Nut's Academic Tip of the Week

[NutBrnHair]

*Establish a routine time to study for each class
For every hour you spend in class, you will probably need to spend two hours outside of class. Study for each subject at the same time every day/week and in the same place if possible.

*Studying includes more than just doing your homework
You'll need to go over your notes from class- labeling, editing, and making sure you understand them. Look at your syllabus to see where you are going and where you've been. Be sure to do reading assignments and read ahead whenever possible. Prepare for class as if there will be a pop quiz that day.

*Establish a place to study
You should have a comfortable place to sit with good lighting, all the supplies you need, and of course, it should be free of distractions. It should not be a place where you routinely do other things.

*Do as much studying in the daytime as you can
What takes you an hour to do during the day may take you an hour and a half at night.

*Schedule breaks
Take a ten-minute break after each hour of study. If possible, avoid long blocks of time for studying. Spread out several short study sessions during the day.

*Make use of study resources on campus
Use the tutors, find out about labs, videos, computer programs, and alternative texts. Get to know your professors and other students in the class so you can feel comfortable asking questions.

*Study the hardest subjects first
Work on your hardest subjects when you are fresh because putting them off until you're tired compounds the problem.

*Be good to yourself
Studying on four hours of sleep and on an empty stomach or a junk-food diet is a waste of time. Avoid food and drinks containing caffeine just before or after studying.


Adapted from Practicing College Study Skills by Carolyn H. Hooper

[neosoul]

I really needed this thread... thanks!

[NutBrnHair]

While many students have good intentions about studying, obstacles often arise.

The following tips are suggested strategies to start studying!

I feel overwhelmed by so much material to study.

Begin by listing what chapters / terms to review. Next, prioritize! Break your review into manageable chunks. Begin studying early so you don’t rush. Determine how long you can study before losing your concentration. Schedule study sessions and breaks.

The material puts me to sleep.

Be an active learner by setting a purpose before reading or studying. Interact with the text by asking questions of the author and writing your reactions in the margins. Underline key concepts. Form a study group to encourage discussing material.

I understand when I read the book but I don’t remember it the next day.

One learns best when information has purpose or relevance to one’s life. Try connecting new material to what you already know. By linking new information with your existing knowledge, additional facts are easily integrated into your long-term knowledge. Chunking is an effective strategy for grouping information into meaningful units.

To remember the colors in the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) requires memorizing seven bits of information. However, by taking the first letter of each color, one can spell Roy G. Biv, and reduce the information into three meaningful chunks.

I understood the information while I was reading it.

Students, who immediately forget what was just read, experience short-term information processing difficulties. Try paraphrasing information in your own words after reading a section. If this is difficult, re-read the section or try paraphrasing shorter amounts of text.

I always study lying down.

It is important to study in an environment that is similar to test conditions. Create a study environment that facilitates mental, emotional and physical conditions similar to test context.

I learn best by cramming during an ‘all nighter’

Learning actually occurs through repeated exposures. The more one reads or studies material, the more throughly it is incorporated into one’s knowledge. Thus, this information is easier to recall. An all nighter only leads to mental exhaustion.

I was so sure I understood the material.

Thinking you mastered the facts and knowing the facts are two different things. To prove to yourself you KNOW the material, test yourself. Transform section headings into questions. For example, the subheading The Five Good Emperors might be changed into the following questions: Who were the five good emperors? For what is each man remembered? In which Roman era did these men rule? Next, try answering these questions in writing. There will be no question whether you know the answer.


Good luck studying!




source: www.sju.edu

[NutBrnHair]

Forming an acronym is a good strategy to use to remember information in any order that can be remembered. An acronym is a word that is formed from the first letter of each fact to be remembered. It can be a real word or a nonsense word you are able to pronounce.

Here is how to form an acronym.

*Write the facts you need to remember.

*Underline the first letter of each fact. If there is more than one word in a fact, underline the first letter of only the first word in the fact.

*Arrange the underlined letters to form an acronym that is a real word or a nonsense word you can pronounce.

“HOMES” is an example of an acronym that is a real word you can use to remember the names of the five Great Lakes: Michigan, Erie, Superior, Ontario, Huron: In HOMES, H is the first letter of Huron and helps you remember that name; O is the first letter of Ontario, and so on.

“Telk” is an acronym that can be used to remember the following animals: tiger, lion, elephant, kangaroo. “Telk” is not a real word, but you can easily pronounce it. You could also have used “kelt” as an acronym. Notice that in this example, you cannot form a real word using the first letter of each fact to be remembered.

Sometimes two or more of the facts you must remember each begin with the same first letter. For example, the acronym “capp” can be used to remember the following fruits: pear, apple, peach, cherry. You can use the first letter “p” in the acronym to remember either “pear” or “peach” and the second letter “p” to remember the other.

Use the acronym strategy as a way to remember information.





www.how-to-study.com

[NutBrnHair]

Get enough sleep the night before your exam (8 hours). You need at least 6 hours of deep sleep for transfer from short-term to long-term memory. Staying up late the night before a test will slow down your responses of your neural transmitters the next day and for the next THREE days, even if you get a good night's sleep the night after your test.

Raise your endorphins to prevent anxiety which stimulates adrenaline production causing the release of cortisols, which prevent recall during tests. Do one of the following to raise your endorphins before your exam:
*Read a joke before an exam.
*Have a Hershey's kiss.
*Take a short walk down the hall.

If you start to feel anxious before or during the test, pause for a minute, take three deep breaths to get oxygen to your brain (it needs oxygen in order to have fast firing of your neurons ) and to break the cycle of panic which can send out the adrenaline and cortisols that block memory and recall.

"Get physical" A study has shown that students who did calisthenics while studying French learned it better than students who used traditional methods to study French. Repeat vocabulary and formulas out loud to yourself.Draw "pictures" of scientific, economic, political, historical processes. Write notes of difficult points over.

Practice. You need repeated "hits" on subject matter to recall it, but not all of them have to be "in-depth" hard hits. In other words, it's not only more effective to do a 30-minute review daily of material for two weeks than to study for 7 hours on the night before a test, it is also easier and less stressful. And this will allow you to go to bed at a decent time the night before an exam.Take your lecture notes, fold the paper over, and ask yourself the question out loud , recite back the answer out loud without looking, and check your answer. If you're right, go on to the next question. If not, repeat the question, recite the answer, and check it until you're right. Use the same technique with your reading notes: read the question aloud, recite the answer aloud without looking, and check your answer.

Form a study group with 3 or 4 students and meet regularly to quiz each other using your lecture and reading notes and other study aids such as visuals and vocabulary flash cards.

Take a one-a-day vitamin, which includes B, B6, C, and folic acid, all very important in memory development and retention.

Eat a breakfast that includes protein (eggs, toast, oatmeal, or meat) and some carbohydrates, especially blueberries, which have been shown to improve verbal memory by 35%. Your brain needs amino acids that come from protein to properly function, and you need some sugars in order for the neurotransmitters to fire rapidly.

Avoid excessive amounts of coffee as the caffeine has been shown to kill brain cells, and once killed, they are gone forever, and caffeine can raise your anxiety levels, something you do not want to do before an exam, if you want to easily recall information







http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/~leilani/preparingexam.html

[SoEnchanting]

I just wanted to say that this is a great thread!

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by NutBrnHair

Avoid excessive amounts of coffee as the caffeine has been shown to kill brain cells, and once killed, they are gone forever, and caffeine can raise your anxiety levels, something you do not want to do before an exam, if you want to easily recall information

But how will I study til 3 in the morning????

[NutBrnHair]

How to Schedule Your First Year

With tests, applications, and interviews behind you, you're probably ready to sit back and relax for a while before heading off to college, but don't get too comfortable. Before you know it, summer will be over, and you'll find yourself on campus, thrown into a whirlwind of decisions. Choosing your courses will be among the first.

Picking classes in high school may not have been a big deal, but college is different. Some schools offer literally thousands of classes. Deciding what to take can make even the most experienced student dizzy. The following tips and strategies will make it easier to select your courses.

1. Review the Course Catalog
Your course catalog will be sent to you over the summer. Look through it thoroughly. You'll find a variety of lists, including core requirements (courses all students must take), requirements for different majors, and the courses offered within each department. Within each category or department, lists generally begin with introductory-level courses and end with more challenging seminars.

Mark the classes that interest you. If you have an idea of what you want to major in, consider taking some of the general requirements in your major. If you're like most freshmen and have no idea what you want to major in yet, think about taking classes in areas that spark your interest. Have you always wanted to learn about space? Try an astronomy class. Do fossils intrigue you? Sign up for anthropology.

2. Get Requirements Out of the Way
Almost all colleges have core requirements to ensure that students explore subjects outside their major. These requirements range from foreign language and physical education to philosophy and lab sciences. The number of required courses, and subjects, varies from one college to the next. You should fulfill these requirements as soon as possible so that you can spend your final semesters concentrating on courses in your major.

3. Find a Balance of Hard and Easy Courses
You may be eager to jump into difficult classes your freshman year, but beware of taking too many. You may not realize how challenging college courses can be, and how much reading and other work they require. And don't forget that this will be your first semester on campus—you're in for lots of changes. Too many hard courses can put a real strain on you and it will show in your grades.

4. Find a Balance of Subject Areas
You should also take subjects that require different kinds of work. For example, some classes, like literature and history, require a lot of reading, while others, like journalism, require a lot of writing. And courses like math and science will have you solving problem sets. Choose a variety of subjects, so you're not stuck having to read five books or writing five research papers in one week.

5. Take Advantage of Your Advisor
Most colleges assign you an academic advisor for your first year. When you arrive on campus, make it a priority to set up an appointment with your advisor and come with questions. If your advisor can't answer all your questions, seek the advice of department chairpersons and teachers of classes you're considering.

6. Use AP® Credits, Placement Exams, and More
Before you register, find out if you've already fulfilled any of your core requirements. If you score high on AP Exams, for example, you may not have to take certain classes, such as a lab science. Acing a placement exam could free you from taking the required language course. And, before you sign up for tap dancing, find out if your years on the gymnastics team count toward the physical education requirement.

7. Take a Writing Course
It's in your best interest to take a writing class during your first semester, even if you're not required to do so. You can apply the writing skills you develop in this course to all your other courses throughout college, and in whatever career you choose.

8. Make a Plan for Registration Day
Registering for classes can be a nail-biting experience. Some of you will be forced to stand in long lines, others will have to enter a lottery to get into popular classes, and still others will have to select courses on a computer system. You can be sure that some of the classes you want will be full, or that you'll have to choose between two classes that are held at the same time. So, after you come up with your dream schedule, make a list of alternative classes. Your preparations will make registration day easier, and help you start your first year off right.




www.collegeboard.com