Study Tips for High School Students

[PrincePhoenix]

I am just wandering how everyone studies or what good study methods are. My father tells me to read the topics the night before the lecture, then listen to the lecture carefully and then study the topic again after coming home on that day.

(I'm in first year of Higher secondary school, K-11 by American standards I guess.)

 

[fatra2]

Hi there,

I had a professor, at the time (which is a few years ago), that said: you have forget something three times, before it sticks in your brain. Funnily enough, it made sense to me, the day I finished my bachelor.

So your dad might have the best approach. In this way, you would not have to crunch anything for your exam, or study anything more than just read again your notes.

Then again, when you have seven or eight classes in a day, where each gives you homework and stuff to read, it becomes very hard to study by this rule.

I guess the best approach is to keep in mind that you will forget a theory three times, before it finally sticks in your brain.

Cheers

 

[PrincePhoenix]

What was your way of studying?

 

[sandplasma]

What worked for me in college was taking notes in class and then a week before the exam I would REWRITE all my notes.

 

[elfboy]

study study study and then study some more until you have it down

 

[thrill3rnit3]

Solve problems. I usually have 2-3 books on the same subject so I have a a number of sources to choose problems from.

 

[berkeman]

I am just wandering how everyone studies or what good study methods are. My father tells me to read the topics the night before the lecture, then listen to the lecture carefully and then study the topic again after coming home on that day.

(I'm in first year of Higher secondary school, K-11 by American standards I guess.)

I was looking for an old thread that had some great study tips, but no joy so far. I found these two related threads:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=336109

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=222616

I'll try searching more when I have time.

 

[kaos86]

My studying method:

1.) rewrite notes in a personal notebook.

2.) Listen to lectures and read chapters from the book when class is over.

3.) Add definitions. Also, do homework problems with detailed explanation of: Why, how, and because.

4.) Do more problems for practice.

 

[Agent M27]

I have adopted a rather strange study habit. I have found that I learn best by not taking notes during lecture but I pay extremely close attention to the professor, and think about what they say as they speak. I will do the example problems they give in class since the sciences are practice sports. From here I go trough that section in our text and attempt the example questions without reading the book or following their methods, I simply copy the problem and close it. Lastly I read the text in areas where I felt weak and practiced any problem I could. This is a lot of work but it does a few things. It forces you to study every time you have a class at the very least. It also, in my opinion solidifies the information better when I " found my way" to the answer rather than seeing what they did. Since doing this routine I haves received the highest marks of my academic career yet.

Joe

 

[PrincePhoenix]

I was looking for an old thread that had some great study tips, but no joy so far. I found these two related threads:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=336109

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=222616

I'll try searching more when I have time.

Thanks for the links. Both of those discussions. Were really interesting to read. And also thanks to everyone else for sharing their study methods.

 

[QuarkCharmer]

I like to read over the notes before the class. I don't bother working any problems or anything, but getting a feel for what we are going to be covering during the lecture. During the lecture I take really good brief notes that I file in a reference book. I do all of the homework, and write everything out, never skipping a step. I pretty much work through everything to 100%, including the questions in the book that are not required to complete (also any practice tests available to me). When we take tests, I usually take much longer than everyone else, but I always work through everything, and go back and double-work-through all of the questions. Before a larger test, I read through the notes for the sections that I filed away from the lecture and re-write them into a better format and refile them in place of the original note. It's a bit anal I Know, but I always get 100%.

 

[murmillo]

Here are some "Common Math Myths" that my future algebra professor wrote for her calculus class. I found them very encouraging, because I have felt many of the worries that she describes.

http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cgrood1/Math%2015%20myths.pdf

A friend of mine who does very well in math classes told me, when I expressed concern about my grades, that I shouldn't worry about the grade and should focus only on understanding the math the best that I can. Which is what my adviser, who is a statistician, told me to do after I did poorly on a statistics exam from another professor. I forget that advice at times, but it really is helpful.

I think it's a bad idea to try to figure things out all on your own, especially when you have limited time and can ask students and professors for help. I think that essentially learning math really is about figuring it all out on your own, but it's bad to get bogged down on a tiny detail and spend an inappropriately large amount of time on that, when you should be focusing on mistakes you make repeatedly.