By Paisley McFarland
The Scene staff
I’m no stranger to the horrors of studying.
Growing up, it was always important to me to strive to do better in school. But it was easier said than done, especially as I got older and entered high school. I realized I sucked at studying.
I went to a school known for its rigorous course load, and I still got OK test scores, passed all my classes and graduated with an above-average GPA. But during the process, I came to realize that I didn’t really know how to study, when to study or what to study.
Above all, I was lazy with school.
I often ignored these problems because, while I wasn’t doing my best, I also wasn’t failing my classes. It was the summer of my senior year, though, when I vowed to improve my grades before I graduated.
I spent that summer planning a new approach to my classes. I didn’t want to adopt practices that would burn me out and glorify the toxic, unrealistic hustle culture that is so common with studying advice. I needed something that fit my skills and lifestyle.
Now, as a college student, I feel like I can share the three essential study methods that carried me through senior year.
- Active recall
During tests, one of my biggest mistakes was misunderstanding the objective. Have you ever read a question, thought you understood it, revisited it later and realized the teacher was asking you something completely different?
When I started memorizing the specific words, symbols and visuals in a word problem, I stopped making those small mistakes. You may assume it is only important to do this in classes like English, but even in my math classes, I would get stumped on what the question was asking me or how to answer it.
Flash cards utilize active recall, or pulling directly from your memory without relying on notes or readings. You can identify what a card is asking you to do, what you need to answer and how you should notate it.
- Spaced repetition
Along with knowing how or what to study, you must know when you should study. Before my senior year, I would study a day prior to a test and rely on my homework to review. And this can work on easier, smaller assignments, such as quizzes.
But to prepare for tests, spaced repetition – studying information in small portions over a long period of time – works much more effectively and will relieve that stressful experience of knowing the information in the back of your mind, yet being unable to reach it.
When I stopped burning myself out by studying five hours the day before my tests, I was able to be much more relaxed and content with studying 30 minutes a day, starting a week before tests.
- Rewriting notes
This final method is something I don’t really hear people talk about. It combines both active recall and spaced repetition: rewriting your notes. In this digital age, many people take notes on electronic devices. It’s not a bad plan, but the work can’t stop after class ends.
One of the ways I studied from my notes was dumbing down and rewriting them in a physical notebook. You start by shortening phrases into abbreviations and cutting out words that aren’t absolutely important, then organizing them into sections. Then you repeat. Write down key events, ideas and words in the notebook within your own words from memory, and do it all again.
This action of physically writing things over and over has been the most helpful for me. I stopped studying textbook definitions and long sentences – something I see many people fall victim to – and interpreted the information in my own language. Your notes should reflect your own understanding of the information, not the book’s.
This journey of improving my study habits was not easy by any means. I did it through a lot of tears, heavy conversations and bad grades. But I think it’s one of my biggest achievements as a student. So many people struggle with studying because they were never taught how to do it.
Just take my word for it and try it out for yourself.