E very student has his and her own way of studying, however, there are many study skills that you can develop to maximize your learning potential and your ability to retain what you read.
Here are some of the best study skills (many of which are used by top students) that will help you ace your next exam:
While you should study the night before a test, don’t cram everything at one go. Click To Tweet- The best time to review any material you’ve just learned is right after class or school, while it’s still fresh in your memory.
- While you should study the night before a test, don’t cram everything at one go. Instead, you should space out your studying. Focus on one topic at a time, and study a little each day.
- You should do your studying in a quiet and comfortable place, but avoid sitting or reclining on your bed while studying, because you might fall asleep!
- To not get overwhelmed by a subject, try grasping the main ideas first, before moving onto the details.
- As you’re studying material. Take notes and write down summaries for easy reference.
- Don’t push yourself too hard during a study session, instead take frequent short breaks.
- Don’t just aim to memorize the information you’re learning, try to understand it.
- When forming study groups, make sure everyone in the group is serious about studying. Frivolous friends who distract you, won’t help you get through your studies.
- How can you tell if you know the material well? Quiz yourself, or have a friend quiz you. Practice quizzes like these can help identify your strong and weak areas.
- Study in the afternoon or early evening, when you have the most energy. If you study late at night, you’ll either doze off, or deprive yourself of sleep.
- During your study period, avoid other strenuous mental activities, which can interfere with the material you’ve recently learnt.
- After studying sufficiently, get some sleep. This will help to give your brain a rest.
- While studying, listen to relaxing music, such as instrumental jazz or classical tunes. This will help soothe you and keep you from feeling bored. Be sure to set the volume to low though.
- Make it a habit to “overlearn” materials. Overlearning means you study past the point when you can just about recall the information.
- After you’ve studied something, recite the facts and figures to yourself or to a friend. The act of reciting forces you to focus, and your brain to work harder to access your memory bank.
- If you can’t recall what you’ve just learned, go back and re-learn the material again.
- Break up what you need to learn from a subject, and study them in separate sessions. This works because there’s a limit to how long your mind can focus on something.
- Use study aids like flash cards to jog your memory.
- Learn to speed read, so you can review materials quickly.
No matter what your learning environment, be it secondary school, pre-university, or tertiary, adopting better study skills can help you do better in class, schoolwork and exams.
Give these ideas a shot today and see if you can race up to the top of the class!
photo credit: Pragmagraphr via photopin cc