A University of California study found that students used to study as many as 24 hours per week in 1961. In sharp contrast, today’s students study a meager six hours a week on average.
Hunkering down to study can feel like such a chore. You want to ace your test, but you just can’t get into studying for such a long time. Studying doesn’t have to be a struggle, it can actually be kind of fun once you get the hang of it. Here are some tips to get you studying like a pro in no time.
Hand Write Your Notes
With technological advancements such as laptops, phones, and other note-taking devices, it’s easy to automatically type your notes. It is true that you can take more notes if you type everything out. However, if you want to be more efficient at studying, we advise you take notes by hand.
According to a publication in the Scientific American, Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenhiemer’s research demonstrated that students learn more when writing by hand. Researchers noted that “In each study, however, those who wrote out their notes by hand had a stronger conceptual understanding and were more successful in applying and integrating the material than those who took notes with their laptops.”
In short, more information is stored in your brain when it’s hand written versus typed. Writing is also much slower. This forces you to write down only the essential information to your studying. Writing your notes can also keep you from the temptation of signing into social media with your laptop.
Don’t Cram the Night Before
Nate Kornell of the University of California worked a study, finding that “spacing out learning was more effective than cramming for 90% of the participants who took part in one of his experiments –and yet 72% of the participants thought that cramming had been more beneficial.” You may think that cramming is helpful, but it actually is much more detrimental than you could imagine.
Sometimes a cram session is necessary if you haven’t studied at all, but we suggest that you keep cramming to a minimum. Everything learned by cramming will only go into short term memory, and it will make it harder for you to do well on subsequent tests that build on your knowledge.
Most cramming sessions happen in replacement of sleep which is a really bad for memory consolidation. Pulling an all-nighter is actually the worst thing to do before your test. It will make it nearly impossible to think clearly and can have a negative impact on your health in the long term. The stress of cramming the night before will actually reduce your performance on your test.
Space Out Your Studying
To do really well on your exam takes a lot of dedication and preparation. It’s not a matter of studying 8 hours a day but sticking to a study schedule as soon you receive your test date.
The best way to retain the most information is to space out your study sessions. The worst way to learn is by cramming everything in one night or studying way too many things during one session. We advise you to study a little bit less, at more frequent intervals.
Researchers find that this is actually the most effective way to put what you learn into your long term memory. If you have assigned reading, be sure not to fall behind. Break your readings into chunks and take plenty of breaks.
After accomplishing your study goals be sure to treat yourself. In order to keep up your new efficient way of studying you have to really enjoy the time you are on breaks. Do something relaxing and de-stressing so you can study with renewed vigor. You’ll be performing better than ever in no time and be much more prepared for your next exam.
