Study Tips
Hi all, your exams are coming up, so I just wanna share a few tips to help you people study for your tests/exams.
- Have Goals
Its very important to know what you want. And that includes your grades. What you should do is to write down the grades you want and put it somewhere where you see everyday. I put them on my pencil case, my file and my study table. This is scientifically proven, that the more you see your desired grades the harder you will tend to work.
Another important thing would be the correct mindset. For me, when I was doing my O levels, one major distraction would be to play soccer. However whenever I was tempted, I would tell myself that I want that As more than that 1 hour of soccer time, and I would go back to studying. Whenever I faced any distraction or problem, I would just tell myself, its going to be worth in the end.
However, that being said, you cannot study 24 hours. You need a break sometimes. Try to have a short 10 mins break every 1 hour, or something like that, depending on your attention span. Or go for an evening jog, or play a sport, just make sure you control yourself and the time you have.
- Pay Attention in class
You’d be surprised at how important this is. Think about it this way; if you have already understood what the teacher has said, and have no problems understanding it in school, you don’t have to restudy it again later.
A simple way to pay attention would be simply to right in front of the class. Ive been a student before, and its very tempting to want to sit at the back and talk with your friends, and play a fool, but you have other times for that. In secondary school and JC, I tried to do this; I sat right at the front for the first term and had good grades. After going to the back of the class, my results dropped a litt.e
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions
Don’t be afraid to ask questions, thinking you will feel paiseh or stupid. It helps you to learn, and it might even help someone else who has the same question, but is afraid to ask as well. One advantage of sitting in the front is that you can ask a lot of questions privately to the teacher.
- Know the type of learner you are
There are 3 main types of learning. Audio, Visual and Kinesthetic. Audio learning means you get and understand information easier when its said to you, or when you say it out loud. For example, I had a friend who would read aloud his SS and History to help him memorise. He would then record it and play it back to himself.
A Visual learner is someone who understands better when the information or content is being seen. For me, im a very visual learner so how I studied was I made colourful mindmaps for every subject, and drew little doodles next to the short and concise words. How it helped me was that during tests, all I had to do was to remember the colour and which part of the mindmap I need the information from.
Kinesthetic learner would be that you remember best by doing. For this case, what you would have to do is to simply practice a lot, and most importantly, KNOW WHAT YOUR DOING AND WHY!
You can actually go and search more about this on the internet. But one very important principle is that you must understand how to answer the question and WHY are you are answering it that way, because the questions and concepts can change, but the content are still probably the same.
What you should do is make your own notes. By making your own notes, it shows you understand and can consolidate what you have learnt. Your own notes should be short, straight to the point, and easy for you to understand. It should only be like 1 page per topic or something like that.
4. SLEEP
You’d be surprised how much sleep helps. You might not feel the difference if you stay up late one day, but if you do it over a long period of time, you will.
When I was in JC, I had a lot of work to do. So what I did was; for one week, I stayed up till 12 plus everyday just to finish more work. I got more work done, but the next day I felt very tired and couldn’t concentrate at all. So I didn’t really understand my lessons. Think about it this way, theres no point sleeping late to do work, knowing youll fall asleep the next day in class, and so your effort will be wasted.
The next week, I slept at 10.30 everyday, which is rather early, and there is a really a significant difference. Sleeping early gives your brain a rest from the days work and more importantly, it helps you concentrate during class, so that you don’t have to put in more effort to relearn stuff.
5. Exam Tips
Do Easy Questions first, don’t be afraid to skip questions, just remember to come back and finish them.
Sleep early the night before, chionging is no use, cause you will only remember the last few stuff.
Before the exam, don’t read textbooks, just read your own summarized notes.
Try to relax before exams.
I hope all the tips above have helped you. Please take note that different people has different studying methods and preference, so try to find your own. School gets tougher every year. But tough times don’t last, tough people do. So its all in the mind. If you want good grades, go work for it. Simple.
Yours in Scouting
Chandan
