Effective Ways to Study - 4 No-Fail Tips

It’s not how hard you work – it’s how smart you work. If you want great grades, you should listen to the researchers. They all say that academic success is not so much a matter of innate intelligence and hard work as it is learning to work “smarter” by figuring out effective ways to study. Here are the study habits that these same researchers say really work.

Consolidate Notes

When a school day ends, the first thing students must do is go through their lecture notes and summarize them in a file folder on the desktop. When reading is done that relates to the same topic as the class, taking notes and putting them in the same folder as the lecture notes keeps everything on that topic together and in one place. Label the folder by topic. When it comes time to study for a test, you don’t have to go back to those lecture notes and text. Everything has already been consolidated and summarized for you. This, in fact, is probably the most effective way to study when you know that content must be reviewed at some future point.

Long-Term Assignments – You Have to Have a Calendar

One of the biggest mistakes students make as they attempt of discover how to study more effectively is not planning ahead. Every course has short and long-term assignments. It’s easy to remember the short-term ones, for they are due in the next day or two. It’s the long-term ones that are the “killers” – those essays, papers and projects that are due at the end of the semester. They have this nasty tendency to creep up and, all of a sudden you are in a panic. At the beginning of each semester, make a list of hose long-term assignments, and get yourself a calendar. On that calendar, set the dates for your benchmarks. When will you have the research done? When will you have your outline completed? How about that rough draft? If you get these benchmarks all on a calendar, and place that calendar on a well, not buried in your phone or tablet, then you will have a constant reminder of what to get done.

Identify Your Study Style

You should know by now how to study properly for you learning style. Everyone is unique. Some need background noise; some need absolute quiet; some need to eat; some need it warmer than normal, some cooler; some need to talk out loud as they memorize, others do not; some need to study with others, others need to “go it” alone. Set up the physical environment that works for you, and that study and work will proceed much faster.

Learn to Cut Corners

Crises occur. That paper is not finished and it is due; you were up all night finishing a project and cannot drag yourself out of bed to get to class; you partied a bit too much last weekend, and assignments were ignored. What can you do? Here are a few effective study tips that have little to do with your efforts but that have everything to do with working a bit smarter during these times.

·         Have a pre-arranged agreement with a buddy in every course. If you miss a class, you can have their notes, and vice versa.

·         Divide up reading assignments. Each of you take notes on your sections and then share with one another

·         Find an essay writing service you can trust. When the deadline is impossible, use that service to get essays and papers written.

These 4 things – easy to implement and guaranteed to make your chances of academic success much greater. Try them – you will be happy you did.