Improve Your Studying Skills

By Fr. Divya Paul –

It’s exam time, here are a few tips on how to organize your study, prepare and take your exams.

Study Habits

• Decide what to study (reasonable task) and how long or how many (chapters, pages, problems, etc.). Set and stick to deadlines.
• Do difficult tasks first. For procrastination, start off with an easy, interesting aspect of the project.
• Have special places to study. Take into consideration lighting, temperature, and availability of materials.
• Study 50 minutes, and then take a 10-minute break. Stretch, relax, have an energy snack.
• Allow longer time periods for organizing relationships and concepts, outlining, and writing papers. Use shorter, “spaced” time intervals for memorization, review, and self-testing. Use odd moments for recall/review.
• If you get tired or bored, switch task/activity, subject, or environment. Stop studying when you are no longer being productive.
• Do regular memory tasks and review, especially details, just before you fall asleep.
• Study with a friend. Quiz each other, compare notes and predicted test questions..

Preparing for Exams

When the Exam is Announced:

• Find out what the exam will or won’t cover.
• Find out what kind of exam it will be: objective, short essay, long essay, or a combination.

Exam Study:

• Prepare summary sheets for large amounts of lecture and textbook notes.
• Spend several nights before an exam making a final review of notes.
• Stress the following areas in your review:
• Points emphasized in class or in the text;
• Areas the professor has advised for study:
• Questions in study guides, past quizzes, and reviews at the end of textbook chapters.

Preparation by Type of Exam:

• Objective exams: Study as if it were an essay exam.
• Stress specifics:
• Definitions of key terms and examples;
• Lists of items;
• For True/False, write some false statements.

Essay Exams:

• Stress concepts.
• List probable questions.
• Prepare a good outline answer and practice it.

Problem Exams:

• Memorize formulas if needed.
• Practice problems.

Ten Traps of Studying

1.”I Don’t Know Where to Begin”
Take Control. Make a list of all the things you have to do. Break your workload down into manageable chunks. Prioritize! Schedule your time realistically. Don’t skip classes near an exam — you may miss a review session. Use that hour in between classes to review notes. Interrupt study time with planned study breaks. Begin studying early, with an hour or two per day, and slowly build as the exam approaches.

2. “I’ve Got So Much To Study . . . And So Little Time”
Preview. Survey your syllabus, reading material, and notes. Identify the most important topics emphasized, and areas still not understood. Previewing saves time, especially with non-fiction reading, by helping you organize and focus in on the main topics. Adapt this method to your own style and study material, but remember, previewing is not an effective substitute for reading.

3. “This Stuff Is So Dry, I Can’t Even Stay Awake Reading It”
Attack! Get actively involved with the text as you read. Ask yourself, “What is important to remember about this section?” Take notes or underline key concepts. Discuss the material with others in your class. Study together. Stay on the offensive, e specially with material that you don’t find interesting, rather than reading passively and missing important points.

4. “I Read It. I Understand It. But I Just Can’t Get It to Sink In”
Elaborate. We remember best the things that are most meaningful to us. As you are reading, try to elaborate upon new information with your own examples. Try to integrate what you’re studying with what you already know. You will be able to remember new material better if you can link it to something that’s already meaningful to you. Some techniques include:

• Chunking: An effective way to simplify and make information more meaningful. For example, suppose you wanted to remember the colours in the visible spectrum (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet); you would have to memorize seven “chunks” of information in order. But if you take the first letter of each colour, you can spell the name “Roy G. Biv”, and reduce the information the three “chunks”.
• Mnemonics: Any memory-assisting technique that helps us to associate new information with something familiar. For example, to remember a formula or equation, we may use letters of the alphabet to represent certain numbers. Then we can change an abstract formula into a more meaningful word or phrase, so we’ll be able to remember it better. Sound-alike associations can be very effective, too, especially while trying to learn a new language. The key is to create your own links, then you won’t forget them.

5. “I Guess I Understand It”
Test yourself. Make up questions about key sections in notes or reading. Keep in mind what the professor has stressed in the course. Examine the relationships between concepts and sections. Often, simply by changing section headings you can generate many effective questions. For example, a section entitled “Bystander Apathy” might be changed into questions such as: “What is bystander apathy?”, “What are the causes of bystander apathy?”, and “What are some examples of bystander apathy?”

6. “There’s Too Much to Remember”
Organize. Information is recalled better if it is represented in an organized framework that will make retrieval more systematic. There are many techniques that can help you organize new information, including:

• Write chapter outlines or summaries; emphasize relationships between sections.
• Group information into categories or hierarchies, where possible.
• Information Mapping. Draw up a matrix to organize and interrelate material. For example, if you were trying to understand the causes of World War I, you could make a chart listing all the major countries involved across the top, and then list the important issues and events down the side. Next, in the boxes in between, you could describe the impact each issue had on each country to help you understand these complex historical developments.

7. “I Knew It A Minute Ago”
Review. After reading a section, try to recall the information contained in it. Try answering the questions you made up for that section. If you cannot recall enough, re-read portions you had trouble remembering. The more time you spend studying, the more you tend to recall. Even after the point where information can be perfectly recalled, further study makes the material less likely to be forgotten entirely. In other words, you can’t over study. However, how you organize and integrate new information is still more important than how much time you spend studying.

8.”But I Like to Study In Bed”
Context. Recall is better when study context (physical location, as well as mental, emotional, and physical state) are similar to the test context. The greater the similarity between the study setting and the test setting, the greater the likelihood that material studied will be recalled during the test.

9. “Cramming Before A Test Helps Keep It Fresh in My Mind”
Spacing: Start studying now. Keep studying as you go along. Begin with an hour or two a day about one week before the exam, and then increase study time as the exam approaches. Recall increases as study time gets spread out over time.

10. “I’m Gonna Stay Up All Night ’til I Get This”
Avoid Mental Exhaustion. Take short breaks often when studying. Before a test, have a rested mind. When you take a study break, and just before you go to sleep at night, don’t think about academics. Relax and unwind, mentally and physically. Otherwise, your break won’t refresh you and you’ll find yourself lying awake at night. It’s more important than ever to take care of yourself before an exam! Eat well, sleep, and get enough exercise.

TAKING THE EXAM

• Read over the whole exam before beginning to write anything.
• Choose the problem or question that seems easiest to you and do it first. Continue to do the problems in order of increasing difficulty.
• STAY IN MOTION!!! Work on a problem until you get stuck. Think about it for a minute or two, and if nothing comes to you then drop it and go on to another problem. Don’t spend 30 minutes sweating out an additional five points on a problem and run out of time, leaving a 40-point problem untouched. You may later have time to return to the first one and you’re much more likely to think of how to do it then.
• Show your work. Give enough detail so that both you and the grader can tell what you’re trying to do. Even if you can do the problem in your head, don’t. If you’re wrong, you get a zero; if you’re right, you could be suspected of cheating.
• Watch out for significant figures. Some instructors don’t appreciate answers like 23.694028, even if that’s what the calculator says.
• Think partial credit. Try to put something down for each part of every problem/question. If you don’t have time to solve a problem completely, tell what you’d do if you had more time.
  Keep your work legible. If an instructor can’t read what you wrote, you aren’t likely to get full credit and you may not get any.
• If you don’t understand a question, ask the instructor/Invigilator for help. You might get some, and it never hurts to try.
• Don’t panic. If you feel yourself sweating or hyperventilating, put down your pencil, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and consciously relax any muscles that you’re clenching (jaw, neck, stomach). When you’re calmer, go back to work.
• If you have time at the end, check your solutions. Did you answer each part of every question? Did you answer the question(s) asked? Do your answers look reasonable? Do your calculations check out? (Save this one for last.)
• Hand in your paper when time is called. Nothing makes an instructor/proctor more homicidal than having to wrestle you to the floor to get your paper.

PRAY TO THE HOLY SPIRIT FOR ENLIGHTENMENT AND GUIDANCE.

PRAYER FOR PREPARATION TO STUDY
Lord, I know you are with me and love me.
Give me peace of mind as I prepare for this time of study.
Help me to focus on my books and notes,
keep me from all distractions so that I will make the best use
of this time that is available to me.

Give me insight that I might understand what I am studying,
and help me to remember it when the time comes.

Above all, I thank you for the ability to be able to study
and for the many gifts and talents you have given me.
Help me always to use them in such a way
that they honour you and do justice to myself.
Amen

PRAYER BEFORE AN EXAMINATION

Dear Lord, as I take this exam, I thank you that my value
Is not based on my performance, but on your great love for me.
Come into my heart so that we can walk through this time together.
Help me, not only with this test, but the many tests of life that are sure to come my way.
As I take this exam, bring back to my mind everything I studied
and be gracious with what I have overlooked.

Help me to remain focussed and clam, confident in the facts and in my ability,
and firm in the knowledge that no matter what happens today you are there with me.
Amen

---

Fr. Divya Paul is a priest of the Archdiocese of Bangalore and currently the Parish Priest of St. Anthony’s Church, Kavalbyrasandra. He is also the Archdiocesan Youth Director and Editor of Tabor Kirana. He is a practicing psychotherapist and Visiting Professor of Psychology and Psychotherapy at many higher educational Institutions and Seminaries with a PhD in Counselling Psychology.