I’m in my third year of university now and I really want to include some more university based posts on my blog (like when I spoke about failure here). So I thought a great post to do would be to share 10 study methods that can be applied to school/college/university that will hopefully give you some ideas and help some of you with revision and studying!
This is particularly great if you study a humanity subject or need to brainstorm ideas for a project because it allows you to be creative and just write as much related facts as possible. You write the topic/main subject in the middle and write all the other related items coming out of it. This could also be good if you’re trying to jot down all your ideas about a subject or story for example.
As I study Maths a lot of my work is based around solving problems, so answering questions is really productive and helpful for me.
These are great for testing your knowledge and seeing where you went wrong.
Exam run through
Timing yourself and practising an exam without your notes is a really good way of helping with your time management, you can see if you’re going through the exam too fast or if you need to slow down. This is also great for practising your exam technique and making sure you’re doing enough for all the marks. Tip: Start by doing a few exams with your notes and then after further studying, start doing exams timing yourself with no help. This is probably one of my favourite and most helpful methods.
I always like to go through all the notes I’ve written or the notes the teacher/lecturer has provided us with, and from there I write my own revision notes that are easy to read. I will write down key formula’s and annotations in my own words to help me understand. You can even do these on little revision cards if you find them more helpful. Do these as early as possible because these will be helpful for you when it comes to studying for exams at the end of the year.
Listen to recordings
My university has an online system that records our lectures and we can go back and listen to them, if you learn best through listening this might be a great method for you. Another way that listening could help, for my French GSCE Oral exam, I recorded my speech that I had to memorise and listened to it repeatedly before the exam, it helped me to memorise it really well!
Write annotations to your notes in different colours
When I’m writing my notes in classes or revision ones at home, if the teacher/lecturer says an extra point to something I will annotate my notes in a different colour so that I remember it. For example if they say that this type of question will be in the exam I will write in red “This will be in the exam!”, I also highlight all my formulas with a yellow highlighter. This is super helpful when you look back through your notes months later because it reminds me of things I would have previously forgotten!
Write it out repeatedly
This is particularly helpful if you need to memorise formulas, or case studies. Writing it out repeatedly helps it to stick in your memory. One big tip I have that I got shown by a teacher in secondary school is to write out the name on a piece of paper with space for the definition next to it, put that in a plastic wallet and then use a whiteboard pen to write out the definition from memory. You can then check if its correct, rub it out and do it again. This saves paper and keeps everything in once place!
Get people to test you
Another super helpful way is to get other people to test you. I will write out a sheet of key formulas I need to remember and get other people to test me. This is hands down for me the best way I’ve memorised stuff for my exams!
Tidy area tidy mind
This isn’t particularly a studying method but it is something that will help with your studying. Don’t study in your bed, keep your study area separate, whether it’s at a desk or your kitchen table. Also keep the area tidy and organised because it will help you study so much better.
So there are 10 study methods that I have found helpful, I hope that you can find some of these helpful too!
What methods do you like to implement? I’d love some ideas for my studying!