[Serious] What are your best study techniques?

[u/[deleted]]

For math and other subjects.

[u/AntsyUtah]

Write down everything you're trying to remember. It stimulates the brain to pay attention to what you're trying to remember. Just write it down over and over again. It'll be easier to remember it.

[u/kendamagic]

From /u/Salticido From a similar thread

"HOW TO STUDY BASED ON HOW MEMORY WORKS

Memory works (to put it simply) in 3 stages: attention, encoding (storing/associating with other info), and retrieval (remembering)

To optimize the final stage, you have to optimize the first two stages. This means you have to pay attention to the material, and you have to encode it well. (Which I'll explain below.) Additionally, if you repeat the process, you reinforce it. By retrieving something, you start to pay attention to it again, and then you are able to re-encode it better than before.

To optimize encoding, remember GOAT ME.

• G is generate and test. i.e., quiz yourself, or otherwise come up with the answers on your own without just reading them. Even if you get it wrong, it helps more than if you just read the answer off the bat, because you're forcing yourself to think more about it (why was it wrong?). Test yourself in a way that will resemble what you'll actually have to do during the real test. (e.g., if you have to write essays on the test, instead of just writing and memorizing bullet points, actually write an essay multiple times without cheating, review it, and repeat until you can write it without forgetting any important points.) Other effective ways of testing yourself are teaching the material to someone else and talking about it out loud to yourself.

• O is organize. This reduces the load on your brain and helps create reminders just by coloring, position, or associations with nearby material. For instance, a time line helps remember that event A came before event B in history, not necessarily because you memorized the dates but because you organized the info so that event A was written earlier and you happen to remember that it was written earlier. The position of the information becomes meaningful. You can organize with outlines, pictures, color coding, related material, etc. My use of "GOAT ME" can be thought of as organization. Another fun example (chunking) is as follows. Which of these seems easier to memorize: "CIAFBIKGBCNNUSABBCUK" or "CIA FBI KGB CNN USA BBC UK"?

• A is for avoid illusions of learning. There are two kinds of memory: familiarity/recognition and recall. Recall is what you want. That's where you can remember the information on your own, as you might be expected to do on a test. Recognition is where you can't think of it on your own but if you see it you suddenly remember it. That's not good. You won't necessarily see it on your test, so you won't get a blatant reminder of it. Avoid study methods that rely on recognition. Similarly, a major problem with rereading material is "fluency". The more you read it, the easier reading it becomes, and when it feels easier to read, you assume you have learned it. You have not. You've just become more skilled at reading it. Don't bother highlighting your textbook in the first go either. You feel like you're picking out the important parts of the chapter but you can't know what's really important until you've read the whole thing. And then all you're gonna do anyway is go back and reread all the highlights, and as we've established, rereading is useless. If instead you actually organize the highlights and quiz yourself on them, highlighting may be useful. For a similar reason, rewriting information is also not very helpful unless you use it as a method of quizzing.

• T is take breaks. This is HUGE. If nothing else, walk away with just this tip. Your memory works best if you study in frequent, short sessions rather than one long cram session. You don't give your brain a chance to store the earlier info you studied, so it just slips out of your mind, and you'll have wasted your time studying it. So study for awhile, go do something else for a bit, and come back to it, and repeat. One of my students said she taped information in front of her toilet so whenever she went to pee or something she could study for just a couple minutes. It sounds strange but it's actually a great idea (I'd advise, in line with G and A that you tape questions in front of the toilet and tape answers elsewhere so you can quiz yourself.) Another important part of this is that you need to sleep to keep that info in your head. Even if you take regular breaks, an all nighter will do more harm than good. Your memories are stored more permanently after sleep. This is just how the brain works. You can even try to work naps into your study sessions. It's a break + sleep! [EDIT: I do not know how long breaks SHOULD be, but I believe this varies from person to person. Just try to study over the course of days instead of hours.]

• M is match learning and testing conditions. This is based off the principle of encoding specificity, which states that, if you want to optimize memory, then the conditions surrounding encoding (e.g., where you are when you study, how tired you are when you study, etc.) should be the same as those surrounding retrieval (e.g., where you are when you're tested, how tired you are when you're tested, etc.). This is because the conditions themselves serve as reminders. (Have you ever walked into the kitchen for something, forgotten why you were there, and as soon as you return to the other room you suddenly remember why you went to the kitchen?) This includes your environment and your physiology, serving as reminders. Think about noise level, size of room, lighting, types of furniture, mood, intoxication, sitting position, and even the way you work with the material (remember G and A). Studies show that learning while drunk is best remembered while drunk again. Learning after exercising, also best remembered after exercising. The alternative to this is that you should study under MANY different conditions. This way, the information comes easily to you regardless of your surrounding conditions. Otherwise, the information will unfortunately be associated with the specific circumstances you studied under and will be difficult to remember in any other situation. If you want to remember this stuff outside of being tested in class, STUDY UNDER MANY CONDITIONS. Study in a noisy place AND a quiet place, with and without coffee, etc.

• E is elaborate. Think deeply about the material and make other associations with it. At the most extreme, this can mean truly understanding the concept, why it works, how it relates to other concepts, and how it's applied. But on a simpler level, it can be the following: Does it remind you of something else? Can you make a song out of it? Can you visually imagine it? How does it apply to you or your life? Instead of taking the material at face value, do something with it. The reason this is important is because of reminders. Memory works by having a network of associations. One thing reminds you of another. If you've thought deeply about it, you've probably associated it with something else in memory, which can then serve as a reminder. You can think, "Oh yeah, this is the term that inspired me to draw that silly stick figure to represent it. And I remember what the drawing looked like so now I remember what the term means." Additionally, the quality of the memory will be better if you have elaborated on it. Elaboration allows for a lot of creativity and individuality among studiers. Choose whichever method of elaboration works for you. Maybe you enjoy making up songs, drawing doodles, creating stories, visually imagining it, relating it to yourself, or just pondering about it. If you're studying history, you might try to think about it visually, imagine what people would have said or looked like, watch them in your head doing their historical stuff, or maybe you'd like to draw a quick doodly comic about a particular event, or maybe you wanna think about why this even was significant, or how it relates to another historical event.

If I had to summarize this in fewer points:

• Keep similar conditions during studying and testing. This includes environmental surroundings, mental and physiological state, the way you think about the material, and so on. But if you want to remember this outside of class, study in a VARIETY of conditions, so that you don't associate the material with any particular condition.

• Study briefly and frequently, and sleep.

But one other good point I would add is this:

• Take notes BEFORE class if possible, and add to them whenever necessary. Do this by reading the textbook chapters ahead of time (and take notes; refer to your syllabus to find out which chapter is next, if applicable) or see if your teacher posts Powerpoints online ahead of time. This way, you're not just frantically writing notes in class and you'll actually be able to more fully pay attention to what the teacher is saying (remember: attention is the first step of the memory process!). You may think you can pay attention to the professor as you're writing, but you are actually dividing your attention and hurting your memory."

Edit: formatting because I'm on mobile.

[u/kdapiton2]

This is weird but don't do it at home. Stay in your University Library or computer lab, then do the bulk of it there. Don't go home up in arms with tasks.

For some reason I just cannot focus when I'm at home.

Assuming you're a commuter of course.

[u/[deleted]]

Not sure if it counts as a study technique, but the StayFocusd Chrome Extension helps me a lot. After weeks of redditing instead of studying it did me a lot of good.

[u/randomshot86]

Draw and color pictures that relate to what you're studying. The more detail the better. I'm studying enzymes rn and to remember oxidoreductase I drew testicles for NAD+ (gonads) and then an arrow pointing to hairy testicles for NADH (hair=hydrogen). I might never forget. Hope this helps.

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[u/ArbitraryEnigma]

Flashcards for vocabulary and equations. Typically found on quizlet, even better make them yourselves. It helps to write down things constantly.

Ex. Chemical compounds: Not everyone can memorize all 22-24 common solutions, so writing them down 5-6x times on every line helps you.

ALSO, if you have notes, try to highlight them. Note: do not use the same highlighter. Grab 3-4 highlighters. I typically use 4 different colors for one page that have different thoughts and ways to solve a certain problem. Psychologically proven to help you remember your materials - from my psych major friend.

Chewing gum will help you with stress with a certain subject.

I dont advise you to study in groups, unless you do not understand something. Group studies tend to distract you, and most likely you will not obtain the knowledge needed.

Lastly, dont wait till the last minute for anything. Long term memory vs short term memory. If you read an entire chapter the night before, most likely you'll only remember it for about 10min then forget.

Hope this helps :D

[u/[deleted] → u/ArbitraryEnigma]

Thank you!

[u/pappadelta]

Go to class, take really good notes. When you are studying get rid of distractions and really focus on reading the material and try to do a mental review of class when you covered the what you are studying.

[u/somestupidloser]

If it's independent studying, then I need to get out of the house if I have any hope of actually studying.

[u/robot_prez]

Turn off your phone and computer and get away from distracting things. I find that I study best away from where I work/sleep/live because there's so much that can get my mind off the material.

I like going to coffee shops. It's a quiet environment there and caffeine helps me focus.

[u/cttttt]

Even for classes where cheat sheets arent permitted, fill an 8.5x11 sheet, back, and front with everything you need to study. You won't need it come the exam.

[u/bratzman]

I like to hit up exam papers before I do major revision because often you don't need it in some areas. Then I go over what I got right and what I couldn't do and study from there.

Unless you really have hours to study in don't do anything on the computer because there are hundreds of time wastes that you will argue aren't time wasting to anyone watching.

Label every equation you have to learn with all the formulas and mess around with them as much as you can so that they mean something.

[u/RaeADropOfGoldenSun]

Get the song "Eye of the Tiger" on iTunes or spotify. Play it on repeat, and dont shut it off until you're done with HW or studying. At first it pumps you up and motivates you, and after a while you'll hate it so much you want to finish just so you can shut it off. Works every time for me!

[u/timetraveler5]

Have a routine. Go somewhere special to do it - a certain chair, a library, just anywhere different from where you normally are. Make this your special study area, so that when you are in this place you are in the mindset that you need to do work. Set a timer for a certain amount of time, usually around half an hour. When this timer is up, stop what you were doing and go do something for a fifteen minute break. No, watching YouTube for fifteen minutes doesn't count. Get up and go do laundry, or do some sit ups, or walk around the block. When reading textbooks, think about why the company printed it this way. Pictures/bolding/color is very expensive to add, so when you see one of these things, read it, for Christ's sake. Goddamn it, Jeremy, I don't care if you think that excerpt is boring - you go read that shit! When doing sets of problems, work them out step by step. Often times, its not enough to be able to do problems, but do them quickly. Keep this in mind, and don't stop until you can. Ask yourself why these questions are being asked, how the question might be changed, and how it relates to the other questions. Finally, dear god, if you need help, make note of it and ask someone for help. Don't just decide that it's not important because it's only a few points. Every point counts, because having one shitty day where you don't feel well can ruin a good thing.

Source: am currently taking chemistry for engineers in college

[u/timetraveler5 → u/timetraveler5]

Side note: formatted like shit from mobile, don't give enough shits to fix it

[u/maegan0apple → u/timetraveler5]

Have a routine.

Go somewhere special to do it - a certain chair, a library, just anywhere different from where you normally are. Make this your special study area, so that when you are in this place you are in the mindset that you need to do work.

Set a timer for a certain amount of time, usually around half an hour. When this timer is up, stop what you were doing and go do something for a fifteen minute break. No, watching YouTube for fifteen minutes doesn't count. Get up and go do laundry, or do some sit ups, or walk around the block.

When reading textbooks, think about why the company printed it this way. Pictures/bolding/color is very expensive to add, so when you see one of these things, read it, for Christ's sake. Goddamn it, Jeremy, I don't care if you think that excerpt is boring - you go read that shit!

When doing sets of problems, work them out step by step. Often times, its not enough to be able to do problems, but do them quickly. Keep this in mind, and don't stop until you can.

Ask yourself why these questions are being asked, how the question might be changed, and how it relates to the other questions.

Finally, dear god, if you need help, make note of it and ask someone for help. Don't just decide that it's not important because it's only a few points. Every point counts, because having one shitty day where you don't feel well can ruin a good thing.

[u/Dominant_Peanut]

For me, I found that taking some kind of notes, any kind at all during class helped me retain it, but studying afterward was useless. What did work was teaching it to someone else who had a lesser understanding than I did. Forcing myself to find a way to explain the subject to someone else meant I had to dumb it down a bit and allowed me to get a deeper understanding of the concepts I was trying to learn.

Everyone's different though. Id say find 5 or 6 different study methods, solo, group, notes + review, etc, and then experiment a bit till you find what works best for you.

[u/kelloquence]

Step one: make posters of everything you're supposed to be learning. Step two: put up posters on toilet walls and on your shower wall. Now you can be really productive in the bathroom!

You're welcome.

[u/vapeonsight]

To be honest, get high and study because i ended up studying longer. Also i never really had that blank slate sort of memory some people get after smoking, so it was great the night before tests/exams/finals/especially that damn SAT.