”re studying at any given one time. *shrug*
The Luna half has also been told that you should always start studying in advance (not the week[end] before the test) and that you should studying a little at a time, to cram at once.
Telling myself that hey, you can have a break after you finish X amount of your studying, never works. I invariably either slack off when I get close and it just turns into “lets get htis done as fast as possible, even thbough I”m no longer learning it”, or I cave to my slacker side that doesn’t want to studying, and just take a break before I”m done and never return to studying.
I usually don’t start studying until the weekend (sometimes day) before a test, and then cram all the info into my brain. It’s seemed to work alright for me, so far, with the exception of our recent spanish mini test, but that had more to do with the fact that me and subjunctive really don’t get along. At all.
HEY! HEY, SPELLUNA! Guess what I named one of my chicks?
)
Buffy.
(I still have never watched the show, but it seemed fitting. She’s a Buff Orpington.
am i the only person who never actually learned how to study? :/ i’m still not really sure hahaha how am i in college again?
when i actually get to work i tend to go on these insane long session where i refuse to get up at all because i know it will forever break my tenuous concentration. i guess i always have a really hard time sitting and concentrating on things. advice would be good, actually. -____- i mean beyond just varying place and whatnot. i tend to just zone out if i’m sitting trying to read something i don’t want to read…i dunno
of course the best motivator is sheer terror…such as that i have for my logic test today
speaking of which, time to go stare blankly at my homework
Practice the oboe/cello/insert instrument here for 15 minutes
How, you ask? During your favorite show’s commercial breaks. If it’s a 30 minute show, chances are it’ll have 3, 5 minute commercial breaks. Practice during those, and you’ll be set.
I also look at things randomly throughout the day a lot. If I look at it enough, I can memorize most of the words, enough to get by on the quiz/test/whatever.
I’ve been told a good way to learn to sing while playing the guitar is to watch TV while playing, so you learn to play without thinking.
While I know people who practice while watching TV (usually with the volume off) or reading, I feel like it’s probably not the best way. There’s a lot of things like posture, form, intonation, etc that you have to pay close attention to, and I find that when I practice while distracted I just end up repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
I would think a good way to learn ot sing while playing the guitar would be to sing while playing the guitar..
True. But I don’t know that the guitar is all that posture/form specific, (really, I don’t know, I haven’t had any formal lessons), and singing while playing is actually a lot harder than you’d think. Unless the guitar part is something simple like down up down up down up, in which case it’s easy.
Singing is hard, but it’s the best way to improve one’s ear.
Also I’m not sure you want to learn to play without thinking? Unless you’re very practiced and won’t make mistakes in intonation and form, concentration is very important. Lizzie is knowledgeable in this area.
When I practice I go as slowly as I need to to get everything- I almost never start at full speed. That’s what I’d recommend, going slowly at first.
I’ve always been told “study a little everyday”. That doesn’t really work for me.
What helps me study is context. I don’t learn facts blinkeredly, I learn a bunch of stuff and I remember small, strange details which are a catapult point for everything else. For example, I have no clue what I did after school yesterday, but I do remember that one of my friends was wearing a forest green shirt. Now, that brings up memories of running to hug her since I hadn’t seen her the whole day. Having smoothies and borrowing money from her. Stuff like that.
The biggest tip I can give is to study different parts of the whole things the first few nights before a test, and then review (not study!) everything the night before the test or whatever. When working on homework or studying, I listen to music, it helps me focus.
Also, if you want to use a neurological cheat, then while studying, chew a certain flavor of gum. The day of the test, chew that same flavor of gum. Our minds unconciously register smells and tastes with information. It’s helped me while studying for a hard test,
Another tip: If you’re learning a language, don’t study the words. Just speak with them, preferably with a fluent family member.
I realized that I should probably not take breaks. For example, I finished my French homework, and said “Ok, I’ll play a few games before starting my English” Then I almost completely forgot what subject I had homework in.
I never learned how to study, but it hasn’t really affected me yet. College’ll probably be disastrous, but meh.
I never learned how to study properly, either, but college is going well enough for me (usually. the last spanish mini test being an exception….). Mostly As with a couple Bs, so not knowing how to study properly doesn’t necessarily mean college will be disastrous.
For the first fourteen years of my life, I never studied for a single quiz. Then I hit tenth grade and realized that if I don’t study, I’ll probably fail Honors Chem and possibly Algebra. So I make up rhymes and mnemonic devices.
I never study. Never. I don’t know how. I usually just end up surfing the web, or staring into space, or something. But I never score badly on tests, either. Once I absorb information, it never leaves my head- but I always lose concentration. I just wen from thinking about concentrating to thinking about anchovies on toast.
My experience echoes Cat’s Eye’s. I never did any meaningful studying until freshman year when Pre-AP Biology was a killer, and now I probably only will for AP Bio and AP Euro. Maybe Pre-Calc, a little, and French if it gets harder.
I’m usually very good at remembering details in context, so sometimes it helps me to give myself a little more context when I’m trying to remember something. When I was studying notecards of various Renaissance figures this summer, I tried reading their Wikipedia articles (a little bit helpful) and it also would have been nice to watch videos of them if I’d thought of that.
I like the tip about the gum. I’ll try that and suggest it to my friends.
I took a (required) study skills course in 5th grade, which was actually kind of interesting – we took a bunch of quizzes to determine which kind of learner we are (I got a mixture of visual/auditory, but more on the visual side) but I never actually used a lot of the tips the teacher told us, so I guess that part didn’t really help…for some reason making up songs/mnemonics just didn’t come naturally or worked all that well.
I mostly study now just by looking at notes/covering up part of the notes and reciting the other parts to myself. It’s not the best way, but it does work. For stuff like vocab/memorization, I mostly use flash cards. They work really well, but it’s hard to find the motivation to make them since that takes time. And as far as math goes, usually I just find practice questions in the back of my textbook and do them. If I don’t get something, I ask my teacher.
I’ll probably have to develop some better techniques – or at least, some techniques that will prevent me from procrastinating (if there is such a thing), especially for high school next year because I don’t want to screw that up, but for this year…I’ll probably just keep doin’ what I’ve been doin’ and hope for the best…
My English teacher told me about this.