Develop Study Skills
In college, depending on what you’re studying, you’ll be building your math skills or science skills or writing skills – as well as your critical thinking and problem-solving skills. But to achieve those goals, it’s crucial to develop some solid study skills. Let’s look at the most important ones to sharpen: notetaking, reading strategies, and test-taking skills.
Notetaking skills. If you’ve tried to write down everything you hear in lectures, by now you’ve discovered that it’s just not possible! While some professors are recording lectures and making the videos available online, but in lectures, you can’t click on a pause button and rewind (although you should ask questions when given opportunities). In college, you may be left in the dust if you don’t make a point to improve your notetaking strategies. Therefore, to capture what you hear and to make the most of it when you need it, learn to organize information, listen selectively, use shorthand, and review the material.
Try organizing with a split-page technique. One popular method that’s been used for decades is the Cornell System. On the left-side – known as the “cue” or “recall column” – record key ideas as you hear them. On the right side, write supporting details. Double-space your notes to leave room for additional, related ideas. And in a space at the bottom of the page, write your responses or summaries.
Try organizing with an outline. Another method for organizing notes is the outline. With each topic, move in a pattern from general to specific. And like the split-page method, leave plenty of room to add ideas you find in your textbooks, class discussions, and study sessions.
Use selective listening. Speakers always give verbal cues. Think of these words and phrases as signposts indicating transitions in a lecture – when a new point is about to be introduced, how it relates to or contrasts with ideas already mentioned, and so on. For example, words like although, on the other hand, and however signal that contrasting ideas are coming up. Words like furthermore and in addition signal that another piece of info is coming at you, and therefore and consequently warn you that results will be described. Each time you hear these kinds of cues, begin a new line in your notes.
Use shorthand – capture more, capture quickly. As you well know, the hand is slower than the ear. Shorthand is your shortcut to capturing more ideas, more efficiently. If u do it 4 txt msgs, this notion isn’t new! The key is to create a consistent code for commonly used words and to use abbreviations for words with common roots, like rel’ship for relationship and nat’lism for nationalism. Use symbols, like @ for at.
Review, rewrite, repeat. A lot of successful employees type up their notes soon after a meeting. Successful students do it, too. Try it and you’ll find yourself taking more ownership of lecture material. You’ll reinforce what you heard, be able to organize your info, and fill in the gaps.
Reading Skills. Like most new students, you’re probably doing more reading than ever before. In college, learning is drawn from various sources: textbooks, of course, and web-based texts, print articles, and graphic information that you must read, analyze, and remember. Unfortunately, too often, students take a passive approach, or misuse the reading methods that they’ve been told will work.
Active reading strategies will help you boost your ability to absorb, remember, and apply information. Remember that your goals are reading comprehension and retention.
Major highlights – your life in living color. Highlighting can be a mixed blessing. It’s a great method for marking texts and notes so you can refer to it later when studying for an exam, but you’ve got to be careful not to get carried away. If half of your pages are yellow (or bright green), it will be hard to tell what’s more important than what – and you won't remember what you've read. So you need to be systematic.
The key is to connect ideas in the readings and organize them in recognizable ways. One tried-and-true method is to color-code. Invest in different colors and highlight key ideas in one color, supporting points in another hue, and summary or analysis of topics in a third color. Underlining with colored felt-tip pens can supplement or replace highlighting, and they’re usually cheaper. If you’re a visual learner, the color-code approach may really help you remember.
But color-coding in itself isn’t enough. Control your urge to highlight or underline everything on the page. Preview the reading assignment by skimming over assigned pages. Look at the titles, subtitles and visuals. How is the information organized? Think about what you already know about the topic. Think about what your professor wants you to know. Only after you've previewed should you pick up your highlighter.
Take the marginal way. Annotate – that means writing in the margins. After you’ve previewed the text and visuals, make comments in the margins. The annotations can be, for example, your summary of an idea, written in your own words. Or it can refer to something you’ve heard in a lecture that relates to the details on the page.
Cheaper by the chapter summary – You may have noticed that many textbooks include chapter summaries. They may also have review questions, so try them. You can turn them into self-tests, turning the sentences into quiz questions.
Test-taking – Prepare to Be Prepared
Okay, so we admit that exams are a not-so-welcome but inevitable part of college life. Cutting down on test jitters and arriving on test-day clear-headed can help you work your way to acing or at the very least, passing an exam. Here are some tips for smart test prep.
Party when it’s over – and not before. Staying up late and suffering from chemical overload the next day is a sure way to mess up a test.
Put it to bed. Try knock off studying at least an hour before you go to bed. Go to bed, you say? Some students think that’s a novel notion, but your best ally is a good night’s sleep. Yes, there will be times when you wind up pulling an all-nighter, but trust us: rest is best. A breath of fresh air and a brisk walk before you hit the hay won’t hurt, either. Give your brain cells the oxygen fix they need.
Be an early bird. On the day of the test, don’t rush to class. Get there a few minutes early to calm yourself and set up your gear – pencils, pen, eraser, calculator, and notes, if allowed.
Strength in numbers. Think study groups! Join one organized for a specific exam or for the semester, organize one if you find like-minded students in your class dedicated to success, or attend study sessions arranged by your professor. It’s a great strategy for comparing and reviewing material.
Test patterns. If you have access to earlier tests or your professor makes available exams from previous semesters, you’re in luck. You have an opportunity to study the instructors’ testing styles and the way they design questions. And looking at your older test results allows you to see where you may have gone wrong so you can go right the next time.
Different Test Types – Different Angles
Your study strategies should adapt to the kinds of tests you know you’re going to take.
Multiple-choice types. The good news is that the answer will be there on the page. The not-so-good news is that test jitters, uncertainty, and similar-sounding answers can lead you to choose the wrong one. Always take into account how much time you have. First, preview all of the questions. How many? Are they arranged from easiest to most difficult? (Not always the case!) Which ones are you absolutely sure about? Answer those first. Then go back to the other questions. Make sure you know what is being asked – in fact, don’t look at the answer options so you can concentrate on fully understanding the question. This tends to make the process of elimination simpler. Even if you can only guess, if you eliminate answers you know are wrong, you’ll increase your odds of guessing the right answer. And always review all of your answers before submitting your exam.
Short-answer and essay types. Some tests require that you compose an answer in your own words, using the knowledge and critical skills you’ve practiced in your course. If you’ve studied your material, the stuff you need to know will come to mind.
The first thing to do is carefully read the question prompt and underline any key terms, especially instructional words and phrases. What kinds of words might you typically see? For starters – analyze, explain, describe, contrast, compare, identify, and give reasons. If you have time, do some prewriting.
As you think about what you’re going to say, create an outline or a graphic organizer to map out your ideas. Record the possible points you could make. As you do this, you’ll start to jot down ideas that may jog your memory for other ideas that you couldn’t recall at first. Your “brain-drizzle” will become a brainstorm. However, it’s not a good idea to compose an entire draft, because you may not have time to copy and correct it.
As for organizing your answer, stick to a standard essay format. Begin with your main idea or premise. Each paragraph should deal with a topic. Then provide supporting details. Restate or reframe your main idea to conclude.
Problem-solving types. This refers more to the types of questions than tests, because problem-solving questions can appear in multiple-choice, short-answer, and essay tests. But just like other tests, try to interpret the question by reading carefully. Problem-questions may ask you to find errors, disprove or prove a statement, or selecting the best strategy for a situation.
Then figure out what you need to know or what resources you may have to consult. For example, if you’re taking a statistics exam, you might be allowed to use charts and a calculator. You’ll need to figure out what’s being asked, what information is provided and what’s missing, what chart to consult, and what formulaic function buttons to press on your calculator. Then you’ll be able to understand what operations should be performed.
Next, plan your steps by breaking down the problem into parts. Figure out what steps you should you follow. Seek the familiar. A problem will usually resemble one you did for homework or in class. You’ll be able to recall the steps you need to follow.
And like the other tests, review your answers. You don’t want all your good work to be wasted if you mistakenly wrote down or picked the wrong answer. If it’s a short-answer or essay, proofread and edit!