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What are your study menthods?

 
Old 08-18-2010 at 08:41 PM   #1
vp15
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What are your study menthods?
I was wondering how people study in university. So if you have time I would like you to answer the following questions, for I'd like to see what works for people. How do you study & take notes? Have you changed the way you study from the way you used to? What works well for you to study in general & to prepare for exams and such?
Old 08-18-2010 at 08:51 PM   #2
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The best thing I can say is get to know your prof. Some profs test only general knowledge so you want to keep your notes condensed and to the point and then there are other profs who test only on the smallest details and then you have to go crazy writing down everything they say. Everyone takes notes differently and I just stuck to what I was used to in high school and did pretty well 1st year.
Old 08-18-2010 at 08:53 PM   #3
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to be honest I am horrible at taking notes and last year for some courses I didn't take a single note. Then came exam time I just read the covered chapters from the textbook like once through and hoped to do well haha. this year for sure though I'm not doing that. I find that if you spend just an hour or two on a subject every day or every other day, it is easier to keep up
Old 08-18-2010 at 09:09 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vp15 View Post
I was wondering how people study in university. So if you have time I would like you to answer the following questions, for I'd like to see what works for people. How do you study & take notes? Have you changed the way you study from the way you used to? What works well for you to study in general & to prepare for exams and such?
For those of you that have yet to adopt a learning style: http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp

You'll also figure out how you learn through experience during your university experience.


I'm a multimodel learner and I find that I can learn pretty well using all the different learning styles, auditory, read/write, kinesthetic and visual. I'm about equal in all of them according to VARK which I find makes sense. I use different learning styles for different courses (in first year, most of my courses are the same now).

Math: Read/Write and Kinesthetic
Physics: Auditory and Visual mainly, slightly Kinesthetic
Chemistry: Auditory and Visual mainly, slightly Kinesthetic
Biology: Read/Write and Visual mainly, slightly Auditory.

Doing stuff (Kinesthetic) is one of the best ways I like to learn. But it takes a lot of time. I can't do pages after pages of practice problems for each course but I can do some now and then.

Auditory was my main learning method in high school, I actually barely did anything else. It's the fastest way to learn for me since I just have to listen to my professor talk.

Read/Write is tied with Kinesthetic in the best way I learn. I can intake a lot of information and retain it by just reading. However this takes A LOT of time. I don't have time to read 5 chapters of each subject, sometimes even 7-8 chapters, each week. It's just physically impossible for me. That's why I don't do that much of it.

Visual I use almost for every class. I love charts and diagrams, they are so easy to understand and you can quickly go over TONS of information in 1 chart. It's even faster than Auditory.

Now you may be thinking that it must have taken me a long time to figure out these learning strategies for each course, but really it didn't take me very long. After a couple weeks you will be able to know how you learn best in each course. Some courses you'll be like "I hate coming to lecture, I never learn anything but I was reading the book yesterday and I learned so much". Other courses you'll be like "I tried reading the book yesterday and holy crap I don't understand jackshit in it. There are too many complicated words or there are too many numbers in a row!". You could also be like "These practice problems are too easy, I don't need to do them" or "These charts that the professor posted up are so confusing, there are so many arrows and boxes. I have no idea what is happening"

Anyways, that's mainly how I learn. Adapt to the courses and you'll do well.

My Advice: Spend your first few weeks trying out different learning strategies and see how you work best for each class. Also, just because you found a good strategy doesn't mean it'll stick. I change my strategies around all the time especially in first year. First year courses are so general that you learn many types different information through the class and as such you may be better at learning certain information a certain way than another.

Best of luck to you all, Cheers.
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.:callen:., vp15 all say thanks to jhan523 for this post.

.:callen:. likes this.
Old 08-19-2010 at 09:37 AM   #5
feonateresa
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I wrote this article a while back, and basically says what I would've said here hehe. http://www.macinsiders.com/showthrea...2.html?t=22382
Old 08-19-2010 at 10:48 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by feonateresa View Post
I wrote this article a while back, and basically says what I would've said here hehe. http://www.macinsiders.com/showthrea...2.html?t=22382
Those are some good tips, I would just like to say that note-taking isn't everyone's best way of studying. I personally don't learn enough from note taking for it to be worth all the labour and time. I'd rather spend my time reading or doing problems.
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Old 08-19-2010 at 11:17 AM   #7
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Yeah, I don't like note-taking. I find that focusing on writing stuff down is just distracting - I usually just listen in lecture, and read about the material if I need clarification (not necessarily in the text, because a lot of the course-recommended texts haven't been that great anyway). There's so many resources available online and in the library that you really don't even need the textbook (unless there's some assignment thing that goes along with it)
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Old 08-19-2010 at 11:28 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mahratta View Post
Yeah, I don't like note-taking. I find that focusing on writing stuff down is just distracting - I usually just listen in lecture, and read about the material if I need clarification (not necessarily in the text, because a lot of the course-recommended texts haven't been that great anyway). There's so many resources available online and in the library that you really don't even need the textbook (unless there's some assignment thing that goes along with it)
I don't think I read a single first year textbook, second year textbooks were a lot more interesting for me so I hope the trend continues.

But yeah, if there is something specific I don't understand then I just quickly wiki it. But most of the time I read the textbook because some professors I just can't learn from.
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Old 08-19-2010 at 11:42 AM   #9
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Do as many questions as possible 2-3 days before midterms.
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Old 08-19-2010 at 11:49 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blackdragon View Post
Do as many questions as possible 2-3 days before midterms.
Pretty much.

Assignments the night before, projects a few days in advance. Hell, for bonus points, study the night before a midterm. Really teaches you to condense the material into the essentials instead of wasting time on unnecessary things.
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Old 08-19-2010 at 12:26 PM   #11
revenant
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Study spelling first
Old 08-19-2010 at 05:18 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by revenant View Post
Study spelling first
clearly i can spell METHODS it was a typo.. damn people give no breaks..

Quote:
Originally Posted by jhan523 View Post
For those of you that have yet to adopt a learning style: http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp
Thank you for this site. I have spent quite some time reading the various methods people use to learn. I did the questionnaire and according to that I use all the various methods to learn. I guess I'll try different things, but I really don't know many then the traditional taking notes method. How is sit possible that you just listen and can learn the material, do you not need to review it a few times to know it thoroughly?

Quote:
Originally Posted by blackdragon View Post
Do as many questions as possible 2-3 days before midterms.
Isn't that bad though because you are waiting til last minute, thus if you don't understand the material, you won't have enough time to learn it?

Last edited by jhan523 : 08-19-2010 at 05:22 PM.
Old 08-19-2010 at 05:22 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vp15 View Post
Isn't that bad though because you are waiting til last minute, thus if you don't understand the material, you won't have enough time to learn it?
well it depends on the person. for me personally for first year anthropology, I literally read the entire textbook for the first time the night before the exam. it was dumb but I seem to always procrastinate and cram like crazy at the end. I ended up doing a lot better on the exam than I thought, even doing better than some of my friends who had studied for days and weeks
Old 08-19-2010 at 05:27 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vp15 View Post
Thank you for this site. I have spent quite some time reading the various methods people use to learn. I did the questionnaire and according to that I use all the various methods to learn. I guess I'll try different things, but I really don't know many then the traditional taking notes method. How is sit possible that you just listen and can learn the material, do you not need to review it a few times to know it thoroughly?
It's just the way I've always learned my entire life. Of course I review, it keeps the information fresh in my head. But my reviews are mainly just going over the slides once maybe twice. Takes me about 15-30 seconds per slide depending on the slide, doesn't seem a lot but for courses with 500-600 slides it can take quite some time. The rest of my time I use to do given practice questions or questions in the book.
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Old 08-19-2010 at 05:42 PM   #15
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Sleep as much as possible
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