Many college students imagine that the best way to achieve academic excellence is to study for long hours at a time. However, being a straight A student is about working smart and not pushing yourself over your limits. To be a highly successful student, you have to ensure that your academic strides align with your mental health. If you’re overworking, your brain is bound to shut down at some point and this only pushes you back and waters down all the effort you have put in up to that point.
Since you’re studying in a digitized era, don’t be afraid to use services like RankMyService when you feel overwhelmed by your academic workload. Even as a self-sufficient student, you’ve got to accept that sometimes, you need help with your academics. So, instead of looking at the duration you spend studying, pay attention to the effectiveness of your study sessions. The most important thing is that you understand the concepts you’re studying.
Many students attest to using some of the most praised studying techniques yet still not getting the results they anticipated. For instance, you could use markers to highlight the important information you want to remember and forget everything as soon as you close your notebook. You could also jot down notes as you write, but your brain won’t grasp the information you’re trying to master if your studying approach isn’t right.
It’s only in college that students realize that they have never been taught how to study and they don’t know the right way to go about it. Since in college you learn very complex concepts, your inability to effectively study gets magnified because you need feasible studying techniques to break down complex concepts.
Having reliable studying skills is essential for your academic success because when you take exams, the performance evaluation will reveal what you know and don’t know. If you’ve been winging it throughout the semester, you’re likely to fail your exams because you can turn to a friend or online resources for help. With academics, you either know or don’t know something; there’s no in-betweens and this is something students should remember during study sessions.
Your study sessions should be dedicated to actually mastering the concepts instead of gauging how many pages you can read in one sitting. That’s why you need to take the time to find out the reading techniques that work for you. Continue reading this article to learn proven tips for effective studying.
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Space Out Your Studying
Spacing out your study sessions gives your brain enough time to process and store information before you interact with new information. Following up your study sessions creates chaos in your brain, preventing it from properly saving the information you’re exposing it to. That is why sometimes when you’re doing a biology exam, you can find yourself giving answers that are for a chemistry or physics question.
Space out your studying to ensure that the knowledge stored in your brain is not all jumbled up because then your efforts will be wasted and the information will be useless. What’s more, avoid studying a day before an exam because you give your brain too much pressure. You’re not a machine and as such, your brain needs time to process information.
Most times, if you cram information before an exam, you end up forgetting most of the things you read because the brain did not have enough time to save the new information you exposed it to.
Start Studying at the Beginning of the Semester
Since you need to space out study sessions, this means you should start studying as soon as your semesters begin to avoid the last-minute pressure to know everything at once. At the beginning of every academic year, map out the weeks available in a semester and how much time you need to prepare for the final examinations. From there, write up a studying timetable and make sure you stay disciplined enough to follow it.
Consider partnering with like-minded students who are success-oriented. Having someone who motivates you to study ensures that you don’t fall off the bandwagon before the end of the semester. Even on those tough days, you can keep each other accountable because you know that you’ll reap good results in the end.
Review Your Notes After Every Topic
Every time your professor concludes a topic, make a point of reviewing what you’ve been taught before the professor can introduce the next chapters. You need to ensure you can summarize what the topic is about in a nutshell without any trouble.
Consider making flashcards to help you master the definitions of different terminologies as well as understand the basic concepts discussed in the topic. You could also one of your friends to evaluate your knowledge on the subject by reading out random flashcards and asking you what is entailed in the mentioned words.
Another way to summarize what you’ve learned in a given topic is looking for questions that test your knowledge on the subject. You can test yourself using online questions and use your results to gauge what concepts you still haven’t mastered.
Wrapping Up
Now that you know that studying is not all about overworking your brain, you can find effective studying techniques that allow you to work smart instead of working hard. Ensure you explore different studying methods until you find one that works for you. After all, just because it worked for your friend does not mean it’s what you need.