Students: - How To Study More Effectively!
If you are a university student, or a college student
, do you find it hard to settle down and study? Even when there is a big, important exam coming up?
If youre like most people, youll put off studying until the very last minute. The night before the exam, youll stay up all night cramming, getting little or no sleep. Then youll drag yourself out of bed, psych yourself up with lots of coffee and some cigarettes, and go into the exam feeling exhausted, drained and jittery at the same time.
youll find it hard to focus or think, and youll be cursing yourself for not starting to study sooner.
And not surprisingly, unless youre blessed with natural brilliance, or you happen to know the subject matter extremely well, youll probably do terrible on the test.
If this has been your usual method of studying, you already know it doesnt work. And even though you promise every time this happens that youre going to smarten up the next time you face a big exam and start to study earlier, you keep repeating this crazy pattern. Why does this keep happening? And what should you be doing instead if you want to get better marks?
A big problem for most people, especially young students, is that life gets in the way. If youre a student, you probably have a part time job, and like most young people, you also want to have a social life.
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Studying can seem very boring compared to all the exciting temptations just outside your door. Even watching old reruns of Sesame Street can seem more interesting than the biology text your teacher is expecting you to master!
Another reason we often dont start studying until the last possible minute is that we have misjudged how long it will actually take us to absorb and understand the material.
If your mid-term is still six weeks away, that might seem like plenty of time left before you need to get around to studying. You might find however, that the subject matter is harder to understand than you thought it would be, and all of a sudden theres no time left to ask someone to explain it to you.
Another reason we often put things off, or procrastinate, is because we are too overwhelmed with how big the project actually seems to be. Somehow we convince ourselves that putting off a tough project can be the best way to avoid feeling overwhelmed by it.
When we are faced with a study project that seems exceptionally difficult and overwhelming, it can be to maintain a high level of interest and motivation for the duration of the learning process.
If you have been guilty of all these bad study habits, its not too late to learn some other habits that will work better for you.
First, remind yourself why you want to do better in your studies. Maybe you need a good mark to get into a good college. Maybe you want a chance at a career that will pay you well. Always keep your end goal in mind.
You can put little cards up around your room with inspirational messages, and attractive photographs that will remind you why you want to do well in school.
If you feel very overwhelmed, you can improve your motivation and your performance by breaking up the project into smaller sections, or chunks. Each time you accomplish one little bit successfully, give yourself a meaningful reward.
If you have a deadline looming, use this information to decide how much of the project to tackle at one time.
Lets say you have six weeks to master the content of a difficult biology text. Looking through the book you realize that if you study one chapter each night, you can get through the book in 28 days, leaving two weeks in which you can again review the material.
With this knowledge you can pace yourself. You know what your assignment is. You know how much you need to read every night. Concentrate on the immediate task at hand. You dont need to feel overwhelmed by the entire book at one time. Next, work out a system of rewards for yourself. Give yourself a series of small rewards each time you master one chapter, and a larger reward for completing the entire book.
For rewards to work they must be immediate, and personally meaningful to you. There is no point in rewarding yourself with a new fishing rod if you hate fishing.
Rewards dont need to be material objects if there is something else that would really motivate and inspire you. How about attending a special concert, or taking a special trip? You decide. Get creative and think of something that will spur you to take action.
Its very important that the reward take place soon after the work has been accomplished. This creates a sense of positive reinforcement. Give yourself a small reward every time you finish a small part of the job, and a bigger reward when the project is completed. If there is too long a gap between the activity and the reward, it will not have the effect of reinforcing the desired activity.
Besides motivating yourself with a series of external rewards, learn to motivate yourself internally. Tell yourself youre a good learner. Tell yourself you enjoy learning. Tell yourself you enjoy giving your brain a good work out. Congratulate yourself for your efforts. Tell yourself you love acquiring new knowledge. Be proud of yourself for the work you do to gain more knowledge.
Dont just say the words to yourself. Take the time to actually feel the sensations of pride, happiness and accomplishment within you.
For information to sink into your brain and be accessible to you, you need to review it several times, and your brain needs to sleep well for the memories to be encoded in your neurons. You need to reduce your mental stress. Your brain needs good nutrition and it needs to be in a peaceful, confident state.
If you start to cram the night before, you are putting your brain at a big disadvantage.
Youre increasing your physical and mental stress, and youre not giving yourself time to review the material several times. By cutting back on your sleep, youre not giving your brain a chance to put the information youve been studing into the hard drive storage of your brain.
By starting to study early, even if you master only small bits of information at a time, you have a much better chance of remembering and understanding it when you face a big exam.
by: tilakraj
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