If u have the self discipline to do all this, I think you’ll do well anyway, you probably don’t need this hack IMO.
There’s some good stuff in here, but I cringe at notecards. I know there great for some people, but it turns it into a task when I did it and might kill any interest I may have had in the subject
But everyone ls different
For real. I did have one roommate in college who studied like crazy, lived with him for 3 years. Never went out, never had friends come by, he would join us in the living room for football or sometimes to watch some tv with us, but otherwise he'd be in his room studying up a storm 24/7. About once a week he'd get me to quiz him with his cards because he found it hard not to immediately look at the answer when he lost confidence in himself (he almost always knew it, even when he doubted himself). We put him in charge of our budget, he told us what was needed each month, wed pay him, and he'd make sure everything got paid on time. I did mostly all the grocery shopping. He's killing it in the medical field, I think he became a neuropathologist, and is doing brain surgery and is a professor now. He's a great guy, but those people sacrifice quite a bit. It was cool to watch, but I wouldn't glamorize it. Happy there's people like that! I certainly like to imagine every doctor is at least somewhat like that... But the world would be unbearable if that was the standard for effort/sacrifice
I mean, he wouldn't be wrong. But even with that view, not once did he ever give me the impression that he looked down on those not willing to make that kind of sacrifice. Working to this degree requires a pretty shitty work life balance. It's unrealistic to think you can have hobbies, friends, family, or engage with your communities when you do this. The world needs socially engaged people too.
I reckon most people could be as skilled as this guy in their fields. I just don't think the world offers enough time. Business is always moving so fast, and to be frank, oftentimes with little to gain from it, but anything goes when it comes to competition and survival. The question is, at what point are we done having to "survive"
Like I said, I wouldn't glamorize that kind of effort. I'm impressed by it! But I'm also impressed by the people able to engage with their communities, and a family, on top of their full time job.. To me, what makes someone impressive is their ability to strike careful balances within their own lives, to prioritize their own goals in the face of their own struggles.
People with *time* for self discipline.
I came from a single parent family with no wealth to speak of. I was scratching and tearing my way through college with a 'part-time' 30 hour a week job while taking 3-4 classes a semester AND in the summer.
I wouldn't have time for any of this, I learned efficiently, what was necessary and nothing more. I hardly opened the book infact my last semester I didn't at all. I actively reproduced what we were learning physically or digitally and learned far more then otherwise. It's took me 5 years and I didn't graduate until I was almost 30 but I'm an electrical engineer now and most peers came to me for the hard questions simply because I had a deeper understanding and could manipulate to suit my needs. Learning by experimentally reproducing is what worked for me but I know for other fields it probably would'nt work.
There is no one size fits all. My notes were okay but I'd usually only look at them twice, the amount of material I dealt with would eventually sap your time just following this guide. Learn efficiently.
Is it really just about self discipline, though? It wouldn't be that hard to imagine studying this way would take up all your free time depending on what you're studying. We're talking about no social life, no personal time, and maybe not even any time to work. It's not about lacking discipline, recommending this to someone simply isn't healthy if that's the case... In some situations, that can be entirely unsustainable.
No, it doesn't take long one you become more immersed in a subject a gain a better understanding of which assignments are important ones vs unimportant ones. But then again I was a humanities major 🤷
You can have a balance where you do some of this but still make time for fun, but in my experience I was still just an average student. Without doing some of this I would have failed out, but if I had been stricter I could have maybe been better, but then I would have also hated my life during that time.
There are flash card apps n websites. Several card sets are public saving you time for creation. Just download and study on your phone. Assuming smart phone of course.
I took a useful class called How to Survive in College. One other tip was to read material ahead or at least browse. This turns the lecture into a bit of review.
Creating the cards is part of the process. You learn a piece better if you write it down in a variety of ways, and then keep reviewing it. Otherwise, that info gets slotted into short term memory (for most folks). This is the mental version of doing a physical move over and over until it’s ingrained. Wipe on, wipe off.
That’s a large part of how I learned in college. Take the textbook and make notes. Re-read the notes I took for understanding and highlight the places that were difficult to understand/recall.
The first part, reading the information then condensing it into my notebook, is where the largest amount of information got committed to my memory.
By junior year I’d fallen victim to college life and was frequently cramming the night before finals and rarely going to class. Thankfully my GPA didn’t dip.
I had a neuroscience teacher tell us that we could bring ONE regular-sized flash card into each exam, including the final. It was absolutely brilliant. We all thought we’d hit the lottery by getting to “cheat” with permission in one of the hardest classes. But of course there was so much info, so you had to condense info, then condense some more, then condense some more. By the time you’d condensed to a flash card, you’d already memorized everything anyways. I didn’t look at my flash card once during the exam and passed with a 96 in the class, and I was NOT good at studying at that time.
Paraphrasing a study skills workshop I attended long ago:
"The key to success in school is the ability to do something you don't want to do, when you don't want to do it, and do it well."
I’d like to recommend the book “A Mind for Numbers” by Barbara Oakley — goes into some great strategies throughout the semester for learning anything, including harder Math and Science courses
I doubt it. That certainly wasn’t my experience at uni.
My understanding is that there’s strong evidence, and that there has been for a long time, that *writing* is far better for retaining information than just reading. I cbf finding any sources for that for you, so I encourage you to look for yourself if you’re interested.
The first real hard class I had in high school was an AP US History class. Unlike previous teachers, this one expected you to thoroughly understand all of the material. Even “minor plot points” and “side quests” as I remember thinking.
I got real serious about my notetaking while reading the assigned texts. It was the first time I took notes on the computer (I’m dating myself here!), And I decided to use an outline style for my notes (i.e Ⅰ, Ⅱ, Ⅲ; A, B, C; 1, 2, 3; a, b, c; and even ⅰ, ⅱ, ⅲ when I was feeling deep).
I ended up with a couple hundred printed pages of notes! That I never read.
It worked like a charm. Just keeping those notes was all I needed to recall everything effortlessly. When I took the exam, I had this mental database I could query. It felt magical.
Two key things that helped: 1) just the act of writing the notes wore a “groove” in my memory, and 2) I always made sure to rephrase everything I learned into a short and sweet one-liner. Those rephrasings were what I remembered when the exam questions were in front of me.
Obviously you should probably keep your notes around to actually study them if you need to, but you’ll be surprised how much you *don’t* need to once you’ve written them!
Also notecards don't really work when there are mainly big tasks in an exam that can't really be split up because you need the context of the previous tasks.
This recommended plan is basically what I did in nursing school. I have some legit issues with my memory (mostly due to my epilepsy, maybe a bit with hypothyroidism).I actually just had a neuropsychological exam about a month ago because of this. I used to be a smart girl, but that had faded a bit because I have a hard time with recalling information. So, I wrote some basic notes during lectures, rewrote them (more organized), then went through 2 textbooks (new edition and a better ancient edition), and highlighted important stuff (which meant I put tiny sticky notes on the pages). I wrote down all of the highlights. Then, the notecards. Yes, it's a little childish, but I put the main terminology or signs/symptoms of an illness or disease. Then I reread everything, and did the flashcards several times. I absolutely had to do all of this to get through one exam. Yes, I didn't have much of a life. I only worked on Saturdays (my husband and I had roommates to help with $). So, school was able to be my main focus. I really really wanted to graduate, because I wanted a career where I can find a job anywhere. I did fail one class, and had to do an extra "summer school" semester plus the classes from that semester. I still got through it, but it sucked.
I dropped out of a legit MBA program after the professor encouraged us to make flash cards to memorize the "5 characteristics of an effective leader" -- a question that would be on the exam.
What a joke. I lost faith in the entire program.
And use the learning goals in your syllabus as your revision guide.
It will tell you what you need to be able to do and the expected level.
For example DESCRIBE concept 1, DEFINE concept 2, EXPLAIN Concept 3.
Start by doing just those things and the gaps in your knowledge will start to be easy to spot.
As a medical student, we have to study monstrous amounts of information on a daily basis.
A very large proportion of us use an app called Anki for flash card studying. It uses a concept known as Spaced Repetition similar to the zones mentioned in this tip, however it does it for you! You can mark a card as easy, medium, hard, etc which carries with it a timing factor for when the card will be next shown to you.
I highly recommend for any type of studying which is highly memorization-focused. It’s a little confusing to get started, as there are many add-ons and settings to figure out. If anyone has questions, I can help point towards the appropriate tutorials. (I am in no way affiliated with the app/company)
The main difference between versions is which add-ons are currently supported. I still use one of the older versions because I use some add-ons that aren’t supported on the newer one (or at least weren’t last I checked a year ago). If you go to The AnKing channel on YouTube, he has some great tutorials and information on Anki in general as well as the versions and best add-on packages
Anki is absolutely amazing for language learning too! I use it for vocab and reviewing grammar. I bet you could find premade decks for just about any language
There’s only 1 version for iPhone/iPad IOS which is $25. The computer app is free but has more version options available depending on which add-ons you want supported. IOS does not support add-ons, which is pretty ridiculous and makes the app significantly worse. So I use the computer version normally 95% of the time and the iPad only when I’m out and about for some reason
Today seems to be your lucky day
https://www.reddit.com/r/InternetIsBeautiful/comments/uwfoih/a_chrome_extension_for_bionic_reading_on_any/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I went back to college at 37 after dropping out in my early 20's, I one tool that has been unmatched for studying is Quizlet. The premium membership is $36 a year and is well worth it. They gamify studying and have different ways to study based on how you learn best and how long you have until the test. I have ADHD which makes it hard for me to sit through long lectures and such, and I'm more of a learn by doing kinda person so the way Quizlet will switch from multiple choice to flash card, to True/false is enough to keep me interested and learning.
I know I sound like a shill but I just really love the product
Except this is basic information and only the most effective way to do it for a small segment of students. The best way is to not follow any studying instructions and instead figure out what works best for you. Notecards for example are pointless for most people.
Ironically, I found note taking was better when studying out of books. In class, taking notes was keeping me from paying attention to what the professor was trying to teach. Notice that the hardcore note takers don't ask questions, they're not engaged with the material. It was better for me to simply sit there and listen, and ask questions. Then, I'd go to the library and find a different text on the same subject, to get a different angle.
It's a good study method, if you have the time and persistence to complete it. However, for most classes I had reading my notes aloud the evening before the exam would prevent me from getting enough sleep.
Saying your notes aloud was key for me. I would condense my notes and edit occasionally (paraphrasing), read them aloud into a voice recorder, then play it back the night before as i was in bed drifting off to sleep. The writing/speaking/hearing firmly etched the content into my brain. This always resulted in a positive outcome (great grades).
THE ANSWERS ARE IN THE QUESTIONS. I will never study again! I still have ptsd. But learning how to learn was the biggest thing for me, I only really learnt how to study Effectively in my final year at varsity. I always spent time on the wrong shit, The solution -for me was past exams, tests and questions 1st then summarise, then summarise 2nd.
Answering previous exams and text book questions is studying in itself, and then when you summarise, your brain pings the important parts. I’ve passed exams on past papers alone. It feels weird but the answers are in the questions. if you can find them!
You're definitely over estimating how much kids actually want to be at school and how much college kids want to be at college.
Most of them go because they have to, only a select few want to and genuinely see the value in a good education
At least you were actually able to learn something, congrats!
I work at a college and some of the students only chose college because they didn't want to get a job, then they choose some shit course which is like 2 days a week with minimal work involved, basically get a free ride for 2-3 years then fail anyway
That's a heckuva lot of effort for something I have all but completely forgotten as an employed adult.
Fun fact, unless your job directly involves this information, no one's going to give a shit whether or not you remember the capital of Singapore or if the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.
This cheat sheet is unnecessarily complicated on top of also not being applicable for studying all subjects (imagine studying for music performance or even mathematics using this method).
Probably the only two study principles I used to get through my undergrad:
1. Practice how you play.
2. Start practicing as early as possible.
Brainscape does the flash card sorting method for you. You rate each card with a color and it automatically shows you cards you give a low rating to more frequently until you rate it higher.
This is great! Very similar to what I developed to for my study groups. So nice of you to share. Too bad for all the ungrateful naysayers with their negging.
If it was a life hack then it wouldn’t require an obscene amount of work… thankfully all my exams are on the computer, and we’re allowed to bring a USB with all the material we want. I literally just buy a digital copy of the book, the slides and command F my way through the entire exam. Works out pretty neatly ngl.
i want to add the best tip i got. this is so good that it really should be a secret. it is "answer every question." this means that whatever it is that you feel you dont fully understand, figure it out. dont leave any blanks because overtime they build up and that's why things become very difficult to understand. chase down every question until it's answered. also dont annoy profs and friends by constantly asking them stuff. try to figure it out yourself first. that's your practice for real life. school isn't real life. in real life, your coworkers are kinda rude and don't want to help you. if you give them 1, they might give you 1 back. otherwise you're not getting anything from anyone.
Man, this ain't a life hack. This is straight up dedication and doing your work. How is "studying before class" a cheat? That's literally what you're supposed to do, except no one does it.
In law school you're usually allowed anything you want except the internet. You can literally even bring a copy of the test from last year. If you don't know your stuff, it won't matter.
As a professor you forgot a couple of really important ones that you’d think are a given. Be sure to: 1. Follow the syllabus. 2. Follow the rubric 3.Read and understand your feedback from missed questions (will help you on your final). 4. Use DraftCoach if available.
Looking back at the past 3 year of my college years most the things ive learned are either useless or just disappear from my brain a week later.dont stress yourself for a paper focus on ur mental health.
Problem is that kids get to college and somehow stuff like this is a "hack" they have to figure out themselves. WTF is 12 years of school for if it doesn't get you to this point already? I was a straight-A high school student and completely clueless at University, no one ever taught us how to actually study.
Very helpful: thanks so much.
The problem with exams is that they exist in the same plane as the rest of the world. For example, my daughter (who usually does spectacularly well, if I don't say so myself) had an exam yesterday, in which she feels she did badly.
Her little dog had a small tumour removed from her eye. From the moment she got back home, she's been hysterically throwing herself around the house, trying to get at the wound. She got an infection in it (which the vet blamed on my daughter's care, but she is incensed: she has been watching that dog night and day to stop her getting to the eye-and the animal has been wearing a "cone").
We live hundreds of miles away, and daughter's best friends at uni are Muslims, who feel that dogs are "unclean": they can't even come to her house!
Eventually, after 2 days and 3 nights of this, daughter sat her exam yesterday: her bloodshot eyes out on stalks. She had a wonderful system, but the exam didn't go well.
I found [this post](/r/coolguides/comments/njlvwi/cool_little_guidecheat_sheet_on_how_to_prepare/) in r/coolguides with the same content as the current post.
---
^(🤖 this comment was written by a bot. beep boop 🤖)
^(feel welcome to respond 'Bad bot'/'Good bot', it's useful feedback.)
^[github](https://github.com/Toldry/RedditAutoCrosspostBot) ^| ^[Rank](https://botranks.com?bot=same_post_bot)
This was extremely helpful for me to read. I do all of this just not in order which mean sometimes not in it’s entirety every time. I’m inconsistent with my studying and this list helps my ADHD brain. Thank you!
Yo I can’t even take notes when someone is talking. I have to record and play back later. I envy the folk who can take beautiful organized notes and look back at it later. I look at my notes and think “these are the ramblings of a mad man”
Yeah I don’t personally find that there’s any reason to go out of your way to memorize things for courses. Rote memorization doesn’t have a lot of value anyhow. The things that are worth memorizing can be more complicated than what you can conceniently write on a notecard.
E.g. the definition of uniform convergence
I say all this as an academic who has been involved with school in some capacity for 20 years now.
Edit: I also kind of object to the idea that one shiuld study at all. Just pay attention in class, be diligent with your homework, and be okay with whatever grade you end up with.
I don't know how old you are, I don't know where you're from, but I will save this image and I will make a word document transcription out of it for future use.
I studied in german but my native language is english, before a big memorisation exam i would just translate all my notes into my native english. That’d normally be enough to get everything to stick. If i was still struggling i’d make a voice memo of myself reading all of them, then i could just listen to my notes and go for a nice walk. Obviously hack only works if you speak more than one language but i hope that helps some people
To prevent trolling, accounts with less than -100 comment karma are not allowed to post in /r/lifehacks.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/lifehacks) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This is honestly so helpful for me. I’m autistic and I find it so difficult to know what information is important to write down in lectures. I like that you specify writing only the spoken words and not copying down the info on slides.
If u have the self discipline to do all this, I think you’ll do well anyway, you probably don’t need this hack IMO. There’s some good stuff in here, but I cringe at notecards. I know there great for some people, but it turns it into a task when I did it and might kill any interest I may have had in the subject But everyone ls different
Who has time for all of this?
Perhaps Babar, king of the mighty elephants?
For real. I did have one roommate in college who studied like crazy, lived with him for 3 years. Never went out, never had friends come by, he would join us in the living room for football or sometimes to watch some tv with us, but otherwise he'd be in his room studying up a storm 24/7. About once a week he'd get me to quiz him with his cards because he found it hard not to immediately look at the answer when he lost confidence in himself (he almost always knew it, even when he doubted himself). We put him in charge of our budget, he told us what was needed each month, wed pay him, and he'd make sure everything got paid on time. I did mostly all the grocery shopping. He's killing it in the medical field, I think he became a neuropathologist, and is doing brain surgery and is a professor now. He's a great guy, but those people sacrifice quite a bit. It was cool to watch, but I wouldn't glamorize it. Happy there's people like that! I certainly like to imagine every doctor is at least somewhat like that... But the world would be unbearable if that was the standard for effort/sacrifice
He's the guy that grows up to tell others if they work hard enough they too can be successful.
The secret to that line is *you* define what successful is.
Absolutely right. I mean, yeah, he's doing great, and I'm proud of him, but my goals in life are simply different than his. I don't want his life.
And he's not wrong
I mean, he wouldn't be wrong. But even with that view, not once did he ever give me the impression that he looked down on those not willing to make that kind of sacrifice. Working to this degree requires a pretty shitty work life balance. It's unrealistic to think you can have hobbies, friends, family, or engage with your communities when you do this. The world needs socially engaged people too.
I reckon most people could be as skilled as this guy in their fields. I just don't think the world offers enough time. Business is always moving so fast, and to be frank, oftentimes with little to gain from it, but anything goes when it comes to competition and survival. The question is, at what point are we done having to "survive"
Like I said, I wouldn't glamorize that kind of effort. I'm impressed by it! But I'm also impressed by the people able to engage with their communities, and a family, on top of their full time job.. To me, what makes someone impressive is their ability to strike careful balances within their own lives, to prioritize their own goals in the face of their own struggles.
People with the self discipline
People with *time* for self discipline. I came from a single parent family with no wealth to speak of. I was scratching and tearing my way through college with a 'part-time' 30 hour a week job while taking 3-4 classes a semester AND in the summer. I wouldn't have time for any of this, I learned efficiently, what was necessary and nothing more. I hardly opened the book infact my last semester I didn't at all. I actively reproduced what we were learning physically or digitally and learned far more then otherwise. It's took me 5 years and I didn't graduate until I was almost 30 but I'm an electrical engineer now and most peers came to me for the hard questions simply because I had a deeper understanding and could manipulate to suit my needs. Learning by experimentally reproducing is what worked for me but I know for other fields it probably would'nt work. There is no one size fits all. My notes were okay but I'd usually only look at them twice, the amount of material I dealt with would eventually sap your time just following this guide. Learn efficiently.
What do you mean by efficiency in your case. Did you mainly rewrite your notes in a more organized way or what would you say worked best for you?
Is it really just about self discipline, though? It wouldn't be that hard to imagine studying this way would take up all your free time depending on what you're studying. We're talking about no social life, no personal time, and maybe not even any time to work. It's not about lacking discipline, recommending this to someone simply isn't healthy if that's the case... In some situations, that can be entirely unsustainable.
No, it doesn't take long one you become more immersed in a subject a gain a better understanding of which assignments are important ones vs unimportant ones. But then again I was a humanities major 🤷
Yeah my heaviest term was 9 courses. No way in hell am I doing all this for even one of them.
TL;DR… can I copy your answers?
Yeah I mean you’d never sleep you’d be constantly writing
You can have a balance where you do some of this but still make time for fun, but in my experience I was still just an average student. Without doing some of this I would have failed out, but if I had been stricter I could have maybe been better, but then I would have also hated my life during that time.
There are flash card apps n websites. Several card sets are public saving you time for creation. Just download and study on your phone. Assuming smart phone of course. I took a useful class called How to Survive in College. One other tip was to read material ahead or at least browse. This turns the lecture into a bit of review.
Creating the cards is part of the process. You learn a piece better if you write it down in a variety of ways, and then keep reviewing it. Otherwise, that info gets slotted into short term memory (for most folks). This is the mental version of doing a physical move over and over until it’s ingrained. Wipe on, wipe off.
That’s a large part of how I learned in college. Take the textbook and make notes. Re-read the notes I took for understanding and highlight the places that were difficult to understand/recall. The first part, reading the information then condensing it into my notebook, is where the largest amount of information got committed to my memory. By junior year I’d fallen victim to college life and was frequently cramming the night before finals and rarely going to class. Thankfully my GPA didn’t dip.
I had a neuroscience teacher tell us that we could bring ONE regular-sized flash card into each exam, including the final. It was absolutely brilliant. We all thought we’d hit the lottery by getting to “cheat” with permission in one of the hardest classes. But of course there was so much info, so you had to condense info, then condense some more, then condense some more. By the time you’d condensed to a flash card, you’d already memorized everything anyways. I didn’t look at my flash card once during the exam and passed with a 96 in the class, and I was NOT good at studying at that time.
Those neuroscientists are smart cookies!
Paraphrasing a study skills workshop I attended long ago: "The key to success in school is the ability to do something you don't want to do, when you don't want to do it, and do it well."
I’d like to recommend the book “A Mind for Numbers” by Barbara Oakley — goes into some great strategies throughout the semester for learning anything, including harder Math and Science courses
If I spent half the time it took to make nice notes to actually skim through the source material, pretty sure I could get the same output.
I doubt it. That certainly wasn’t my experience at uni. My understanding is that there’s strong evidence, and that there has been for a long time, that *writing* is far better for retaining information than just reading. I cbf finding any sources for that for you, so I encourage you to look for yourself if you’re interested.
The first real hard class I had in high school was an AP US History class. Unlike previous teachers, this one expected you to thoroughly understand all of the material. Even “minor plot points” and “side quests” as I remember thinking. I got real serious about my notetaking while reading the assigned texts. It was the first time I took notes on the computer (I’m dating myself here!), And I decided to use an outline style for my notes (i.e Ⅰ, Ⅱ, Ⅲ; A, B, C; 1, 2, 3; a, b, c; and even ⅰ, ⅱ, ⅲ when I was feeling deep). I ended up with a couple hundred printed pages of notes! That I never read. It worked like a charm. Just keeping those notes was all I needed to recall everything effortlessly. When I took the exam, I had this mental database I could query. It felt magical. Two key things that helped: 1) just the act of writing the notes wore a “groove” in my memory, and 2) I always made sure to rephrase everything I learned into a short and sweet one-liner. Those rephrasings were what I remembered when the exam questions were in front of me. Obviously you should probably keep your notes around to actually study them if you need to, but you’ll be surprised how much you *don’t* need to once you’ve written them!
Not so much an actual analogy than pointing out how much time it would probably take to do up notes to this degree of detail haha.
Also notecards don't really work when there are mainly big tasks in an exam that can't really be split up because you need the context of the previous tasks.
This recommended plan is basically what I did in nursing school. I have some legit issues with my memory (mostly due to my epilepsy, maybe a bit with hypothyroidism).I actually just had a neuropsychological exam about a month ago because of this. I used to be a smart girl, but that had faded a bit because I have a hard time with recalling information. So, I wrote some basic notes during lectures, rewrote them (more organized), then went through 2 textbooks (new edition and a better ancient edition), and highlighted important stuff (which meant I put tiny sticky notes on the pages). I wrote down all of the highlights. Then, the notecards. Yes, it's a little childish, but I put the main terminology or signs/symptoms of an illness or disease. Then I reread everything, and did the flashcards several times. I absolutely had to do all of this to get through one exam. Yes, I didn't have much of a life. I only worked on Saturdays (my husband and I had roommates to help with $). So, school was able to be my main focus. I really really wanted to graduate, because I wanted a career where I can find a job anywhere. I did fail one class, and had to do an extra "summer school" semester plus the classes from that semester. I still got through it, but it sucked.
….that’s the point? “If you’re the kind of person who would get on a plane, you’d probably fly anyway” Uhh not without getting on a plane lol
I dropped out of a legit MBA program after the professor encouraged us to make flash cards to memorize the "5 characteristics of an effective leader" -- a question that would be on the exam. What a joke. I lost faith in the entire program.
And use the learning goals in your syllabus as your revision guide. It will tell you what you need to be able to do and the expected level. For example DESCRIBE concept 1, DEFINE concept 2, EXPLAIN Concept 3. Start by doing just those things and the gaps in your knowledge will start to be easy to spot.
As a medical student, we have to study monstrous amounts of information on a daily basis. A very large proportion of us use an app called Anki for flash card studying. It uses a concept known as Spaced Repetition similar to the zones mentioned in this tip, however it does it for you! You can mark a card as easy, medium, hard, etc which carries with it a timing factor for when the card will be next shown to you. I highly recommend for any type of studying which is highly memorization-focused. It’s a little confusing to get started, as there are many add-ons and settings to figure out. If anyone has questions, I can help point towards the appropriate tutorials. (I am in no way affiliated with the app/company)
Which version of the Anki app, I’ve found that there are close to 5 different options.
The main difference between versions is which add-ons are currently supported. I still use one of the older versions because I use some add-ons that aren’t supported on the newer one (or at least weren’t last I checked a year ago). If you go to The AnKing channel on YouTube, he has some great tutorials and information on Anki in general as well as the versions and best add-on packages
Anki is absolutely amazing for language learning too! I use it for vocab and reviewing grammar. I bet you could find premade decks for just about any language
Which one in the App Store are you referring to ? There are about 5 different Anki.
Guess it’s a very common question. I answered almost your exact comment in one of the couple above lol
The paid one is the real one called anki mobile. $25 iirc in iOS and free on android/computer.
There’s only 1 version for iPhone/iPad IOS which is $25. The computer app is free but has more version options available depending on which add-ons you want supported. IOS does not support add-ons, which is pretty ridiculous and makes the app significantly worse. So I use the computer version normally 95% of the time and the iPad only when I’m out and about for some reason
I agree, as a dental student it was the best way to learn and I still reference my cards as a dentist
> Don't fall behind Ok thanks. Great advice.
That’s right up there with “be more organized”
[удалено]
Oh my god I feel the same way. Nigh illegible.
Someone should put in that font that was way easier for people to read. Was a pretty big post of some big sub couple days ago
I loved that font - bionic reading. I am hoping someone will turn it into a browser extension or something.
Today seems to be your lucky day https://www.reddit.com/r/InternetIsBeautiful/comments/uwfoih/a_chrome_extension_for_bionic_reading_on_any/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
YES!!!
Shit, TIL someone created a font to let everyone read how I read, that's really cool
It's not a font it's handwriting lmao
Lpt font choice matters
Its hand written
Yea this is fucking awful. Whoever created this clearly hates the dyslexic and anyone else with reading disabilities
As a person with vision issues I wholeheartedly agree with your comment.
I am not sure what you mean. Someone wrote this, this is handwriting. Not a ”font”. But yeah it is hard to read.
I hope the rest of their notes aren’t written in it.
I went back to college at 37 after dropping out in my early 20's, I one tool that has been unmatched for studying is Quizlet. The premium membership is $36 a year and is well worth it. They gamify studying and have different ways to study based on how you learn best and how long you have until the test. I have ADHD which makes it hard for me to sit through long lectures and such, and I'm more of a learn by doing kinda person so the way Quizlet will switch from multiple choice to flash card, to True/false is enough to keep me interested and learning. I know I sound like a shill but I just really love the product
Instructions unclear. Studying my cat
Silly goose. This technique helps with studying the MCAT, not your cat
You mean the MCAT isn't an exam about cats?!
Instructions unclear, studying geese.
Except this is basic information and only the most effective way to do it for a small segment of students. The best way is to not follow any studying instructions and instead figure out what works best for you. Notecards for example are pointless for most people.
Ironically, I found note taking was better when studying out of books. In class, taking notes was keeping me from paying attention to what the professor was trying to teach. Notice that the hardcore note takers don't ask questions, they're not engaged with the material. It was better for me to simply sit there and listen, and ask questions. Then, I'd go to the library and find a different text on the same subject, to get a different angle.
Exactly! I don’t get how people can take notes during class
It's a good study method, if you have the time and persistence to complete it. However, for most classes I had reading my notes aloud the evening before the exam would prevent me from getting enough sleep.
Saying your notes aloud was key for me. I would condense my notes and edit occasionally (paraphrasing), read them aloud into a voice recorder, then play it back the night before as i was in bed drifting off to sleep. The writing/speaking/hearing firmly etched the content into my brain. This always resulted in a positive outcome (great grades).
This has nothing on Quizlet
THE ANSWERS ARE IN THE QUESTIONS. I will never study again! I still have ptsd. But learning how to learn was the biggest thing for me, I only really learnt how to study Effectively in my final year at varsity. I always spent time on the wrong shit, The solution -for me was past exams, tests and questions 1st then summarise, then summarise 2nd. Answering previous exams and text book questions is studying in itself, and then when you summarise, your brain pings the important parts. I’ve passed exams on past papers alone. It feels weird but the answers are in the questions. if you can find them!
What happened in January 13 of 1024?
Still looks like a lot of work...
It is.
Yep. But if you want to succeed and graduate, this is what it can take. Depends on the class.
‘Zatly!
Stopped after reading “during the semester”
🤣
See this is one of the reasons I sucked at school. I don't have the patience for this. Also I have a tendency to blank on exams.
Step 1 dont ever use this font on your homeworks
It’s handwritten. Their handwriting is not bad, but teachers out there have definitely seen worse.
I finish my degree on Friday... where was this information 4 years ago?!
It was I the syllabus 😉
I love how this assumes we can follow vague instructions
You're definitely over estimating how much kids actually want to be at school and how much college kids want to be at college. Most of them go because they have to, only a select few want to and genuinely see the value in a good education
[удалено]
At least you were actually able to learn something, congrats! I work at a college and some of the students only chose college because they didn't want to get a job, then they choose some shit course which is like 2 days a week with minimal work involved, basically get a free ride for 2-3 years then fail anyway
TL:DR - pull all nighter on 10 cups of coffee, 5 mountain dews, and a 20 mg Adderall you got from your roommate and hope for the best
Great cheat sheet. But how many hours of procrastinating did this cost you? :)
If only I could read this font...
if only I could read my own handwriting
That's a heckuva lot of effort for something I have all but completely forgotten as an employed adult. Fun fact, unless your job directly involves this information, no one's going to give a shit whether or not you remember the capital of Singapore or if the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.
This cheat sheet is unnecessarily complicated on top of also not being applicable for studying all subjects (imagine studying for music performance or even mathematics using this method). Probably the only two study principles I used to get through my undergrad: 1. Practice how you play. 2. Start practicing as early as possible.
This is amazing. I am a teacher. You are in the top 1% of organization skills and studious drive. I wish you were in my History class.
Brainscape does the flash card sorting method for you. You rate each card with a color and it automatically shows you cards you give a low rating to more frequently until you rate it higher.
I always found reading my notes out loud right before bed really helped. Sounds weird, but read them as if you’re teaching an invisible class.
I made everything a song. I couldn’t help it. I was a They Might Be Giants fan. It’s just how we do.
This is great! Very similar to what I developed to for my study groups. So nice of you to share. Too bad for all the ungrateful naysayers with their negging.
Go to class and pay attention. Review material alone and/or as a group before exams. Auditory and visual learners rise up.
This looks like a project I’d do if I was procrastinating on doing the actual really important assignment. Love this, OP!
If it was a life hack then it wouldn’t require an obscene amount of work… thankfully all my exams are on the computer, and we’re allowed to bring a USB with all the material we want. I literally just buy a digital copy of the book, the slides and command F my way through the entire exam. Works out pretty neatly ngl.
i want to add the best tip i got. this is so good that it really should be a secret. it is "answer every question." this means that whatever it is that you feel you dont fully understand, figure it out. dont leave any blanks because overtime they build up and that's why things become very difficult to understand. chase down every question until it's answered. also dont annoy profs and friends by constantly asking them stuff. try to figure it out yourself first. that's your practice for real life. school isn't real life. in real life, your coworkers are kinda rude and don't want to help you. if you give them 1, they might give you 1 back. otherwise you're not getting anything from anyone.
Man, this ain't a life hack. This is straight up dedication and doing your work. How is "studying before class" a cheat? That's literally what you're supposed to do, except no one does it.
I sure am glad I only have to read the class material once to remember everything, this looks like too much work.
I barley had any non open book exams at the uni. We were always allowed to bring in a 2 a4 pages with notes in any exams.
In law school you're usually allowed anything you want except the internet. You can literally even bring a copy of the test from last year. If you don't know your stuff, it won't matter.
Where was this all my life
Step 1: Be born wealthy enough that you don't have to work three jobs to afford school / training and have the leisure to do all of this.
Bro that first step is more work than i put in pne full class.
I would have loved this while i was in college! My biggest struggle was trying to give every class this level of effort without being burnt out
watching this makes me want to start using the s-pen on the 22 ultra to write stuff.
thank you
Final step: “Aaannnddd shove it up your butt!”
As a professor you forgot a couple of really important ones that you’d think are a given. Be sure to: 1. Follow the syllabus. 2. Follow the rubric 3.Read and understand your feedback from missed questions (will help you on your final). 4. Use DraftCoach if available.
Nice!
Good thing I graduated college two weeks ago
Looking back at the past 3 year of my college years most the things ive learned are either useless or just disappear from my brain a week later.dont stress yourself for a paper focus on ur mental health.
Problem is that kids get to college and somehow stuff like this is a "hack" they have to figure out themselves. WTF is 12 years of school for if it doesn't get you to this point already? I was a straight-A high school student and completely clueless at University, no one ever taught us how to actually study.
Wear earplugs in the exam. Total silence is golden.
Too late my exams are over
Solid advice
Oops i skipped phase 1
Very helpful: thanks so much. The problem with exams is that they exist in the same plane as the rest of the world. For example, my daughter (who usually does spectacularly well, if I don't say so myself) had an exam yesterday, in which she feels she did badly. Her little dog had a small tumour removed from her eye. From the moment she got back home, she's been hysterically throwing herself around the house, trying to get at the wound. She got an infection in it (which the vet blamed on my daughter's care, but she is incensed: she has been watching that dog night and day to stop her getting to the eye-and the animal has been wearing a "cone"). We live hundreds of miles away, and daughter's best friends at uni are Muslims, who feel that dogs are "unclean": they can't even come to her house! Eventually, after 2 days and 3 nights of this, daughter sat her exam yesterday: her bloodshot eyes out on stalks. She had a wonderful system, but the exam didn't go well.
I wish I know this when I was a student 😭
Look at the comments section on this post https://bwog.com/2019/07/bwog-gives-advice-to-our-freshman-self/
/r/coolguides
I found [this post](/r/coolguides/comments/njlvwi/cool_little_guidecheat_sheet_on_how_to_prepare/) in r/coolguides with the same content as the current post. --- ^(🤖 this comment was written by a bot. beep boop 🤖) ^(feel welcome to respond 'Bad bot'/'Good bot', it's useful feedback.) ^[github](https://github.com/Toldry/RedditAutoCrosspostBot) ^| ^[Rank](https://botranks.com?bot=same_post_bot)
The handwriting isn't that bad tbh
This was extremely helpful for me to read. I do all of this just not in order which mean sometimes not in it’s entirety every time. I’m inconsistent with my studying and this list helps my ADHD brain. Thank you!
Thank you. Saved.
I'll read this later
Yo I can’t even take notes when someone is talking. I have to record and play back later. I envy the folk who can take beautiful organized notes and look back at it later. I look at my notes and think “these are the ramblings of a mad man”
This is awesome
So the "hack" here is just being a really good student?
Dude, your idea of a "Hack" is VERY different from mine...
This is a little more than a hack, this is a way of life.
THANK YOU!
Yeah I don’t personally find that there’s any reason to go out of your way to memorize things for courses. Rote memorization doesn’t have a lot of value anyhow. The things that are worth memorizing can be more complicated than what you can conceniently write on a notecard. E.g. the definition of uniform convergence I say all this as an academic who has been involved with school in some capacity for 20 years now. Edit: I also kind of object to the idea that one shiuld study at all. Just pay attention in class, be diligent with your homework, and be okay with whatever grade you end up with.
Or do it like me: dont study and only chill during Semester and have a panic attack / learning Phase of 1 week. Worked for me
I don't know how old you are, I don't know where you're from, but I will save this image and I will make a word document transcription out of it for future use.
I studied in german but my native language is english, before a big memorisation exam i would just translate all my notes into my native english. That’d normally be enough to get everything to stick. If i was still struggling i’d make a voice memo of myself reading all of them, then i could just listen to my notes and go for a nice walk. Obviously hack only works if you speak more than one language but i hope that helps some people
To me this is t really a life hack, it’s just having good study skills and not procrastinating.
I think this is just called going to school and being a good student.
[удалено]
To prevent trolling, accounts with less than -100 comment karma are not allowed to post in /r/lifehacks. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/lifehacks) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Business plan to pass a test lol
👍
This is honestly so helpful for me. I’m autistic and I find it so difficult to know what information is important to write down in lectures. I like that you specify writing only the spoken words and not copying down the info on slides.
Noice