Study Tips

In honor of having my first test of the semester this coming Monday, I want to write about some helpful study tips! Getting good grades is important to me, so I will start studying in the next couple of days.  You have heard all of the standard answers: don’t procrastinate, take breaks often, do practice problems, etc.  These are certainly helpful and you should do them, but there are others that are also important to follow.

The first tip to keeping your grades up is to actually attend class, and take notes while you are there.  Taking notes allows you to add extra information that the teacher says and write it in your own words.  It will also help you to recall the information later on when it comes time for the test.

My second tip is to know when you need help and to not be afraid to get the help you need.  Most teachers are willing to answer any question you have, especially if you attend their office hours.  I plan on going to my teacher’s study hours on Friday to go over a couple of the topics that I don’t fully understand.  I find this to be very helpful because the teachers know what you will need to identify for the upcoming exam and will most likely focus on the most important topics.  Often times they can also come up with practice questions that will allow you to work out the problems on your own and see where you are having a problem.  They also usually resemble the exam questions, which is an even bigger bonus! 

The third tip I have is to find a quiet location where you can focus.  I love to study in the comfort of my own room, but sometimes my roommates can be too loud for me to concentrate.  When that is the case I either go to a study room on campus, the library, or a friend’s house if we both need to study for the same test.  If there is too much noise in the background, it can make it difficult for the information to sink in and stick.

My fourth tip is to reach out to a peer tutor or create your own study group.  Last semester I had to take a history class that I had purposely put off until my last year in college (history is my least favorite subject by far).  I knew it would be a challenging course for me, so I sought help from a tutor just a couple weeks in to the semester.  He made this course a hundred times easier than it would have been without his help.  I had to go for an hour every week, which became very time consuming, but he made sure that I understood all of the information that I was taught in class that week.  If I hadn’t put this class off until the last minute, I probably would have had more friends struggling with me than I did.  If that was the case, I would have made a study group instead of reaching out to the tutor.  Study groups can help you review the information, while also seeing different views about the same information.  It is easier to remember topics when you talk about them out loud and have discussions about them.  Being able to teach the information to someone else is also a great way to get it to stick in your memory.

My final study tip is to take frequent breaks while studying for a big test, and be sure to get a full night sleep the night before.  For exams that cover multiple chapters, I try to take a break after every chapter.  This give the information you just reviewed time to sink in and make connections in your brain.  It also gives you time to relax so you don’t feel as stressed and overworked, which can make you not want to continue studying.  I also try to use my breaks as motivation to keep pushing through.  Most people don’t enjoy studying, but it must be done.  At the end of the night, even if you don’t feel fully prepared, it is better to get a good night sleep than to pull an all-nighter.  While you sleep your brain is still thinking about the information and creating connections that will make it easier to recall during the test.  Many times I have gone to bed worried that I would not be able to remember anything during the test, and when I woke up the morning of the exam I was pleasantly surprised that it stuck!