How To Do Well
In Your Courses
“Why should I study so hard for “A’s”? “
Isn’t simply passing my classes and getting my degree/certificate the only important
thing”? “Why should I care to get an ‘A’
in a course that is not directly related to my future goals”? Teachers often
hear questions like these. The truth is that it IS important to do well in all ALL of your courses. Both the knowledge and skills developed
through your classes will directly affect the level of success in your future
endeavors, and this success as well as your overall GPA will influence the development
of future opportunities (i.e. they open doors!). Additionally, success in your courses will
engender a feeling of pride, as well as a sense of capability and confidence. It feels great to succeed after working hard,
and this sense of pride will stay with you for years forming the foundation for
personal confidence and future success!
So how do I get an “A”? While there
are many factors that may contribute to the difference between earning an “A” versus
a “C” (or “F”), two factors seem to jump out as being critical: 1. Knowing How to Learn and 2. Effort.
Many students do not have a clear idea about the techniques and procedures
for learning and, frankly, how much effort and hard work it actually takes to
understand and remember the material. For
most, becoming a doctor, lawyer, manager, teacher, nurse, or technician was not
due to “natural brilliance” but more so to consistent and focused hard
work. Simply put, it takes determination
and effort to become the best that you can be.
While we all have that “friend” who can casually listen to the lectures,
skim the readings, and obtain an “A”, the remaining 99.9% of us should not
model our behavior after this person. With
study skills and effort, though, all of us can do very well in any
course and in our desired profession. The
amount of effort to earn an “A” certainly will differ depending on the person
and the course taken, but the upshot is: Nothing
is out of your reach with the right study skills and effort.
Below
is a set of guidelines to help you focus your efforts in order to fully
understand the material. Use this guide,
and other sources of information, and actively seek out what is best for
you. Remember the expectation is that
you should be able to understand and remember the material well enough to teach
it clearly to someone else. If you can,
you understand the material well enough to use this knowledge for future
endeavors (other classes, jobs or just hanging with your friends).
The Lecture/Meeting Time: For
many classes, the meeting time, where the lecture or group activity occurs, is
the most important part of the course.
Most of the test questions come from the lecture and the lecture conveys
the basic information needed for assignments or discussions.
1. Please come to class and listen to
the lecture. The single most important thing to do to help
your grade is to show up to class. If
you must miss a class, take responsibility to learn the material. Copy a friend’s notes and try to understand
them. If there are gaps or parts that
you don’t understand, then bring the notes to the professor and ask them for
help.
2. Be prepared. When there is
something that needs to be practiced, read or prepared before you come into
class.
3. Be actively engaged. In a classroom
activity or lecture, actively participate (listen, think, contribute and take
notes). When a group/class activity
occurs, the interaction is meant for you to realize something through that
activity about the specific topic: It is never simply “busy work”. Try to explicitly understand the issues or
feelings that you are experiencing and relate them to the general content of
the course or to other knowledge obtained during the lectures or readings. Do not just “go through the motions”.
4. Take notes. A good note taker is someone who can obtain balance;
sometimes writing down many details and sometimes just listening and writing
down only a few notes. Here are some hints:
a. Learn to write in short hand and use symbols or
pictures. In doing so, you can spend more
time listening, critically thinking about what is being said, and asking questions.
b. Review your notes shortly after class has ended. Use this time to expand your notes with more
detail, clarify points, and fill in missing information.
c. Compare your notes to your readings or to notes from
previous lectures. If there are
differences or other interesting comparisons, bring these insights and
questions to your professor either in class or outside of class.
d. Compare your notes to those of your peers. In doing so, you will be able to fill in your
notes with what is missing, or to notice differences that should be clarified
(by discussing with your peer or your professor).
The Assigned
1. Read all of the assigned reading. It is really
as simple as that.
2. Give yourself time to read these
assignments. The assigned readings
are very different from what you may read recreationally in terms of complexity
and density of detail. Therefore, they
should take much longer to read in order to clearly understand, critically
think about and remember details from the readings as compared to “Harry
Potter”.
3. When you read, take notes as you
read.
I recommend this over writing notes in the text or using a “highlighter”
to mark the text. When taking notes on a separate page, it involved much
cognitive processing of the information which greatly helps to store this
information in memory. Make sure to
paraphrase rather than copying a sentence word for word. When paraphrasing, you use different words to
express the meaning, and so you have to understand the meaning first. Also, if you have only highlighted the text, you
need to haul out the heavy text and re-read the whole set of readings in order
to study. When you take notes on a
separate page, you are reducing the meaning in a 45 page chapter into 10 pages
of notes. Thus when you study weeks
later, you only need to read 10 pages (to refresh your memory). If there is something unclear in your notes,
then go back to the readings and re-read that small part of the text or book.
a. Outline
not Summarize: I recommend outlining
the assigned section or chapter and not to simply summarize it. Summarizing merely forces you to recollect
the general gist of the readings, while outlining forces you to pay attention
to the details. Additionally, outlining
forces you to pay attention while you are reading, and limits
“daydreaming”. Note that most textbooks
are written in an outline format, so outlining the chapter is quite easy.
b. Questions: While you are taking notes, I also recommend writing
down any questions that come up as you are reading the material and then take
them to your instructor. Questions are
the open doors to learning!
c. Don’t
fall for the hype: Don’t convince yourself that you can skim the
readings now, but go back and re-read it later with more effort before the
exam. Rarely will you have that much
time to read everything twice.
4. Try to think about the material and
relate it to your own experiences. Relating
the material to your own experiences and to other material that you have read
or listened to enhances your understanding and your ability to remember.
5. Read the assigned readings before the
relevant lecture. As noted above, this will greatly increase your
understanding.
Studying For the Exam
Clearly,
the primary reason to study is to store the material in memory so that it can be
used during the test (or job). It is
also important, though, for discovering what you don’t understand or can’t
remember well before the test. The last place you want to realize that the
material is unclear is during the test! As
you study, note information that doesn’t make sense and consult the text, your
peers or your instructor.
1. Spread the time studying across many
days.
It is well known that 10 hours of studying is much more effective if you
study 2 hours a day for 5 days than if you study 10 hours straight in one
day.
2. Reserve time to study. It is important
to be able to concentrate on the material when studying and to not be
distracted. Try to reserve the time to
study so that you have enough time and you can study in a place that allows you
to only focus on the material. Also, try
not to study while tired or hungry. These
states will interfere with your cognitive processes.
3. Review your notes after class. As mentioned,
review your notes soon after the lecturer in order to fill out your notes with
details while the concepts are fresh in your mind. In doing so, they will make sense weeks later.
4. Relate your lecture notes to your
assigned reading (and/or your own experiences). As stated, the more things that you can
relate the material to, the more it will make sense and be remembered. Relate the readings to your lecture notes and
if there are contradictions, talk to the instructor.
5. Rewrite the notes. Re-writing
(paraphrasing) helps you understand and remember the material. This goes for the notes that you took during lecture
as well as from the assigned readings. As
you study your notes, re-write them or outline them in few pages. For instance, you might take 30 pages of
lecture notes and reduce them to 15 pages.
Study them and then reduce them to 10 pages (and so on). By the night before the test, you only have
one page to review.
6. Study in Groups. Studying with
your peers (from your class) will allow you to share knowledge so that you can
make sure you are not missing or misunderstanding the information. Use the time to look over another person’s
notes to make sure yours are clear and complete, and quiz each other to make
sure that you understand the material fully.
Make sure to do all of your independent study activities first (e.g.
outlining the chapter). Groups studying
works best if you come to the meeting with many hours of studying under your
belt and questions to ask your friends.
Finally, do not be afraid to find out who is doing well in class and
study with them. If everyone in your
group is doing poorly, your group might not be as helpful as you need.
7. If you are given a study guide in the
form of potential essay questions, write out the answers to each as completely
as possible. Then share with your
peers or ask the instructor for help.
8. Flash cards. Simply put the word on one side and the definition
on the other and then look at the cards as often as possible (e.g. at the bus
stop, waiting for water to boil, just before bed). Repetition is the key. At the end of the term, you may find quite a
large stack of cards on your desk and you will know them all; be proud of
yourself.
Taking the Exam
Tips for any exam:
1. Time management
a. Organize
before you start. Determine how many and what kinds of
questions there are and then devise a plan of attack. For exams which have both
multiple choice and essay questions, often the essay questions are written at
the end of the exam. That doesn’t mean
that you should do them last. For some
people, it may be better time management to do them first. Skim the test, and allocate the appropriate
time for each section.
b. Do not
hesitate too long on a question. If the answer does not come within a short
time, skip it. In the end, you may not
get this question correct, and because of time wasted on this question, you may
get other easy questions wrong simply for the lack of time. Also, there may be information found in other
questions that will help you with this hard one. Do the hard ones last.
c. Make sure
every question has an answer. Give yourself time to check at the end of the
exam. For the multiple choice questions,
at least guess; if there are 5 answers, you have a 1:5 chance of getting it
right! For essays or short answer
question, try to just write something related to the question. You may get a few points, and it may jog your
memory about the topic and retrieve the correct answer.
2. Seek clarity
a. If the question is seems unclear, try to say it out
loud (quietly to yourself) or write it out in your own words
b. Ask for clarification if there is something confusing about the
question or the instructions.
3. Relax. Exams are anxiety generators. The problem is that
anxiety can interfere with your ability to think flexibly and answer
correctly. There are many methods to
help reduce anxiety, but here are two.
a. Study
really hard. The better you know the material, the more
confident you will feel and the less anxious you will feel during the
exam.
b. Breath. When anxious, we tend to freeze up (physically and
mentally) and stop breathing. Stop
everything and take a deep breath before every question and every time that you
feel like you can’t find the answer (or cant breath).
4. Don’t be afraid to write on the exam
itself. For instance, if you get to a section of
questions on depression, write down everything you know about depression or at
least some brief mnemonic that you came up with before you look at the
questions. Then use that information,
mnemonic or table to answer all of the related questions.
Tips for multiple choice questions:
1. Read the question completely and carefully. Don’t stop in the middle and assume what they
are asking.
2. Try to guess the answer before reading the answers, then
find that answer from the options.
3. Watch out for words like always,
never, only, or must. Sweeping
generalizations are often wrong.
4. Read all of the answer options before answering. Sometimes people will jump at “a” because it
is correct, but “e. Both a and d” is actually the
answer you should choose.
5. Cross out with your pen any obviously wrong answer so that you do not
re-read it and get confused.
6. If one of the choices is “all of the above”, then all you need is
doubt in one of the answers for this answer to be unlikely. If you pretty sure that two answers may be
right, then this answer is likely to be the correct answer.
7. Try to narrow it done to two choices.
If you can’t choose, take a deep breath and ask yourself what is
different between the two answers. This
difference is the key point that tells you which is right.
8. If you see two answers that appear to be direct opposites of each
other, one of those is usually the answer.
9. Sometimes information contained in one question may be help in
answering another question. Seek out
similar questions and compare!
Tips for essay questions:
1. Read the question carefully (maybe even twice)
2. If the question has multiple parts (A, B, C) then your answer should
also be organized and labeled for each section (A, B, C).
3. If the question is not explicitly labeled (A, B, C) but clearly contains
multiple steps or parts, feel free to label it your self in the question and
the answer. This will help you make sure
that you have answered every part.
4. When finished, make sure that you actually answered the question. Sometimes people get sidetracked in their
answer and go off on a tangent. Make
sure that you answer what was asked of you.
5. When finished make sure that you answered every part of the question.
Other sources of information: There are many sources to help you be the best student
that you can be. Take advantage of these
and seek out more.
1. The Writing and Learning Studio (Rm. 1501; http://www.shoreline.edu/twls): Tutors to
help you in writing papers, reading, and studying
2. Advising and Counseling Center (2nd Floor, FOSS; http://www.shoreline.edu/advising.html):
Career and Personal Counseling
3. The
4. The web: There are many websites devoted to study tips (e.g. http://www.how-to-study.com)
5. Student Guide: There is a student guide/handbook, available for SCC
students, which contains very helpful study tips.
6. Your Professors and Peers: They may know other tips that are not found
elsewhere.
In The End: Not everyone
will need to do all of the above in order to earn a satisfactory grade. If your current strategy, though, is not letting
you earn the grade that you want, change your strategy and consult these
suggestions. Even if you are earning an
“A” in all of your courses, I would still suggest that you try harder. Push yourself because the ultimate goal is
not to “get an A” but to be the best that you personally can be. Self Actualize and You will be Happy and
Successful!