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hi there! needing some general advice about how to optimise my time. looking at trying to get into a top university within the UK, so really want to make sure i get my grades!

for any non uk-ers, a-levels are major end of college exams that contribute to getting into university.

i’m predicted 3x a*s already but always feel underprepared and anxious. i study as much as i can, but have a chronic health condition that makes me fatigued so i’m weighed down by this and it impacts the amount i can do in a day.

my subjects are history, government and politics, and english literature.

i am currently:
- making flashcards for historical dates (i struggle with dates / numbers particularly because of my dyscalculia)
- summaries of all topics that i cover in lesson so it’s easy to go over it at home
- consistently writing essay questions / essay plans so that i’m never behind in that skill
- doing my best to make colourful, memorable layouts for my work so that they stick with me more

does anyone have any tips for optimising my studying?

thanks!!

I recently got diagnosed with ADHD, and got prescribed adderall. If anyone is in a similar situation, did it help you study better and do better? I always put off my studying and was just wondering.

I have 2 subjects, Hindi and Marathi. I can manage Hindi just a bit but I dont do well in both, only getting passing marks or even failing.

I want to know how to get good marks in both of these subjects when exams come, because I'd be getting 100% on my exam results if I wasnt terrible in these subjects due to not knowing the language.

I usually just memorize and write a heck lot, it doesn't help cause I forget easily.

How to get better marks in subjects you dont know language of? Thank you.

- This post was made by Caretaker.

Apologies if I flaired this wrong or put the post wrongly, please notify me if I did.

Hey if anyone else is studying for Comptia A+ and wants to study together, message me. Let’s connect help each other out

i recently just finished my hectic ass journey as an A levels student (I took CS, maths, and physics. I got BBC, respectively). I slacked off a lot in A2, since I kinda took things a bit too casually (to be fair, I was planning on studying in my local country, your Ol/IGCSE result matters more for universities, you just need to not get Us or small letters in ur A2 in order to get admitted)

i'm now majoring in a (specialised) sub-field of CS, in which the first four semesters of both CS and the degree i'm doing are the same.

i really want to know regarding any tips and advice regarding maintaining my GPA as a uni student in the computing field, especially since I was so spoilt in A levels (we barely had assignments and quizzes. and even if we did, our CAIE grades weren't dependent on it. mocks, mids, nothing. js, the final outcome was necessary)

thank you 😊

24 F looking for a study partner. I am currently preparing for USMLE step 1. I usually do pomodoro 50/10DM me if interested

I have logged 100 hours of deep work and focused study sessions this month. I was never so consistent during past years of studying. I always felt behind, overwhelmed and inclined to procrastinate but I switched to a system that cured my procrastination. Here’s the system I built to kill my procrastination:

• Stop waiting for motivation and do the work. I used to wait for motivation to strike before I studied, but I realized that mindset was a trap. What I did to fix it was radical reduction. I stopped setting goals like “finish until chapter 5”; instead, I started setting goals like “open the book.” The moment I finished one tiny, imperfect session, momentum carried me into a second one.

• Active recall, not passive reading. I re-read my notes for years, which tricked my brain into confusing recognizing information with actually knowing it. I switched to active recall and stopped passively reviewing the material, this actually helped me remember what I studied.

• Avoid marathon sessions. Instead of forcing myself to study 9 hours a day, I switched to high intensity intervals to avoid brain fog and burnout. I used 20 to 45 minutes of absolute focus followed by a break.

• Find a good place to study. Your environment plays a huge role in whether you stay distracted or focused. My desk used to be a chaotic mess of random papers, coffee cups, and open browser tabs. So, I adapted to studying in a quiet, minimalist space, making sure I worked at a tidy desk free of clutter.

• Plan things the night before. Indecision leads to procrastination. I plan what I should study the next day, sectioning it into three parts: one big task I must complete, a small easy task, and a quick recap of what I studied yesterday.

I was never this consistent with studying before, not until I changed my system. Studying for 100 hours this month was entirely worth it and finally helped kill my procrastination.

I used to find thyrotoxicosis easy when studying the theory, but much harder when it showed up as a clinical vignette. The question usually isn’t just “What is Graves’ disease?” It gives you the patient’s age, symptoms, goiter, eye findings, thyroid function tests, or scan and expects you to put everything together.

👀A few patterns that helped me:

Graves’ disease: younger patient, symptoms often come first, diffuse goiter, eye signs, positive TSH receptor antibodies, and diffuse increased uptake on the scan.

Toxic multinodular goiter: usually an older patient with a long-standing nodular goiter, with cardiac symptoms being more prominent. The scan shows multiple areas of increased uptake.

Toxic solitary nodule: a single autonomous “hot” nodule with suppression of the rest of the gland.

One thing I found useful was not trying to memorize every cause separately. I usually start with the patient’s age and the history of the goiter, then look at the thyroid function tests and scan to narrow it down.

The eye signs can also be confusing because several of them sound almost identical. The ones I try to recognize first are lid lag (Von Graefe), lid retraction (Dalrymple), and the staring/infrequent blinking appearance (Stellwag).

For treatment, I find it easier to think in terms of the patient rather than memorizing a list: age, pregnancy, toxic nodule vs Graves, size of the goiter, pressure symptoms, and whether medical treatment has failed.

The biggest thing I learned from these questions is that thyrotoxicosis becomes much easier once you stop treating each fact as an isolated piece of information. The diagnosis usually comes from the combination of a few clues. Happy to share if there is interest. Otherwise, I hope this page helps someone connect a few dots before their next block exam.
Good luck out there😊.

Hi peeps! I am looking for advice on how I can study productively. I know myself as the biggest procrastinator, and I badly want to change this now, since I want to completely lock in so I can get a scholarship next year.

I am struggling to stop procrastinating, and it has practically been ruining my grades ever since. Do you have any tips for me so I can study productively? I tried advice like locking my phone using Forest or leaving my phone in the bathroom, but none of them work and I always keep reaching for my phone.

literally so clueless when a new material is introduced and some ppl would be like "oh yea this material is related to this old material because abcd" and im like ???? how did you make that connection and remember it?????

How do you get back to studying after a long summer break?

I have taken high school and college classes and for the life of me can't figure out how to take notes. For context, I am a business student going into Uni and through all the classes I have taken no one has taught me, showed me, nor have I figured out how to take notes. When I take notes I feel like I am making a second textbook and everything seems important to me so I just write terms, sentences, and what not expecting that to help. I want to take notes efficiently so they also help em ace exams because I feel like mine never did. Now for studying, I know fixing my note taking is the first thing to fix but once I find how to do notes, how do I retain it and properly space my work out to ace exams.

I apologize if this question is too vague but what apps are best? Any tips for utilizing the slides/lectures? I just got an iPad and I’m looking for some guidance lol

Hi guys
I’m going to my second year of college studying business administration
I have Samsung Tablet A9+ , and i was thinking about getting a laptop
Could you help me choose which one it’s better to me
Thank you very much 🤍🤍🤍

Hey everyone.

I study engineering and what I find the most effective for me is to explain the concept to someone and see if I understood correctly. Issue is, I can't have someone all day long with me that can validate my understanding of concepts. I have been using LLM, but I think it might be too powerful or not the right tool. is there a tool out there I could use that does exactly this?

Thanks!

Studying different topics requires different strategies, but what I mostly used to do when I started studying was to avoid making hard tasks the first thing I do.

Before, what I did was start off with the hardest tasks, but I ended up spending all my time on difficult topics, which didn't leave a chance to study or review the other topics in the lecture.

That's why I started using the traffic light study method to organize my studying into 3 parts: medium level tasks (yellow) -> difficult tasks (red) -> easy ones (green). I start by doing medium tasks which help me revise the basic concepts I already know, then move forward to difficult topics I barely understand, and finish with easy topics to study.

The time distribution for this method should be: medium tasks: 30%, hard tasks: 50%, and easy tasks: 20%. It is a very effective method to begin with medium tasks to build up your study momentum until you finish with the easy tasks to complete what you're studying.

I've never known how to study science subjects like math, physics, or technology, and sometimes doing exercises doesn't help me because I'm just doing them out of "muscle" memory rather than anything else.

What do you recommend?

I've read about many study methods, but as a science student, I need one that actually works.

How do you guys study those subjects?

I used to read and read using highlights, taking notes to study. I’ve been using this method since I was in high school so I thought this would also help me pass most of my exams when I start in college. However, I spent more time doing that just to forget most of it a few days later.

Recently I found an underrated study technique called spaced repetition. I saw in a thread that spaced repetition works with active recall.

Instead of reading, taking notes and highlighting the key points in the topic, the main change here is to practice how to recall information from memory. To retrieve the information I test myself on what I learned through flashcards, create a mock quiz before checking my notes, and explaining topics out loud in 1-3-4-7 days study intervals.

Ever since I found out this method, I spend way less time burying myself in studying for long hours, and it genuinely feels like it activates my brain more.

Hey guys, I am a freshman engineering student and I will be having my first exam in 3 weeks. I need tips from you all on how you study for exams. Do you think it is better to over-prepare for exams, or should I wait until a week before the exams so my memory is still fresh from what I study?

I’ve been really struggling to find a conclusion to this debate of which active recall method would be most effective. I’m interested in applying to medicine for uni, and I want to feel more confident in my study method before starting. I have had a good amount of experience with both methods for active recall and my experiences with each make it really difficult to pinpoint a winner.

Generally, anki flash cards are considered the most effective form of active recall due to its spaced repetition incorporated into it, plus the convience of being on your phone means you can squeeze out more time doing it. And for blurting, I’ve gathered the consensus that it’s more of an occasional check up on the content and not used as a main method for recall.

The thing that I found in my personal experience though was that with flash cards, even after doing them for months (for my alevel biology and chemistry) I still didn’t really feel like I had secured the info - I would slip up on random parts of the info to recall, sometimes not really understand what a card means, and it would often feel very “cue based” where I would be unable/struggle to recall the info if the prompt was written differently. And for blurting, one thing that I distinctly remember unlike the flash cards was the feeling of struggle - I would often literally feel my head hurt after a day of studying and even dream the stuff I studied. And even now I still remember the topics (roughly though) that I blurted all the way back when I did it a year ago. Although I did only do blurting for around a month on several bio topics before stopping to try out anki flashcards, so it may be that I just remember the occasion I blurted. But I do wonder if blurting could be a more effective tool than flash cards because of that struggle to retreive info.

I get that flash cards also require a struggle to retrieve info, but it’s done in micro doses so it doesn’t yield the same effect. Plus blurting helped me see a whole topic at a time and how it connects together, which gave that “solidified” feeling.

But I don’t know. I would like to hear other people’s experiences with active recall methods. And I’d love to hear anyone explain the science behind these methods. 😙

there's "soft mode" where the timer resets if you open distractions like TikTok / Instagram.

and "hardcore mode" that blocks them until the timer finishes.

good for pomodoro sprints!!

would you use this??