Are you struggling to study for your exams? Maybe you can’t put your phone down, keep on scrolling through Tik Tok when you know you should be scrolling through google classroom. Or maybe, the information that you keep reading over and over just won’t stick in your head? Well, if you have these issues, I have the solution to them and many more…
From apps to highlighters with a bit of textbook in between, I’m going to tell you all the best ways that you can be prepared for tests and exams, and you can help yourself get the best result that is possible.
Study tip 1 – notes
Now, I know there are many ways to study and there is something different to help everyone, but I’m only going to name a few. The first one is revision notes. Revision notes are my personal favourite, because there are so many ways to do them, and you can make them enjoyable.
Use pretty pens and highlighters, in your favourite notebook or maybe a spare class jotter, trust me it makes it a lot easier and a lot more fun. I’ll begin by talking you through notebooks, then ill go onto posters and flashcards, so let us get into it!
Notebooks or jotters are a really good way to study. I like to sit at a desk with a jotter in front of me and start back at the beginning. I go through all my notes and work that I have previously done in school and copy them into my jotter, shortening some of my notes but not missing any information. For example, if I was doing biology and wanted to copy definitions, I would find them in my jotter and then I would copy them into my notebook or study book! I find that writing stuff, even highlighting it can make it all stick in my head more!
Summary posters are another great shout. These are great ways to study if you have extra time in class and want to study. Like I said, using highlighters and fancy pens makes studying so much more enjoyable. Mind maps or diagrams go down great on a summary poster, especially if you’d like to make it big and bold on A3 paper! Again, these are great to get information to stick in your head.
Flashcards are my last but not least favourite! I’m going to talk about again definitions, flashbacks are great for definitions and fact files. On one side you could write the word, and on the other side, you could write the definition. For example, if you study crime and law, you could write “social cause of crime” and on the other side you could write “one social cause of crime is drugs and alcohol abuse because when you are under the influence you are more likely to commit a crime”.
Again, I find it a brilliant way to remember definitions and facts, especially if you get someone to quiz you on the side with information, and show you the side with the question!
All 3 of these tactics are great to get information stuck in your brain, and prepare you for exams! It is proven that sitting reading over your jotter won’t help as much as doing interactive work, like flashcards and posters or even doing questions can help a lot, which ill talk about shortly!
Study tips 2 – textbooks
Another great strategy for studying is textbooks! Textbooks with past paper questions and help on how to do them are a great thing to have! Now you can get online textbooks, by just searching on google “past papers (your subject)” Or you can buy one! You get more information by buying them, but it is completely up to you! If you do like highlighting, and scribbling wee notes that help you, buying a textbook is definitely worth your while, click here for an example on an N5 history one!
Highlighting certain phrases and writing notes that help you next to them is definitely a good shout! This can help a lot, it’s like the shortening definitions tactic I mentioned earlier, making stuff your own is a really good idea to help get stuff such in your mind! It is proven that stuff that you highlight with a highlighter, is more likely to stay in your mind! So I definitely recommend this!
Not to mention past exam questions and papers can help a lot! Doing questions like these gets you ready for what you are going to see opening that exam paper, and will help you get a lot more prepared for when it comes to exam time! As I said, you can find past papers online as well!
Study tip 3- listening!
A final tactic is listening! Now, this may sound silly but if you need to memorise a paragraph to write down in a timed exam this is a really helpful strategy! When you have a chance, you could record yourself on video or on voice notes, reading out the paragraph you are meant to learn! It doesn’t even need to have to be a paragraph!
If you stick in some earphones, doing daily activities, even like just out for a walk, and listen to your recording as many times as possible, it sticks in your head and you remember it quickly! This is a great strategy for learning a language, especially to help with pronunciation!
If you want to listen to music while making flashcards or a poster, or one of my earlier strategies, try to listen to music with no lyrics, as lyrics in songs can put you off and make it harder to get information to stick in your head! Same with if you want to put the TV on in the background, maybe put it on mute as it is very hard for the info to stay in your brain!
If you want N5 modern studies to question help, to help your studying, click here.
Hope this helps and makes you study more!
