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The most important thing when studying is not how many hours you spend on the textbooks, but how you approach the subject. Effective revision doesn’t have to mean sleepless nights – on the contrary! Learn how to consolidate your knowledge without poring over textbooks.
Take advantage of how the human brain works and revise before an exam by drawing your own mind map. It’s a revolutionary way of learning that takes advantage of how much our memory relies on associations. What exactly is this method? All you need to do is to write down the topic you are trying to master before the exam in the middle of a piece of paper, and around it, using arrows going away from it, write key words associated with the main concept. Then add to the key words and so on, making sure that the further you move away from the main topic, the more detailed the key words should be.
If you can’t remember what Avogardo’s number is, how to calculate a delta, or don’t know how to bite on Newton’s second principle of dynamics, look for answers in YouTube videos. Often it is enough to listen to how the issue is explained with examples, without the unnecessary rush that happens in the classroom or lecture hall. You can play the video multiple times until you understand the concept, or you can look for other creators on YouTube who present the topic in their own way.
Social media can effectively and unnoticed steal a good portion of your day. Especially while studying, turning on Facebook can be detrimental to the results. If you want to consolidate your knowledge before the exam, you need to guarantee yourself a break from social media. Browser plug-ins that block all websites or only social networks will prove useful. It is also possible to block a site if you stay on it too long. Also interesting are plugins that change web pages to plain text so you’re no longer distracted by unnecessary links or side panels, one that turns your Facebook wall into a task list, or one that uses white noise to increase your concentration
After repeating one batch of material, take a break before getting down to the rest. You deserve a break and it’s best if you get some fresh air as well. If you take a break from studying for a few minutes, you will see that it makes a big difference to your performance and you will absorb information much faster. Studying continuously will not do you any good, you’ll just get tired and not want to study any more.
When you tell someone what you already know, not only do you get an accurate picture of your knowledge, but you also consolidate the information you have acquired. When you try to explain to another person the subject you are trying to learn, you are able to understand it better. Often you will only remember information by repeating it out loud, so try different ways of consolidating information until you find the one that works best for you.
If you can’t understand the textbook, it’s a good idea to write things down in your own way. If you don’t know how to go about it, start by extracting the most important information, leaving out the details. Later, describe the topic in your own words, and when you have a better understanding of the subject, go back to the textbook description and familiarize yourself with the details.
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