Studying Methods For Anybody

By Shaina Eldredge on August 7, 2016

Recently, I was speaking with a close neighbor and friend of mine who is the mother of three girls. She has a daughter who is the same age as I am, and we went to the same schools when we grew up.

We were discussing college, as I and her two younger daughters are all now officially in higher education. The daughter I grew up with, who is the same age as me, is transferring to a local, less ambitious school than where she went her first year. My neighbor spoke with me about her daughter, expressing how no matter how much she was studying, her daughter still did not-so-well, and even lost financial help from her grandparents because of her grades.

The problem was not my friend. The problem was not her school, her classes, her work ethic, none of that is at fault. The problem lies in the public school education she received from kindergarten through twelfth grade. In school, we learned together about Punnett squares, SOHCAHTOA, histories of America.

While I had no problem retaining and maintaining a lot of this information, my friend struggled and often became confused. We were taught these things, but, as my neighbor said, we were not taught how to study them. Teachers gave us facts and numbers and dates and left us to our own devices on how to remember them. Not once were we taught how to actually study in a way that was helpful.

Everybody studies differently. Finding the best method for you may take some time, but it will definitely be worth it in the long run after you get in the groove of doing things the way you feel comfortable.

1. Studying with flashcards

Probably the easiest, oldest, most popular way to study. This is a favorite of mine, as I make the flashcards while watching YouTube or Netflix, then keep them on my person wherever I go and study when I have free time (on public transit, waiting for class to start, in an Uber, etc).

If for some reason you don’t know what a flashcard is, here’s how you make them. Take an index card, and write a question (or more if you don’t want to waste paper), or a word that you need to define on one side. On the other side, you write the answer or definition. Easy, but since it’s so easy, people don’t think it’s worth the time (spoiler alert: it’s worth the time).

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2. Re-writing

This is another method I use. While you’re writing notes in class, your handwriting may be sloppy or shortened. The act of preserving a second journal simply for rewriting your notes in the neat way they deserve to be written is not a bad idea.

Rewrite them in shorter and shorter ways, forcing yourself to remember parts you skipped over or shorthanded.

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3. Subconsciously teaching yourself

Some people used to believe that if you slept with a book under your pillow, you would absorb that book’s information as you slept. This is stupid.

Instead, if you’re too lazy to rewrite what you’ve written, record yourself reading it out loud, and then play the recording right before you fall asleep. My mother did this when she was in school, and she said she did a lot better on her tests. It’s an easy and less time consuming way to re-teach yourself a lesson from class.

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4. Quizzing

With or without flashcards, ask yourself questions, or have your friends from the same class ask you questions relevant to the lesson.

I prefer having other people ask me questions, because they may know or remember something that I don’t, and they can correct me or help me understand something more than I did before.

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5. The gummy bear method

Place a gummy bear on every third or fourth paragraph that you need to read, or on every sixth or seventh line of your notes. Do not eat a gummy bear until you have read everything up to the gummy bear, and rewritten or highlighted at least one important piece of information, and defined at least one term that you need to memorize (whether you think you need to or not).

DO NOT take mental notes or say “oh, that’s easy, I’ll remember that.” Then reward yourself with the approached gummy bear and start over with the next section of reading. Sectioning off parts of notes or reading also lets you absorb information a little bit at a time, which is easier to remember than taking in globs of information.

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These are five studying methods you may or may not find useful, but of course there are plenty more ways to enhance your studying skills. Keep your desk clean, study every single day, and ask lots of questions. Studying does not have to be hard.

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