Learn about the studying blunders that could sandbag your hardwork and diminish your memory.
You know that studying is an essential part of excelling at college, but did you realize that some outdated study techniques can actually make it more difficult for you to remember what you’ve learned?
If you spot one of your bad habits on this list, try trading it for a scientifically proven way to boost your recall. Your grades will thank you.
Research indicates that marathon study sessions and sleepless nights could harm your ability to do well on exam day. According to the U.S. Air Force, marathon study sessions, those exceeding three hours, are not as effective as light study sessions of one to two hours. If you’re thinking about hitting the library after class for six hours, think again; go for 90 minutes, take a break, and go back later.
Distribute your studying into shorter periods and take frequent breaks. Make a plan and stick to it. This helps you retain information more effectively and keeps you from overdoing it with marathon study sessions.
You may think that setting a strict schedule is going to take your grades to the next level. If you’re a procrastinator, you probably believe you need a highly regimented schedule. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill notes that rigid schedules aren’t realistic and don’t work; as a college student, you need some flexibility and “open” time. If your schedule lays out every minute, chances are you’ll break it, and that can be discouraging.
Make a weekly study time management plan that leaves plenty of open slots for rescheduling. You never know when something will pop up.
Not sleeping enough can contribute to health problems, including high blood pressure and obesity. It can also lead to worse performance on tests, presentations and other important class projects. In fact, research shows that the majority of students who report regularly staying up all night to study have lower grades than those who do not. Even if you have a big test tomorrow, pulling an all-nighter won’t be as beneficial as you might think.
Create positive study habits to ensure you’re digesting information throughout the week, rather than from midnight until six in the morning the day of the test. Adhering to the other solutions in this article will help a lot too.
Using your laptop to type during lectures lets you produce neater, longer sets of notes, but you’re also less likely to remember what you wrote. Scientific American reported on 2014 research that indicated handwriting lecture notes requires the brain to process information and decide what is important enough to include, which aided students in recalling the information later.
Students who typed their notes were less likely to process important concepts while typing and were more likely to transcribe their professor’s exact words. Even when the typing students were told to avoid this pitfall, the students who handwrote lecture notes still preformed better on tests.
Write your notes if possible. If you do use a laptop, try to engage with what you’re typing. Also, after class, take your notes and type them into really organized outlines. HAMNIC Solutions, for instance, is a great mobile-friendly tool for organizing notes, trying practice problems, and sharing your study guides.
If you have a calculus exam on three chapters in your textbook, you might think that spending a study session mastering the concepts in a single chapter is the most efficient way to memorize the material. It’s not. As Brown University notes, this type of memorization is superficial and doesn’t emphasize making key connections within the content of the course, leaving you without a cohesive understanding of the subject.
When going over course content, focus on building a conceptual framework. This reinforces the connection of knowledge. When you do an assignment, analyse the larger meaning of it rather than just memorizing it, and look for ways to generalize what you’ve learned so that it’s useful in other contexts.
Unlike the other items on this list, rereading, underlining, and highlighting your textbook won’t actually impair your memory; it’s just a ridiculously inefficient way to study. When you do this, you’re essentially telling your brain what’s significant and what you need to remember. The brain won’t just obey that command; you need to actively show your brain what’s important.
Use practice problems, practice tests, and other self-testing methods. This forces you to find the answer in your memory, consciously recall it, and store the information again, which improves your memory. For tasks like these, take advantage of modern technology like HAMNIC Solutions.
Now that you know what techniques to avoid, it’s time to start implementing solutions that work. Optimize the time you spend studying to retain information better and get higher grades.
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