Jun 10
20
So now you have your study times sorted, would you like some tips on how you should spend that time studying?
PART 4 – GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR STUDY TIME
First we will look at how to turn “reading” into “studying”. It is all very well sitting down and reading a textbook, but how much of it is actually going in? The trick is to prime your brain for the information you are about to read, so your brain can put what you are reading into context and you file the information you are reading.
The best way of doing that is by reading the “What you will learn” sections and also the summary sections at the end. All these emails have summaries at the end so you can remind yourself of what you have just read about and I put a short intro passage at the beginning so you know what we will be covering.
When you are reading through the text pay special attention to the bits that are in bold/in a box/in a chart or diagram, these bits of information have been put in this form for a reason, so it is bound to be important!
If you need to write notes on what you have just read, make them short and easy to read. The chances are that you will go back to these notes when you are revising for your exam. Use the summary and “What you will learn” as a guide for your notes. For example, you could make each bullet point into a subheading on your piece of paper and just write a couple of sentences after each heading.
As I have said before, the human brain works by association, so if you keep crucial bits of data separate with its own line or its own note card, you are preventing these mental associations from taking place. A good way of encouraging these associations would be mind-mapping.
Mind-mapping is an amazing tol for organizing concepts and putting ideas in visual forms. It was invented by Tony Buzan in the 1960’s (if you want to know more about the history have a look on Wikipedia!). Basically, the idea of it is that you put the core idea of a subject area into the centre of the page, then in a spider like fashion, add concepts of that idea around the outside. You should focus on relationships between ideas more than definitions and explanations etc. Images, spatial relationships and colours will really help the brain in remembering and making sense of what you have put down on paper.
4 step plan in creating a mind-map:
Gather equipment (paper, pens, colours)
Identify and write down your focus point
Indentify main concepts that flow from your focus point
Keep branching out until you have covered all your bases.
There are loads of uses that you can use mind-mapping for;
During lectures
Brainstorming for essays or presentations
Writing essays or articles
Time management – divide time into chunks, sub-chunks etc.
A few things to mention on saving time when you are studying;
Focus on topics that have come up again and again in old exam papers. These are usually available online, or you could ask your teacher if there are any old papers you could have. Also topics that teachers have hinted are important. If you listen carefully during lessons or lectures, they will often give a lot away, especially if they are involved in writing the paper.
If there is a topic that you don’t understand, don’t neglect it – focus like a laser beam on it. I know it is tempting to spend loads of time revising subjects you know and enjoy, and it is not so enjoyable studying subjects that don’t make a huge amount of sense to you, but imagine how good you will feel when you crack a topic that you have had difficulty with. That good feeling will stay with you a while and you will find it easier to carry on revising. If you stick with subjects you know, chances are that you will get bored after a while and not want to study any longer.
When you are reading through the textbooks, learn to differentiate between the meat and the fluff. Many text books will just bulk out the book by explaining things that aren’t really important. You could use a highlighter to do that, highlight important words and phrases – no more than 4 or 5 words in one go if you can, as that will help focus you. Also if you are doing a lot of reading of textbooks and articles etc, you might want to consider learning how to photo-read. Do a search on Amazon – there’s quite a few products on there (look for the name Paul Scheele). Speed reading is slightly different, and I would not suggest that one, from what I understand there is a lot less uptake by the brain when you speed read compared to photo-reading.
The last thing I would say is consider working in study groups with friends, you can each work on a revision document for different subjects and share them round, or teach each other subjects. This can be very helpful in getting to grips with the material and can also be quite fun!
SUMMARY
What you’ll learn and summary boxes are very useful for priming you brain.
Brain works by association, the more associations; the stronger the memory.
Mind-mapping is very good for mental associations.
Concentrate on common topics as well as the ones you find hard.
TASK: Today’s task is look into mind-mapping and some other visual ways of putting information down onto paper. (you may already have done this when you looked into revision techniques, if so – you can take a break!
In the next part I will be telling you what should be in your studying toolkit!
