By Jagriti Arora:
The point is, knowing how-to-study is the first step towards the good education. So, here is what I’ve seen working.
Question #1. How do you know you’re wrong? For once, judge yourself on the grades you get.
1. Set your priorities. School/college should be considered to be a job [a fulltime job]. If you have another job, manage time and still prioritize school.
2. Manage time. Let’s say you have another job or you play a sport or you are into co-curricular activities. Then make a time table and follow it. Assign each job the time it deserves.
3. Don’t try to do it all at once. Restrict a domain for your head. This is a fact, that you take away about three points from a certain chapter.
4. Say What. How do you know whether you understand what you’ve read? Easy: After each sentence, ask yourself “Why?” (Pressley & El-Dinary 1992). Try to find out the crux. After you’re done reading, you need to go from the bottom to top.
5. Look stupid. “If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?” – Scott Adams.
Do not be afraid to jump into those discourses.
6. Divorce the technology. Atleast for those three hourse [am assuming we study this much atleast], Say NO to your laptop, say NO to your iPod. [yes music might seem relaxing but you could listen to music during your break, while studying it makes your approach/reading a little passive.]
7. Take care of that gap. If your break is longer than the time you’ve studied, you lose the track and that ain’t a break, that’s a distraction.
8. Make notes. I found it trivial before, but trust me it works. Use short forms and abbreviations. Neatness doesn’t matter.
9. Rewrite the notes. Whatever you wrote, copy it. Try not using abbreviations. This is a form of revision.
10. Be passive to ‘passive approach’. Try to be active, not passive. Do not recite a text. Read it over and over again, if you don’t get it. Read it slowly.
11. Let them judge you. Take the exams seriously. Trust me, If you were the smartest person on the earth, there WOULD have been a perpetual motion machinery on the earth. Study for the exams. Take them seriously.
12. Stop right there. Stop studying when you feel confident.
13. Whose Birthday is it anyway? Do not congratulate yourself too much. Remember, you’re here to learn, and not make a point. Of course you must make a point, but reading is necessary before that.
14. Go the extra mile. While reading try to go beyond your syllabus. For your own clarity. After all, the exam ain’t the only reason why you study.
AND YES! HAPPY STUDYING.
image courtesy:Â http://www.good.is/post/could-india-s-college-exam-gauntlet-be-on-its-way-out