How can I improve my studying strategies for high school exams?

[||spoon||]

I was wondering what people find to be the best means of studying (espescially maths, physics and chemistry).

I am about to start my last year of high school and am undertaking two math courses, physics, chem and english. I am already getting good grades in these classes but i feel like i need to do more work sometimes to get even better results.

So I borrowed books from someone who completed these subjects at a different school so that i have extra questions to undertake as well as what i am given in class from my own textbook. My plan is to complete the relevant excercises out of my friends textbook when i am given the corresponding work to do from my own textbook.

Does this sound like a good idea or a waste of my time? Also what other study patterns are found to be most effective?

Thanks,

-Spoon

 

[healey.cj]

I'm also doing maths and am just starting yr 12.. I also got english, physics and computer programming, religion (compusolrary) and music.
So spoon, are you doing Math B & C? I thought about doing Math C but although i really do like maths i simply don't do well enough to drop any other subjects for it.
But anyway, i really plan on working my a** off this year so any suggestions on how to get A's would be nice :-)

 

[whitay]

I'm also doing maths and am just starting yr 12.. I also got english, physics and computer programming, religion (compusolrary) and music.
So spoon, are you doing Math B & C? I thought about doing Math C but although i really do like maths i simply don't do well enough to drop any other subjects for it.
But anyway, i really plan on working my a** off this year so any suggestions on how to get A's would be nice :-)

You're obviously Australian and living in Queensland. You're only going 4 QSA registered subjects (religion doesn't count) you won't qualify for an Overall Position.

Also the QCS is a joke and good look with your teachers from my knowledge most mathematics teachers in Australia do not have a degree in Mathematics, merely in university there 6 or so electives which were mathematic based, thus qualifying them to teach senior high school maths. From my experience, all maths teachers, bar one teacher (who was the head of department), that I consulted or talked to had no real understanding of mathematics. They merely dwell in a comfort zone.

This maybe contrary to my previous statements that it's not the teacher to blame it's the student. However in my study of integrals, I have independently gathered that I was taught incorrectly. However I have learn't from this and now know to study more frequent and depth no matter the cost (As the OP intends to do).

Anyway, good luck with your studies and remember the end of high school is the opening to a bigger and better world (sorry i hated school).

 

[||spoon||]

Healey.cj, I am not sure what Math b and c are, I live in victorais Australia so am doing the VCE. THe two math subjects i am taking are maths methods and specialist mathematics (this one cover vectors, complex numbers, heaps of integration and vector calc and stuff) i had to drop history for specialist despit egetting A's in the subject because i want to do some type pf engineering or have a career in physics, i thought the extra math would help more

Any word on my proposed study patterns would be great from anyone too
-Spoon

 

[Crosson]

I think that doing lots of problems is lazy, and that the difficult-but-effective thing is to concentrate, learn, and move on in a short time. My biggest suggestion would be to concentrate on high-quality studying (because high-quantity of low-lquality causes burn out). Increase your tolerance for prolonged periods of focus, and always give up/ take a break when your concentration begins to slip.

 

[||spoon||]

Crosson, what would be an example of high quality studying? That is really why i started this thread, to find out what are effective methods for studying to gain even better results.

-Spoon

 

[||spoon||]

i thought that much more practice by doing lots of questions would have been an effective method to retain knowledge. I am willing to try other suggestions though.

 

[Bitter]

Studying, I general keep it simple. First and foremost, I do the homework assign, especially if it is a grade, but even if it isn't. If I find that the homework is giving me problems, I find simplier problems of the same sort and do those. I keep doing those problems until I feel I can do them with ease. After I finish with the homework and working the problems until I feel comfortable, I proceed to move pass an intutive approach and more to an analytical approach. For example, instead of accepting the squeeze theorem, I went ahead and proved it. Doing so made the concepts much more clear and even added more clarity to the work I did.

But anyway, in short, I find the best way to improve your studying is not the amount of problems you do in your text, although it cannot hurt to do a lot, but to look at the problems you are doing and understand the reasoning behind the steps. Blind methods cannot beat true understanding.

 

[J77]

Year 12?

Just go over the past papers from the exams and make sure you know them inside-out; at that level it's all about techniques, right?

 

[tylerp]

I always have felt the best way to study for math is to work problems over and over. I think there is definitely a difference between doing busy work and actually working problems that require some thinking though

 

[J77]

I always have felt the best way to study for math is to work problems over and over. I think there is definitely a difference between doing busy work and actually working problems that require some thinking though

If you're studying for a test - you may as well just do loads of questions.

However, if you want to take it further, you have to go into more detail - learn the arguments behind the techniques which you can apply.

 

[mjsd]

||spoon||: want to do well? are you just thinking about your whatever "VCE" or a long term strategy?
Usually, in high school, a specific strategy (eg. doing a lot of typical exam problems) works better, this is because the subject matter is "much narrower" in range than in uni and that you are usually given a rather SHORT examination session... less than 3 hours I would say... so, there is only so much it can be examined under exam situation, so examiners must write their questions in such a way that they are doable for a relatively competent student. Taking this into consideration, to do well, it becomes a matter of exam strategies more than how much you really know.

Of course, you still need to know your stuffs, BUT good exam strategy and familarity with how questions are asked means that you can be MUCH QUICKER in exams, and time is everything in these high school exams. So, if you goals is to do well in your "VCE", you need to drill as much as possible while learning stuffs.

To go further, ie. do well at uni as well, you will have to keep reminding yourself that the bigger picture is more than the stuffs you are drilling. Drilling helps but blind drilling would only help in the short term.

remember too, different methods works for different ppl... don't stress too much...