Are you frustrated with trying to study effectively? Think about the following situations. Do any of them sound familiar?
- It's one week before a big exam and you find yourself with over a hundred pages of textbook material to read. You stay up late every night and extra late the night before the exam to review what you've just read.
- You've read all the material prior to an exam. But when you begin your review, you find that you remember very little about what you read several weeks ago
- You're unable to accurately estimate how much time you should spend studying. You find yourself either finishing your reading much too early before exams, or at the last minute and having to pull "all nighters."
If you've ever been frustrated by these or similar situations, it's almost a certainty that some sort of consistently used study system will help you.
Imagine, for example, reading the newspaper every day if you had to decide from scratch how you would read it each time. Think about what it would be like having to agonize over whether to read the front page first or the sports page. Maybe you should read the business section first and then the editorial page. Wait - maybe it's better to read the comics first so the rest of the news won't look so bad.
The time spent making these decisions each time you pick up the newspaper is time that could have been spent actually reading the paper if you read it the same way every day.
Reading your textbooks and study material is no different. If you don't have a structured way of approaching your studying, you'll always be changing your approach and end up having wasted much time trying to decide how to study.
Plus, since you'll be constantly using different approaches, you'll be unable to accurately estimate how much time you should devote to your textbooks. This is the primary reason why so many students have to burn the midnight oil before exams to make up for falling behind on their reading.
If you adopt and consistently use a study method, over time you will:
1. Develop a good feel for exactly how much time you should devote to reading each of your course textbooks.
2. Be able to better plan your study time and provide yourself with more free time.
3. Avoid last minute reading and cramming anxiety.
Unfortunately, study skills are not typically taught in high school. The high school curriculum is so focused on what you need to learn that it seldom spends any time on teaching you how to learn it.
Studies have shown that about 70% of your total study time is spent reading, comprehending and memorizing. With the average college course containing five to seven hundred pages of textbook reading, having an organized method of studying can save you hundreds of hours of time in the long run.
There are many study methods available and almost any one, if used consistently, will improve your grades. Find one you're comfortable with and watch your grade point average go up!
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Plants are shaped by cultivation and men by education. .. We are born weak, we need strength; we are born totally unprovided, we need aid; we are born stupid, we need judgment. Everything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given us by education.
(Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile, On Philosophy of Education)
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