Little thoughts…
On studying
Begin with the end in mind
1.
Studying is only a partly technical process; it is also a
highly emotional one. The only reason we study is to
achieve some end. Too often we focus on the exam passes
themselves as the end, but as a motivational tool these
lack power. This lack of power stems from the fact that
exams are frequently something that we fear whereas an
exciting life-goal is something that we instinctively
work towards. Encourage students to think about what
success brings them rather than on the importance of
passing an exam for its own sake. This is where the idea of WIIFM or
What’s In It For Me comes from; time spent on envisaging a great future
must always be the starting point for successful studying.
Study what is important, not what feels good
2.
The most common error that young students make is to study things that
they can already more or less do. This is understandable because tackling
something that seems really hard and might make you feel really “thick” is
emotionally hard. Students should start by undertaking an honest
assessment of what they are good at already and what they would not score
well at in an exam; having made this assessment they should produce a list
of their most serious weaknesses and begin studying these first. Most
exams will give a pass for having a basic understanding of a topic with
only the upper grades reserved for excellence. This means that any hour
spent on mastering something that you can already do a little, will net you
significantly less marks than an hour spent on a topic that you are currently
hopeless at. When a student has covered all the basics, and if they are
aiming for high grades they should only then spend time improving each
topic. This process should start 6 to 8 weeks before the diet of exams with
the intention of completing it with 2 weeks to go to allow for final past
paper work and standard question practice.
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Use memory theory to save time
3.
Happily we have a reasonably good functional understanding of basic
memory theory; it might be true to say that we don’t always understand the
actual brain mechanisms but we certainly know the answers to essential
questions such as “How long for?” “How often?” etc.
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You should study for 20 to 45 minutes at a time
You should relax totally for 15 minutes after you have studied to allow
your brain to consolidate and link what has been learned
Once something has been studied it needs to be revised for 5 to 10
minutes at a time; these revisions should happen:
o About 1 day later
o And then about 1 week later
o And finally about 1 month later
The bottom line is that all of this requires planning and so
students should be encouraged to identify key weaknesses,
place the study sessions in their diary, and then finally
place the short revision sessions in the diary. Without this
planning, you can’t get the benefit of the memory theory
which tells us that shorter, more focussed but planned
sessions are much more effective than long evenings of
tiring study.
Avoid reading or copying for long periods of
time
4.
Many students feel that they are doing something useful if they read a
friend’s notes or the textbook; the problem with this is that memory theory
tells us that over an hour of reading, we only tend to remember a little
from the beginning of the session and only a little from the end: This is
known as primacy and recency. There is a commonly held belief that
copying out notes or passages will be more effective, especially if liberally
covered with fluorescent highlighter pen. Sadly while this looks like good
studying, it is also equally susceptible to primacy and recency. Neither of
these approaches is a good use of your study time since you will simply
forget most of the details of the material that you are spending so much
valuable time on.
Use active reading techniques
5.
Students should begin a study session by writing quick summary notes (or
even a concept map) of what they already know and understand from the
topic. This will tell them what they know and what they still need to find
out. When you know what you need to find out, then you should read your
notes or textbook for just as long as you need to find the answer. This is an
example of active reading and the evidence is that you tend to remember
more of this than from long passive sessions. You can then update your
study notes and again focus on what you need to find next.
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Teach others
6.
Teachers become good at understanding a topic that they teach simply
because the act of teaching forces them to consider the way everything fits
together in a very active way. As teachers prepare to tell someone what
they know they have to consider the order of the ideas and then perhaps
field unexpected questions that make them see the learning from new
perspectives; the message here for learners is that real understanding can
be grown by teaching friends, parents, or even household pets if there is
no-one else handy. Many exam answers are like conversations with the
examiner and students should rehearse these conversations and then invite
their friends to say what they understood from their teaching and what they
didn’t. Teaching others in this way focuses them on what they need to
learn to improve their own understanding.
Test Cards
7.
Many students enjoy making little pocket summary cards from their notes
on a topic a few days before their exam. Whenever they are with friends or
parents they can hand over the cards to the friend and make a game of
being tested on the card’s contents.
Teach positive thinking
8.
Too many students suffer in exams because they carry so many negative
images of the process in their heads. For example:
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The examiners are keen to catch me out
There won’t be enough time
I’m not clever enough for this
In a recent exam, which was set way too hard,
(indeed one question was impossible), most of
the students who carried the above negative
thoughts into the exam room left early. Those
who were more positive believing that
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The examiners just want me to get a chance to “show what I know”
The examiners are mums and dad’s too
We will all find this scary but I have prepared as well as I can
Actually stayed to the end and were rewarded when the exam was
“standardised” to lower the pass mark later in recognition of the difficulty.
Those who stayed to the end were awarded more extra marks because they
had attempted more questions; positive thinking wasn’t just a woolly idea
here, it actually got the students more marks.
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Sleep is essential
9.
It may seem too obvious to state but many students perform badly in
exams because they haven’t had sufficient sleep the night before. Consider
5 hours the absolute minimum with something nearer to 8 hours being
optimum. Many students sleep too late the morning before the exam
because they are on study leave, study all day in
increasing panic and then can’t sleep for nervous
tension and pay for their long lie-in. The practical
technique here is to ensure that students have someone
like a parent or an early-rising friend “drag” them out
of bed early the morning before the exam. Never forget
that even a single night without sleep leaves the
average person prone to minor hallucination and two
nights without can have people confessing to crimes they
didn’t commit: Sleep is utterly central to performing at
your best!
Cut the caffiene
10.
Many fizzy drinks and coffee are high in caffeine. There is a mounting
body of evidence that drinking too many caffeine-rich drinks dehydrates
you and hence reduces the optimum
chemical balance of your brain. It
would probably be wiser to drink plenty
of
water or caffeine-free drinks in the days
leading up to your exam.
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