Efficient Studying and Exam Preparation Techniques
This is a collection of techniques that are based on a list given to me by a med student in his final year of med school. I found them useful and wanted to share as a new year of college begins.
General Tips
Join a study group. Reach out to others in any lecture or to those in your dorm who have the same class(es) and schedule some time to study together. Compare notes, talk about any problem areas you have and figure out what works well to prepare for the exam. Some students use outside materials or sources to help them and a study group may give you access to these, or you may be able to share yours. The study group gets the learning off the page and into a more social format which is nice addition. If there is no study group to join, start one. I found that study groups were good for me in the later hours of the day. Reading is tough when you start to get tired but somehow social interaction is fine and can give you a second wind. As you approach exams, ask each other to write down questions that think could be on the test, then exchange those questions as practice. I found that other students would often show me an area of a subject that I had missed or neglected and fixing any blind spots like that is a huge plus.
Make lists. You will be stretching yourself in a lot of directions simultaneously and it can feel overwhelming. You can feel like you are neglecting or forgetting something and stress will fog your mind. It helps greatly to just put it down on paper. Write not only what you need to do but also an estimate of how much time it will take – for example: “re-read chapter 3 of Biology 30 mins”. The times will help you fill in holes in your schedule and budget your time more effectively. Put everything that requires your time on to the same list – study PLUS everything else that competes for your time and attention. If you use Excel (or some other spreadsheet ) then by all means use it for the lists. You can sort by timing or importance. Print the lists out and cross things off as you do them. This will help keep you focused and give you a sense of control and of making progress.
Take Breaks. Get up and move around. Eat something. Do something else for 5 to 10 minutes during a long study session then go back to it. Avoid stress and fatigue since they diminish your effectiveness during study time. Each hour could be 45 to 50 mins study and 10 minutes of something else. If you need sleep, sleep. There is no substitute for sleep. 20 minutes of sleep can save you hours of barely effective studying because you were on the edge of sleeping and “fought through it.”.
Use outside sources when helpful. If the assigned textbook is poorly written or just doesn’t speak to you then seek out a different textbook (in addition to the required one) or online sources for the same information. The other sources can be anything from lectures on YouTube to Wikipedia to interviewing past students to the “For Dummies” series of books. Whatever works best for you. A friend of mine watched movie versions of Shakespeare plays to round out and reinforce his study of the written work, including modern versions that have updated the language. Hit the subject from every angle.
Meet with the TA or the Prof early or in the middle of the semester. Even if you have only one good question for them, make an appointment and show up. Plenty of college students never do this. They think that they may seem stupid or that they are asking for extra help by doing this. They aren’t. This is what you pay for and it really helps to make any kind of personal connection with the Prof. Not brown nosing, just ‘here I am. I am interested in learning as much as I can. How am I doing?’ If they connect your name on an exam (essays or other subjectively graded stuff) you are likely to get a better score than if they have never seen you. Also going through the process of the appointment and your five minutes with them will give you a better sense of how available they are and how valuable that kind of access can be (or not) if/when you are in crisis mode or you need a mulligan.
If you are learning a foreign language get music that you already know and like in that language. Load your iPod with rap in Spanish or whatever you like and let it kind of wash over you. Don’t even try to follow the words. Magically you absorb the language without trying. Many people have learned English this way. After you have heard a song many times, get a copy of the lyrics (in the language) and read them as you listen. Connect the words with the sounds. A similar tool is movies – turn on the subtitles. Try different combos – Spoken English with Spanish subtitles, spoken spanish with english subtitles but ultimately spoken Spanish with Spanish subtitles underneath. It is multichannel immersion and very efficient time use.
Don’t stress. Stress pulls oxygen out of your brain. Panic sets you up for “fight or flight” and neither one of those is going to help with the exams. Breath deeply. Exercise. Get sleep. Beware of caffeine and other stimulants especially if you are prone to stress because caffeine will amplify the effect. You could be wide awake and studying but if you are stressing then your information uptake is less than ideal.
Brain food. Eat some brain food (proteins, oats, sushi, greens, soup, nuts). Proteins like nuts and meats provide long burning energy and avoid the peaks and valleys of carbs. Don’t neglect leafy greens (spinach is a vitamin bomb) and take a multivitamin daily. Going into any test period, you want to keep your belly full so make sure that time to eat is part of your schedule for exam prep. And, by all means, study while you eat.
Make a Bet with a friend or other student in a class where you need more motivation. Bet them that you will out-perform them on the exams. It can be highly motivating and doesn’t have to be a bet for money.
Studying
Study from the general to the specific. It helps enormously to get the “big picture” first and to get a sense of just how much you need to learn overall. Read the table of contents first thing and really look at how the subject is being broken down and organized. Think about how YOU want to break it into segments and how many segments you need to master each week. If you see things you already have a good handle on then you can look for areas that will need more of your attention. This will let you put your focus on the areas where you will need to spend the most time and not just assume that each chapter will be equally challenging and therefore deserves equal time from you. Reading the glossary or list of terminology can also give you a sense of what you know versus what you don’t and give you the framework to hang more detailed learning on.
Studying is front-loaded. Better to spend a shorter time on each subject every day than to go deep on one while not touching the others. 3 straight hours of reading and study in one subject will not be as effective as dividing that time up between three subjects. Studying seems to be front-loaded meaning that you get the most out of the first 20 to 30 minutes on a subject.
Whatever you study, read or look at right before going to sleep will be more deeply implanted in your memory. You may be too fatigued to master concepts in the 30 minutes before sleeping so this time is better spent on details which require straight memorization – names, dates, places, or foreign language study.
The concept of state-dependent memory theorizes that we are better able to remember things when we are in the same state of mind as when we learned or studied them. The most extreme examples of state dependent memory are sleep and drunkeness. We often can’t remember our dreams when we wake up but in the course of a dream, while asleep, we remember having the same or a similar dream before. In practice, some students have found it better to study and prepare in the same or similar environment in which you will be tested – eg. NOT with music, activity and multi-tasking going on but rather at a desk with a noise environment similar to the test environment, perhaps a library or other group study area.
Also if you are a “morning person” or a “night person” that is something to factor in both to your study habits and the timing of the test. Some med students look at the times when the exam is scheduled when they pick their classes. In other words, if they know they perform poorly at 9AM then they avoid a class which has its exam scheduled at 9AM. You can usually see the exam schedule when you pick classes (because you also have to avoid classes that have exams at the same time).
Schedule your study time. Just block out some time each day that will be spent reading, researching, going to lab and participating in a study group. Use your sharpest hours on the more difficult or tedious subjects.
Read everywhere. Carry whatever you need to read with you and when waiting for the bus, dinner, a friend, etc. read. If you get a part time job get one where you can read. I have had a few jobs since college which would have been perfect because you need to be there and available but there are many hours when you have nothing to do. Receptionist, security guard, hotel desk clerk are classic examples. Also, when you travel is a great time to read – waiting for buses, planes, on the plane, in the car.
Exam Prep
Prep for exams in the reverse of the order you will take them. As you approach the final exams you can avoid getting crunched on the last of them by mastering those first. Give enough time to the ones which will come last so that as you are cramming for the first tests you are already in a good position for the last ones. Inevitably the clock runs out and the exams which come last are the most vulnerable to getting short changed. The alternate strategy or the co-strategy here would be to try and have the easier exams last (so that is looking the exam times when selecting courses again).
Get old tests, preferably those used and written by the professor you have. Upper classmen, teacher’s aides, frats and the internet may be sources for copies of tests which have been used before. These tests are very valuable in figuring out what is likely to be on the test and for preparing to take the test. When you get one, don’t look at it until you block out some time. You can use the first-look to test yourself. Just sit down and take the test. There is no better way to find out which details you need to spend more time with.
Practice writing. If the exam includes essays then you should practice writing timed essays (because it isn’t something we do anywhere else). You need to score as many points in an essay as possible – load every sentence with facts and info. The prof or their assistant will keep score as they read you answer. The number of words doesn’t count, only the facts and your demonstration that you know them. Practice writing the answer to an essay question in 10 minutes, then another in 15, another in 20. This can give you a better sense of how to budget your time during the exam and how to finish off a coherent answer in the alloted time. Put your answer essays aside and re-read them a day or two later. You can write practice essays throughout the semester but they are especially helpful in the 2 weeks leading up to the final. If you have good tight sentences in your head you can just pour them out in the exam room. Answer the question which is asked but throw in anything close to the answer if it was part of your prep and you can get it into the essay quickly.
Be sure to eat (see “Brain food” above) and take care of other obligations before they conflict with exams and exam prep. Be early for the exam. You will be calmer and more focused if you get to the exam at least 20 to 30 minutes before it starts. Just hang out, stretch, eat and take a last look at any memorization stuff.
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