There’s no perfect way of studying, since everyone has their own methods and tricks for preparing for exams. However, we know that many of you struggle to find ways of learning those hundreds of pages for a class you don’t even like. So, we’ve managed to put together some of our personal favourite tips for studying easier and in a more fun way.
1. Notes
If you google this, you will find a lot of options such as The Cornell Method, Mind Mapping, The Charting Method, The Sentence Method, etc.
But my method of taking notes is a bit different. Of course, it depends on which subject I’m studying, but let’s imagine I’m studying phrasal verbs. For this, I will bring to my desk all the stuff I need.
Then, I read all the material one time. After that, I write with the colored pen the title, in this case, “PHRASAL VERBS”. Then, I will take the blue or black pen and draw some arrows from the subtitle, to write the definitions for each expression.
2. FLASHCARDS
This is my favorite study method. It is also an active recall method, which also makes it an efficient method. All you need is a little piece of paper and a pen. The rules are simple, the title on one side and the definition on the other. It is more efficient if you do the flashcards with at least one week before your test, exam, or oral exam. Then, you need six boxes, to each box you have to associate a period of time for when you are going to read it again, for example if you start learning two weeks before the exam you can set the boxes like this: tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, after 4 days, after a week, after 10 days, the night before the exam, in this way you can make an idea of how much of the content you already know and what you should learn, depending on how well you remembered the material, you can decide for yourself in which box you should put that flashcard. Although,this method can be too complicated, or maybe you are just like me and you let things undone till the last moment, but don’t worry, I have a solution for that as well, you can number your boxes from 1-6, then,after you try to remember the information written on the piece of paper, think of how much you said good, if it’s completely the same you put it in the last box,if you couldn’t remember anything on it, you put it in the first box and so on. In this way, on the last night of the exam you can start revision with the first box. If you don’t have any boxes at home, you can just keep track of which flashcard you know and which you don’t. Therefore, you will repeat the ones you don’t know more than the ones you do know. This method is easy and useful and I think it suits everybody. If you prefer a digital version, I recommend Quizlet. TRY IT OUT!!!
3. Q&A
No, no, I don’t mean you should open YouTube and search for a Q&A video, but it kind of works the same, though it’s a bit different. You need a piece of paper. On one side you write some questions from the topic you are studying, you number them, and then you turn the paper and write the answers, also numbered. It’s kind of a bigger flashcard. Also, you can do this digitally with Notion.
4. Post-it notes throughout the house
If you are struggling with some information you can’t learn, this method may help you. Take one of your notes on a little piece of paper, or a post-it note with the information you want to memorize and stick it somewhere you can always see it, which will make you read it more often and without realizing it, you will learn the information on it. I used this method two years ago when I had my 8th-grade Romanian exam and I had to memorize some argumentation models and I couldn’t, even though I had tried very hard. So, I stuck them on my wardrobe and every night before I went to sleep I would read them. And after some time doing this, I’ve realized I had learnt them all. It worked for me so it may work for you too.
5. Teaching
This method has an intuitive name, so you already know what you have to do: act like you are a real teacher. You can do this on your parents, on your siblings, on your friends, on your stuffed animals, on your pets, you can even just imagine you are teaching to someone. In this way, you will understand the subject much better and it will remain in your mind for a longer time.
6. Story
I know this is silly, but it can work. For example, if you have to study a battle from history, if you imagine what happened you can remember easily.
7. Trick your memory
This method can be used to help you memorize formulas, for example. Imagine you have to learn the formula for x12+x22 , which equals S2-2P. Let’s imagine you have a friend named Simon and another one called Paul. So, you think of Simon2-2Paul equals x12+x22, and then when you need the formula, you will know it is S2-2P. I use this method all the time.
8. Colour coding
This method should be used with the taking notes method. All you need are some highlighters, and no, they don’t have to be very expensive. You pick a different color for each type of topic, so your brain will associate every color it sees with its corresponding topic. You can use a color code already made from the internet,or you can create your own. It is a good study method, because it can be used for a lot of subjects.
9. Change the room
I know it may sound strange, but studying different subjects in different rooms will really help. For a better understanding of the method, I’m going to tell you an example. Let’s say you are in your garden, laying on the grass, studying biology. When we take an exam, the first thing we usually do when we don’t know a topic is to start thinking of when we were studying that. So, let’s imagine you are at the exam and you are struggling with a question about the heart. You can’t remember how many rooms the heart has. So, you try to remember where you were studying. And your mind brings back for you the information that you were in the garden. Then, you remember that your cat came and disturbed you for a couple of minutes and you decided to take a short break to play with it. After that, you returned and you used a green highlighter to underline… and you have a blank. You take a deep breath and you remember. Haha, there is exactly the information you need. You imagine the paper, you see the color and then you know, 4, that’s the answer.
I’m not sure if you understand what I am trying to explain, but I really encourage you to try to study different subjects in different rooms and see what happens.
10. Initials
This is by far my favorite study method, it’s as easy as it sounds and has the job done. You only need a couple of words that you have to memorize, and that’s it. You take the initial from each of the words and you create a kind of a word from them. Let’s take something random and simple. For example, you want to learn the colors in German, but you really can’t. So, you want to use this interesting method you just read about. You have the words Rot (red), Orange (orange, but different pronunciation) Gelb (yellow), Grün (green), Blau (blue), Lila (purple). The initials are R, O, G, G, B, L, so the “word” made from is ROGGBL. All you have to do now is to repeat this “word” a couple of times, 10 times should be enough, and then you just have to ask yourself: “… (that letter) for which word?”=> “R for?”=> Rot and that’s it. You can use this method for everything you need to learn and you will remember easily.
11. The Pomodoro method
This method works to help you organize your time. The standard method is 25 minutes for studying, followed by 5 minutes of break-time after. Then, after 4 cycles, you can take a break for one hour. But this doesn’t mean you ought to do it like this. If you prefer working for one hour and then taking a break for 20-30 minutes, or other options, that’s up to you. You have to test and see which one suits you.
To end this, we really hope we’ve helped you with some methods that will make studying easier and more enjoyable. If you have any tips and tricks of your own, we’d love to know, as well, so you can write them in the comments!
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