The Partially Smart Studying Method - Studying Tips for Normal Students Like Me.
Hello Bumbles,
hope y'all are still on the right track in terms of new year resolutions! I mentioned in the last
post that I am graduating university soon,.With just half a credit left, I thought I would do a summary of the studying tips I've learned! Just putting it out there, I am definitely not your typical smart student! I definitely learned and taught myself how to study the hard way :P
There are a lot of helpful articles regarding studying tips, written professionally by a journalist. But honestly, reading through them myself, I find it not so helpful because it isn't relevant to me. Well, it is relevant in the sense that I want to study better, but their general method doesn't suit me very much. Here, I will write out the things I've learned while studying, and write out my thought process behind it and how it has helped me. I hope this will help you as well.
hope y'all are still on the right track in terms of new year resolutions! I mentioned in the last
post that I am graduating university soon,.With just half a credit left, I thought I would do a summary of the studying tips I've learned! Just putting it out there, I am definitely not your typical smart student! I definitely learned and taught myself how to study the hard way :P
There are a lot of helpful articles regarding studying tips, written professionally by a journalist. But honestly, reading through them myself, I find it not so helpful because it isn't relevant to me. Well, it is relevant in the sense that I want to study better, but their general method doesn't suit me very much. Here, I will write out the things I've learned while studying, and write out my thought process behind it and how it has helped me. I hope this will help you as well.
We've all had those teachers/parents/siblings/friends/mentors tell us "you gotta study smart, not hard". While that is a very true philosophy, I never really figured out what smart studying meant. To me, smart studying is done by those that are truly intelligent. We all have those people around us, those individuals who does the minimum amount of work, but always gets the best marks.
Hmmm, doing the minimum amount of work while maintaining top marks sounds kinda crazy doesn't it? Well, I have two great examples right beside me, my mom and my boyfriend.
Back when my boyfriend went to university, he would go to the first couple of classes to get a feel of the professor's teaching style, and then his classmates would probably never see him again till the midterm and final exam. But he would always end up in the top percentile of the class. Fast forward to now, he is studying to be a paramedic. In a highly competitive program of para-medicine, where the drop out rate is more than 50%, he is still maintaining his status within the top percentile, while doing a lot more, but still very little work compared to others.
My mom, on the other hand, received her paralegal licence with high honors just a couple of years ago. She didn't speak a word of English when we immigrated here in 2003. Fast forward to 2016, she now has two diplomas, both with honors.
So how do they do it?
I would ask them the secret to studying smart, but their answers were both similar and unhelpful. To them, studying smart is knowing what is important, and know the main point of the material that you are learning. Studying smart is knowing what is the most likely thing that the teacher is going to ask.
I always thought you would need mind reading skills, or exceptional people reading skills to really know that. But after falling on my face many many times, I think I might have had a glimpse of what "smart studying" is. I don't have the full disclosure of it, so I will call my method the "The Partially Smart Studying Method".
Tip #1 - Make Notes
I bet you rolled your eyes there. I know, pretty much every single article includes the tip "make notes" along with some other bullshit advice such as "relax, and take it easy". But before you angrily close this tab, just hear me out.
Somewhere along my education journey, I've evolved from taking notes by hand to typing my notes. In high school, I would hand write my notes neatly in a notebook, and the crazy thing is I would re-write the notes over and over again every time I came up with a better way of summarizing the notes. Yes, I literally hand wrote 36 pages of biology notes three times...Not surprisingly, it would take me hours and hours to just write notes, and my grades were still mediocre. I got low sixties in biology, and even my teacher questioned whether or not I should study biology despite my interest in it.
Anyway, the truth is, I never continued on to studying biology. But luckily, I was able to find some merit to notes making. In university, I started taking notes with a laptop. This is a lot more efficient as I can type things out during lectures as fast as the professor can say them. At home, I can efficiently type notes without having to worry if my hand-writing is getting sloppy. It is also very easy for me to format things in the layout I want. Throughout the years, I've developed quite a layout for taking point form notes.
How Do I Make Notes?
Like I've mentioned before, I am not like those fortunate individuals who can just look at a textbook and immediately grasp the key concepts and know what the professor will be testing on. I literally have to do it the most unoriginal way - reading the textbook, one page at a time.
Let's say I am studying for a psychology midterm, and it will be tested on 5 chapters. Each chapter is about 30-40 pages long, and it would take me roughly 1.5-2.5 hours to finish reading while taking notes. Depending on how much I procrastinate, I will decide whether I will read one or two chapters a day.
For example, if I have 7 days left before the exam, I will do a chapter a day, and leave a day or two to look over the notes. If I have 5 days left till the exam I would do two chapters a day and then look over the notes.
I always take point form notes. I would read the textbook with Microsoft Word Document open. Each time I come across things such as a bolded term, interesting experiment result, or things that an important psychologist discovered, I would type it onto the document. It doesn't have to be summarized in your own words, because it will take a lot longer, and our goal is to get through the textbook first. A lot of the times I just type exactly the words that are on the textbook. I find this method helps just because you are reading the text once, and typing it out again, and if you really didn't figure out what the text meant, you can re-read the point form you've just typed out. Usually, by the end of each chapter, I would have 3-5 pages of notes for that one chapter, all in point form.
Here is why I say my first goal is to get through the textbook. After reading all the chapters, I would end up with about 15-25 pages of notes for the 5 chapters that I will be tested on. The notes are all very precise and thorough, so I would never need to look back to the textbook again. This is very true, I never needed to go back to the textbook to study because I have everything in my notes. This saves me a lot of time because I am reading the most important parts of the textbook, it saves me a lot of energy then if I were to re-read the textbook for the third or fourth time. It takes me 1.5-2.5 hours to read one chapter, but it only takes me half an hour to go through one chapter of notes. You do the math there.
Tip #2 Be precise
The point of taking notes is to take the part of the textbook that you think is most important. Do not take notes on EVERYTHING. If your notes length is 10%-15% of the chapter, you are doing it right. For example, if the chapter is 35 pages long, try to keep your notes somewhere between 3.5-5 pages long.
If you find that you are going over by quite a bit, try to re-read your point form notes to see if there are things you can delete. If your notes are too long, you will feel like you are reading the textbook again, and it will demotivate you!
Tip #3 Buckle Down Time
One downside with taking notes on the computer is that you can get distracted very easily, like, VERY EASILY. But that's why the mentality you hold while taking notes is very important. Sometimes you just gotta tell yourself, alright, I am going to seriously do this.
There are times when I feel like I should start early and study ahead. So I would drag my ass to take notes on a chapter wayyyy before it is time for the exam, and it is sad to say that it never really works out.
When I start early, I take twice as long to finish a chapter then I would if I started just a week before the test. It would take me 3-5 hours to finish a chapter instead of 1.5-2.5, I would basically check my phone and surf the web every time I finished a page or two. By the end, I don't even feel great about studying early because I wasted so much time. So I figured, instead of doing a half-ass job, just don't bother doing it. The amount of time and energy I spent in taking sloppy notes could be better spent on something else that makes me feel better. So, a lot of the times I really do leave it till the last week before really buckling down. In the mean time, I would either focus on other subjects that are coming due sooner, or just procrastinate to the fullest. But I have yet to figure out a way to procrastinate without feeling guilty.
Tip #4 Avoid Taking Sloppy Notes, Do it Right the First Time
I've learned that taking notes in one, uninterrupted, session is much more efficient. By taking the notes in one go, your train of thought is completely connected. Your brain just connects things better if you finish one chapter before moving onto something else half way.
For example, when it takes me twice as long to finish a chapter, I surf the web and check my phone a lot. Each time I come back to the textbook, my train of thought has been broken, I either need to re-read what I read before I broke off in doing something else, or I just pretend like I understood everything and moves on. In both situation, I am paying less attention, neither is efficient.
When you don't pay attention to the textbook, it will result in sloppier notes. This is because you are not having a clear understanding of the textbook and you think, whatever, I will just come back and read the textbook again if I am confused. This is a fatal mistake, because first, you won't have enough time to come back to the textbook, second, you won't come back to the textbook because you will pretend like you understood everything. I say this because I've done it, numerous time. So, take a chapter of notes in one go. Don't get distracted and do it right the first time. It really does make studying later a lot easier.
Tip#5 Study Your Notes
Now that you have a very detailed summary of the chapters, it is time to know it. By know it, I really mean memorize it. It is a pretty dumb way of doing it, but I find that memorizing all the notes I made gives me enough grasp of the concept that I can use it effectively during an "university exam". I put quotes on university exam because this studying method is really just good for getting through these kind of exams. Once you know the rules, it is easier to play well.
However way you want to memorize your notes is up to you, but I do it the really dumb way. I literally just sit there, and try to memorize it. I usually have a scribble notebook where I would scribble down the sentences that I am trying to memorize. I've used this method enough times to know that I would basically have memorized most of the notes the second time around. If I really had more than enough time, I would then go over it the third time.
Actually sitting down and memorizing the notes doesn't take very long. But it isn't the most exciting thing in the world, so I really dread doing it. As you can imagine, I would procrastinate to start making the notes, and by the time I finish making the notes I would procrastinate to start memorizing the notes. Adding all the time I've wasted in procrastination, it would really leave me only a couple of days before the exam.
Tip #6 Get into a Routine, Know Your Limits
When it comes to midterms and exams, I am a lot less stressed because the way I study has become such a routine for me. I know exactly how long it would take me to take notes, and study it. I know exactly how much I can procrastinate, with the occasional miscalculation here and there...But it usually takes me about 5-7 days to finish taking notes and to study the notes. The first 3-5 days are used to make notes, while the last couple of days are used to memorize. I never give myself the credit to think that I can finish 5 chapters of notes in one day...and I would never put myself through that! Way too much suffering.
Now, you are probably thinking. Psh, if I had 5-7 days before the exam I probably do well too. Well, all I can say is that I know my limit is 5-7 days if I wanted to get somewhere between high eighties to low nineties . Of course, there are people out there who can read much faster then I can, so maybe you can finish all the chapters while taking notes in just a couple of days. So really, you would only need 3-4 days to study, which means more time to procrastinate! Yipppeeeee!
Tip #7 Don't Get Cocky
I am still struggling with this one... I would do really well on the first couple of midterms, and by the time final exams rolls around I would be so full of myself and procrastinate to the fullest. This is where my miscalculation comes from, instead of leaving 5-7 days to make and study notes. I would leave myself literally 3-4 days, and sometimes 2 days...needless to say, those exams don't always end well. The final exam really puts a difference between an eighty and ninety.
Tip #8 Don't Be Greedy, Reward Yourself
If I finished a chapter on schedule, I would get ahead of myself and be like "hey, wouldn't it be awesome if I finish another chapter today so I would have more time to study?". Don't believe it. Don't believe those lies! I know from my experience, I almost always take twice as long when I am ahead of the schedule. I either don't end up finishing the second chapter or I do a sloppy job, and it in turn would ruin the good feeling of being on schedule and leave me with the feeling of "I am so lazy".
Having a good attitude towards studying is always important, I am not the first one to mention it and I sure won't be the last one to say it. So here is my final advice, probably the most bullshit one of them all, I say bullshit because it is one of those advice that everybody knows but no one really takes seriously, don't try to do more than you have scheduled and reward yourself for being on schedule. Take some time, and just relax :)
P.S: My boyfriend read some of this post and is very pleased about what I wrote of him. So he told me a method he uses in figuring out what the professor will be testing on. Here are his exact words
"A lot of the times the professor wants you to know what is important, so he will literally repeat himself. If you hear the same concept over and over again, well..he's gonna test you on it. Especially if he says 'most importantly', 'so to summarize', and such."
Well, there you have it guys! Good Luck!
Tip #1 - Make Notes
I bet you rolled your eyes there. I know, pretty much every single article includes the tip "make notes" along with some other bullshit advice such as "relax, and take it easy". But before you angrily close this tab, just hear me out.
Somewhere along my education journey, I've evolved from taking notes by hand to typing my notes. In high school, I would hand write my notes neatly in a notebook, and the crazy thing is I would re-write the notes over and over again every time I came up with a better way of summarizing the notes. Yes, I literally hand wrote 36 pages of biology notes three times...Not surprisingly, it would take me hours and hours to just write notes, and my grades were still mediocre. I got low sixties in biology, and even my teacher questioned whether or not I should study biology despite my interest in it.
Anyway, the truth is, I never continued on to studying biology. But luckily, I was able to find some merit to notes making. In university, I started taking notes with a laptop. This is a lot more efficient as I can type things out during lectures as fast as the professor can say them. At home, I can efficiently type notes without having to worry if my hand-writing is getting sloppy. It is also very easy for me to format things in the layout I want. Throughout the years, I've developed quite a layout for taking point form notes.
How Do I Make Notes?
Like I've mentioned before, I am not like those fortunate individuals who can just look at a textbook and immediately grasp the key concepts and know what the professor will be testing on. I literally have to do it the most unoriginal way - reading the textbook, one page at a time.
Let's say I am studying for a psychology midterm, and it will be tested on 5 chapters. Each chapter is about 30-40 pages long, and it would take me roughly 1.5-2.5 hours to finish reading while taking notes. Depending on how much I procrastinate, I will decide whether I will read one or two chapters a day.
For example, if I have 7 days left before the exam, I will do a chapter a day, and leave a day or two to look over the notes. If I have 5 days left till the exam I would do two chapters a day and then look over the notes.
I always take point form notes. I would read the textbook with Microsoft Word Document open. Each time I come across things such as a bolded term, interesting experiment result, or things that an important psychologist discovered, I would type it onto the document. It doesn't have to be summarized in your own words, because it will take a lot longer, and our goal is to get through the textbook first. A lot of the times I just type exactly the words that are on the textbook. I find this method helps just because you are reading the text once, and typing it out again, and if you really didn't figure out what the text meant, you can re-read the point form you've just typed out. Usually, by the end of each chapter, I would have 3-5 pages of notes for that one chapter, all in point form.
Here is why I say my first goal is to get through the textbook. After reading all the chapters, I would end up with about 15-25 pages of notes for the 5 chapters that I will be tested on. The notes are all very precise and thorough, so I would never need to look back to the textbook again. This is very true, I never needed to go back to the textbook to study because I have everything in my notes. This saves me a lot of time because I am reading the most important parts of the textbook, it saves me a lot of energy then if I were to re-read the textbook for the third or fourth time. It takes me 1.5-2.5 hours to read one chapter, but it only takes me half an hour to go through one chapter of notes. You do the math there.
Tip #2 Be precise
The point of taking notes is to take the part of the textbook that you think is most important. Do not take notes on EVERYTHING. If your notes length is 10%-15% of the chapter, you are doing it right. For example, if the chapter is 35 pages long, try to keep your notes somewhere between 3.5-5 pages long.
If you find that you are going over by quite a bit, try to re-read your point form notes to see if there are things you can delete. If your notes are too long, you will feel like you are reading the textbook again, and it will demotivate you!
Tip #3 Buckle Down Time
One downside with taking notes on the computer is that you can get distracted very easily, like, VERY EASILY. But that's why the mentality you hold while taking notes is very important. Sometimes you just gotta tell yourself, alright, I am going to seriously do this.
There are times when I feel like I should start early and study ahead. So I would drag my ass to take notes on a chapter wayyyy before it is time for the exam, and it is sad to say that it never really works out.
When I start early, I take twice as long to finish a chapter then I would if I started just a week before the test. It would take me 3-5 hours to finish a chapter instead of 1.5-2.5, I would basically check my phone and surf the web every time I finished a page or two. By the end, I don't even feel great about studying early because I wasted so much time. So I figured, instead of doing a half-ass job, just don't bother doing it. The amount of time and energy I spent in taking sloppy notes could be better spent on something else that makes me feel better. So, a lot of the times I really do leave it till the last week before really buckling down. In the mean time, I would either focus on other subjects that are coming due sooner, or just procrastinate to the fullest. But I have yet to figure out a way to procrastinate without feeling guilty.
Tip #4 Avoid Taking Sloppy Notes, Do it Right the First Time
I've learned that taking notes in one, uninterrupted, session is much more efficient. By taking the notes in one go, your train of thought is completely connected. Your brain just connects things better if you finish one chapter before moving onto something else half way.
For example, when it takes me twice as long to finish a chapter, I surf the web and check my phone a lot. Each time I come back to the textbook, my train of thought has been broken, I either need to re-read what I read before I broke off in doing something else, or I just pretend like I understood everything and moves on. In both situation, I am paying less attention, neither is efficient.
When you don't pay attention to the textbook, it will result in sloppier notes. This is because you are not having a clear understanding of the textbook and you think, whatever, I will just come back and read the textbook again if I am confused. This is a fatal mistake, because first, you won't have enough time to come back to the textbook, second, you won't come back to the textbook because you will pretend like you understood everything. I say this because I've done it, numerous time. So, take a chapter of notes in one go. Don't get distracted and do it right the first time. It really does make studying later a lot easier.
Tip#5 Study Your Notes
Now that you have a very detailed summary of the chapters, it is time to know it. By know it, I really mean memorize it. It is a pretty dumb way of doing it, but I find that memorizing all the notes I made gives me enough grasp of the concept that I can use it effectively during an "university exam". I put quotes on university exam because this studying method is really just good for getting through these kind of exams. Once you know the rules, it is easier to play well.
However way you want to memorize your notes is up to you, but I do it the really dumb way. I literally just sit there, and try to memorize it. I usually have a scribble notebook where I would scribble down the sentences that I am trying to memorize. I've used this method enough times to know that I would basically have memorized most of the notes the second time around. If I really had more than enough time, I would then go over it the third time.
Actually sitting down and memorizing the notes doesn't take very long. But it isn't the most exciting thing in the world, so I really dread doing it. As you can imagine, I would procrastinate to start making the notes, and by the time I finish making the notes I would procrastinate to start memorizing the notes. Adding all the time I've wasted in procrastination, it would really leave me only a couple of days before the exam.
Tip #6 Get into a Routine, Know Your Limits
When it comes to midterms and exams, I am a lot less stressed because the way I study has become such a routine for me. I know exactly how long it would take me to take notes, and study it. I know exactly how much I can procrastinate, with the occasional miscalculation here and there...But it usually takes me about 5-7 days to finish taking notes and to study the notes. The first 3-5 days are used to make notes, while the last couple of days are used to memorize. I never give myself the credit to think that I can finish 5 chapters of notes in one day...and I would never put myself through that! Way too much suffering.
Now, you are probably thinking. Psh, if I had 5-7 days before the exam I probably do well too. Well, all I can say is that I know my limit is 5-7 days if I wanted to get somewhere between high eighties to low nineties . Of course, there are people out there who can read much faster then I can, so maybe you can finish all the chapters while taking notes in just a couple of days. So really, you would only need 3-4 days to study, which means more time to procrastinate! Yipppeeeee!
Tip #7 Don't Get Cocky
I am still struggling with this one... I would do really well on the first couple of midterms, and by the time final exams rolls around I would be so full of myself and procrastinate to the fullest. This is where my miscalculation comes from, instead of leaving 5-7 days to make and study notes. I would leave myself literally 3-4 days, and sometimes 2 days...needless to say, those exams don't always end well. The final exam really puts a difference between an eighty and ninety.
Tip #8 Don't Be Greedy, Reward Yourself
If I finished a chapter on schedule, I would get ahead of myself and be like "hey, wouldn't it be awesome if I finish another chapter today so I would have more time to study?". Don't believe it. Don't believe those lies! I know from my experience, I almost always take twice as long when I am ahead of the schedule. I either don't end up finishing the second chapter or I do a sloppy job, and it in turn would ruin the good feeling of being on schedule and leave me with the feeling of "I am so lazy".
Having a good attitude towards studying is always important, I am not the first one to mention it and I sure won't be the last one to say it. So here is my final advice, probably the most bullshit one of them all, I say bullshit because it is one of those advice that everybody knows but no one really takes seriously, don't try to do more than you have scheduled and reward yourself for being on schedule. Take some time, and just relax :)
P.S: My boyfriend read some of this post and is very pleased about what I wrote of him. So he told me a method he uses in figuring out what the professor will be testing on. Here are his exact words
"A lot of the times the professor wants you to know what is important, so he will literally repeat himself. If you hear the same concept over and over again, well..he's gonna test you on it. Especially if he says 'most importantly', 'so to summarize', and such."
Well, there you have it guys! Good Luck!
Love your notebooks and the feather pen!
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