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Easy Study Skills for Exams
By Ian McAllister
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Easy Study Skills for Exams
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Study skills: do you start reading at one end
of your library and try to read through to the
other end?
Of course not. So you already know one
effective approach. Be selective! We can build
on that now.
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More Study Skills - what not to study
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Whole books
Your lecturer tells you to read "War and
Peace". If you have study skills you won't!
Even with perfect memory - how much of the
book can you cover in an exam essay that
takes 40 minutes to write?
Look through the library for abridged versions
of your books, or commentaries... Now you're
using your study skills.
Buy your textbooks 2nd hand. Why do you
think they are in perfect condition? Because
the last students hardly opened them!
Why should you buy books that the last
student didn't read? Now you're thinking!
Now you're using study skills.
Whole syllabus
One benefit of attending classes is that you
get a skeleton outline to apply your study
skills. The skeleton will be complete for the
sake of completeness. But only some parts
matter to your study skills.
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Study yourself - you're interesting aren't you?
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Each day write down at what time of day you
didn't mind using your study skills, and could
really get down to work. Write down the
times when you hated to study. I study best
early in the morning. You might study best
late at night.
Do you work best in a totally silent room, or
with background music?
Do you work better if you are petting the dog
or does it interfere with your study skills?
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Use your spying study skills
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Find past exam papers in the library. Put
them in order by date, then go through the
earliest one, and write down the subjects in
a column at the left of your page. Put the
date at the top of the second column and a
tick for each subject. Now put the date of the
next paper and a tick opposite each subject
that is repeated, and write in any new
subjects.
Do the same for all the years that you have.
Why is the date important? Look at your
table. If a subject appeared every year from
the left, then suddenly stopped appearing it
probably means that the examiner changed.
Study all the subjects that appear every year
first. Then study those that appear four years
out of five... you get the idea.
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Important study skills - Make a calendar
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Plan in detail which subjects you'll study on
which days until the exam.
Don't be too ambitious. You already know
that at some times of the day you can't use
your study skills. You know that you won't
want to study on your birthday or Christmas
day or... Just be realistic. A calendar that
gives you over a thousand hours of study
isn't as good as one that gives you 400 hours
that you can stick to.
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Become an expert
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An expert knows more and more about less
and less.
You've used your study skills to cut out big
chunks of your syllabus. Use the time you
save to learn more about the parts you've
left than the examiner knows. Use the
internet to search for exciting snippets of
information about your shortened syllabus.
Perhaps your examiner doesn't know the
exact day of the week on which an important
bit of history happened. Perhaps you've
forgotten what you read about it, but write
down your best guess. The examiner will be
impressed, because he doesn't know that
you got it wrong!
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Study skills for the day of the exam
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Everyone will tell you that if you don't know
it, it is too late to learn. They are wrong! They
are talking about long-term memory. You will
be using short-term memory.
As you are sitting outside the exam room
study your formulae, or dates, or anything
else that you have difficulty remembering.
Whenever the examiner says that you can
start writing, write down all these things on
scrap paper. You have managed to remember
them for ten minutes. You can now forget
them until you need them again, which may
be never.
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Study skills in the exam
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"That isn't allowed!" you exclaim. It definitely
is allowed. If you have a multiple choice
paper just miss every question that you don't
know. There is usually another related
question somewhere. When you see it, you
will work out the answer to the question that
you didn't know. That is study isn't it?
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Conclusion
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Study smart - not longer than everyone else.
Start with a free report on the most powerful
exam technique.
About the Author
Ian McAllister's life has convinced him that writing essays is the best of study skills. Get your free report on writing successful essays.
http://studying-techniques.com/essays.html
Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/article/11436.html
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