Fresh from The Desk: General Study Tips
I'm currently a 12-grader student and is about to face the finals. Finals week is the most stressful week of the entire year, I know. May I remind you about those sleepless-endless nights you've spent on that desk, struggling to remember those Physics formula by working on the excercise over and over again, or making yourself remember what's on your Biology flash cards. I know, sometimes you wish you'd started all of this earlier. Or hoping that 24 hours per day become 30 hours per day (me basically).
Well, I have my school final examination on Monday, and I’m determined to do well. It's not just about passing, it's about what'd be written on the diploma. So I made this littlegeneral study tips, how I determine to study well by keep getting myself organized. I personally not the best at studying regularly, but I know myself. I don't want me to find myself boring by studying. Instead, I want myself to find the excitement at studying so I won't get drown at the boreness or lack of study motivation in the middle of the studying. This is what I find useful and pretty much motivates me in order to keep me studying with the spirit of joy.
1. Sleep. Sleep is the most important thing in everything you do in your daily life. I try to get some sleep before studying, approximately an hour or two hours nap before studying. Getting some sleep helps me get my energy back before studying. After taking a quick nap, I feel more energetic and more motivated to study. But don't forget to set an alarm (or lots of them) because I tend to overslept sometimes.
2. Write down all your subjects (or sub-subjects) in your journal and list by day and by the most hardest subject to the least hardest subject. This will help you to study effectively and not going around with no result. It doesn't have to be a bullet journal, it could be just on a paper/your notebook. Get your task laying visually helps you a lot to prioritize on what’s important. Then, get start studying with the harder subject first. I usually start with the hardest topic then go until the least hard one. It’s good to study the hard part first because you don't have all of the time highly motivated, right?
3. I like having my notes coloured. It helps a lot to memorize like in Biology subject, and it makes you motivated to study. If you don't really like to have your notes coloured, underline them. It helps you to determine which one is the keynote, the definition, the subsubject, dll. You don't really need lots of colorful pens, just a simple blue ink to underline the black ink, your notes becomes an art project.
4. For most classes like Literature or History, you don't have to memorize formulas and equations. But, you'll be expected to understand what they mean and how to use them. In these subjects I've mentioned above, you'll need something that help you to memorize formulas, equations and how to use them. I suggest you to work with formula sheet. You can print or make your own table. Each row is for the topic, formula, the meaning, etc. Laying out each equation will help you see how they relate to each other and which situation to use each equation in. This helps me a lot. You can also print the printable ones, it's on the Tumblr with hash tag #printable. Or if you find this way isn't helping, you can use flash cards too. You can write the topic/the meaning in front of the card, then you write the equation at the back of the card. You can return the card position too, so you can play ask-and-answer about the formula.
5. If it's just a regular exams from school (not like the national exam or SAT), learn how the teacher make their questions and how they want to be answered. Each teacher usually have their style of questions. Go over old homework, focusing on all the problems you got wrong. You can also learn from the last year’s exams to get a better picture of what my teacher may ask about in the exam. Some teacher might say some tricky question in the class. Take notes about what she asked in the last class before the test. This may be help you to get prepared before the war (re: exam day).
6. If not, don't worry. You can find extra practice problems in your textbook or online. You can also borrow books from library or your seniors to keep you updated with various levels of the subject you're currently studying. You can also buy some books that contains predicted questions (especially if it's look like national exam, SAT, IELTS, etc). I bought loads of them for my national exams prep. I also bought these tiny books which contain the summary of all the materials for the national exams. You've got all in your hand nowadays, right? YouTube is another thing you can lie your solution, dude. Type the problem-you-might-need-a-tutor-to-get-it-solved-by, and YouTube'd like to help you one.
7. Fast/go on a diet. It means let's stop doing something we like for a moment until we pass the last day of exam. I basically love TV dramas a lot, and I realized I'd spent too much on TV dramas. You can practice some excercise insead of watching an episode (it's easy to be said).
8. Eat healthy snacks or protein bars and drink lots of water. It's true that you need food and water supplies more than you think. If you're addicted to coffee or some MSG snacks, try to substitute to the healthier ones like protein bars or fresh fruits and drink mineral water. Fresh fruits and mineral water can keep you from dehydration and makes your body refreshed. You can eat chocholate before studying and chew bubblegums during studying to help your brain working at its best.
9. I listen to music most of the time while studying. I prefer classical music to any kind of music, my friends know this, but it's true somehow. Classical music helps you relax and soothe you. It also makes you concentrate more since you don't have to pay attention to the music and you don't have to sing along. My favorite piano songs for studying are Debussy's like Clair de Lune, Arabesque no. 1, Liszt's Liebestraum and my all-time favorite Widmung. If I find myself a bit excited I'd like to put some orchestra music like from Strauss. If I need some pop, I'd go for John Williams. You can hear his for starters. He's the gentleman behind the Star Wars famous soundtrack.
But sometimes, if I'm not in the mood of hearing anthing, I'd give a go for some noise sound. Since I'm an auditory learner, I like to study with noises. I find some good websites that have incredible noises like rains (I hate rainy days but I start to love the sound of it since I watch Lee Min Ho's mini drama - stop), some noise at coffee shop or at trains, etc. Even better, you can combine the noise with your song. These are websites I love:
http://www.rainymood.com/
https://coffitivity.com/
10. Study in groups. Or not. Well, sometimes, studying and cramming on your own and reciting paragraphs and formulas to yourself makes you crazier than you should be. By forming study groups with your friends, or with people you know they can help you in your weaker subjects is a good tip. This benefits everyone involved as people exchange knowledge, information or tips how to solve the problem your teacher might not teach you (it's very possible). However, this might not work for some people because they might get distracted easily from studying to gossiping (me).
11. It’s important to keep a planner or calendar that keeps you up to date with assignments due date, exams week countdown, etc. I've been doing this for 12 years and it’s really helping me a lot. Even though I'm good with memorizing dates, it's just good to have everything laying down visually. You can also have a reminder in your phone if you don't really feel doing a planner of paper calendar. Some prductive app in the App/Play Store is quite handy and useful. I don't use it for my assignment list (I used to download Podomoros and Evernote, it's good), but I use it for tracking my schedule (it's TimeTune). For to-do list I have this Google Chrome extention: Momentum (for PC browser).
12. This might be the last tip but not the least. Go for consultations/extra lessons, since this is your (or my) last few months before the national exams. It's really not surprising at all if you find your teacher pulls you to do extra work or pulling you from your day-offs by making you have some tryouts (it's like exam trials). I know it's driving you crazy, it's making your stomach crams, but remember that your teacher has gone out of his/her way to do this just for you. Note this, that you’re not the only one who is sacrificing your playtime, we're all in this together. Don't get distracted by some people who won't even bother to even show some spirit and pay attention to the teacher. Don't hear what people say like if they're saying you're too ambitious and it makes you uneasy. Just do what you think it's necessary. Use this kind of time to discuss with your teachers about the subjects, or anything bothering you.
By doing all of the above (by all I mean really-really all of them) I hope that I'm prepared enough for the exam. I hope I can do my best, wish me tons of luck!
