Answering these questions can help us find the right study strategies for ourselves!
Let's say you are being tested over 4 chapters for your upcoming test. Here's how you can avoid cramming:
Day 1: Study chapter 1; make notes, write definitions, do concept mapping, etc. Study for 1-2 hours.
Day 2: Review chapter 1 and study chapter 2--just like you did for chapter 1. Review chapter 1 for 30 minutes, study chapter 2 for 1-2 hours.
Day 3: Review chapters 1 & 2; study chapter 3. Review chapters 1 & 2 for 45 minutes. Study chapter 3 for 1-2 hours.
Day 4: Review Chapters 1,2,& 3; study chapter 4. Review chapters 1,2,& 3 for 1 hours. Study chapter 4 for 1-2 hours.
Day 5: Review all chapters and then self-test. Review: 1 hour. Self test: 1 hour.
Studies show that we tend to be more productive during the day. This also frees up your evenings for friends and extracurricular activities!
Doing more work on the front end can reduce the amount of studying on the back end.
If you struggle with focusing for long periods of time . . .
Sometimes it's hard to study in our dorm because of the distraction of our TV, phone, roommate, etc. Here are some places on campus to study if your dorm doesn't work for you:
If you need a little background noise:
If you need complete quiet:
Zotero (pronounced "zoh-TAIR-oh") is a free program that collects, manages, and cites research sources. It's easy to use, lives in your web browser where you do your work, and best of all it's free. Zotero allows you to attach PDFs, notes and images to your citations, organize them into collections for different projects, and create bibliographies.
Zotero requires that you install two different applications on each computer you use for research:
Want to know more? See this Zotero Quick Start Guide published by the Zotero developers. Also available as a PDF.