Hello My Socratica Friends!
We’re here to help you be a GREAT student.
So I hear you have a test coming up?
Today, we’ll talk about how to study for that test.
I know you might be feeling overwhelmed, but it’s not something to panic about.
The key is to study what you DON’T KNOW.
We’ll break it down so you can do a little each day and not freak out.
Rule #1 for test prep is NO CRAMMING.
Say it with me.
NO CRAMMING.
If you’re really serious about being a great student, leaving all your studying for the
last minute won’t even make sense to you.
It would mean you haven’t done your job for like...WEEKS leading up to the test.
So we’re not even going to talk about that.
Now, let’s assume you have a test coming up in 2 weeks.
You just finished covering the material in class.
All along, you’ve been taking notes in class, and reading your textbook,
taking notes as you read.
Those 2 sets of notes are going to help you SO MUCH when you prepare for your test.
You may also have some homework assignments that you’ve completed
that are relevant for this test.
STEP 1 is to gather all of that material together.
You may already have a notebook with everything in one place - that’s perfect.
STEP 2: If you’re lucky, your instructor may have given you a list of topics
to study for your upcoming test.
Keep that list handy, so you can check off the topics you cover during your review.
If your teacher didn’t prepare something like that FOR you (which is a giant gift,
by the way, and not something you should take for granted) -
well, then we’ll make our own list.
To make a list of topics to study, we’ll rely on what subjects you covered in class,
the headings from your reading notes, and topics from your homework.
We want to narrow down what you need to study as quickly as possible.
For example, if you know that your test is on The American Civil War, now is not the
time to memorize all the Presidents in order.
Now that you have your list of topics for the test, we need to narrow it down even further.
You CAN’T take the time to study EVERYTHING.
That would mean basically re-doing all the work you’ve already done.
That would be a huge waste of time, because the truth is - you probably already know quite
a bit of the material, just from paying attention in class, reviewing your class notes, taking
notes when you read your textbook, and from doing your homework.
All of that time contributed to your studying for this test.
Notice that I’m telling you to use your READING NOTES and not your textbook.
This is part of the same idea of narrowing down what you need to study.
When you prepare for a test, you should not be re-reading everything in your textbook
- that’s way too inefficient.
If you put in the effort taking good notes the first time you do your reading - that’s
it, you’re finished with your textbook, and instead of say, 40 pages of reading, you’ll
have 5 pages of notes to study.
That’s WAY BETTER, way more efficient.
You have your notes, and a list of topics - you’re all set, right?
It gets better.
The trick is - finding out what you KNOW, and what you DON’T KNOW.
You don’t want to spend any extra time re-studying the material you already know.
You want to take those few precious hours you have to spend,
and use them studying the material you DON’T KNOW.
How do we know what we don’t know?
PRETESTING.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
Am I telling you to take a test BEFORE you take the test?
Yes!
This is THE most powerful technique I have to share with you.
If you really, TRULY use this technique, it will SUPERCHARGE your studying.
You will be virtually UNSTOPPABLE.
This is how you do it - take a pretest, score it - and then
ONLY study the topics that you miss.
DON’T restudy the topics you got correct.
Even though you want to.
DON’T DO IT.
You don’t have time for that.
First, we need to find ourselves a pretest.
Once again, your instructor may have been INCREDIBLY generous
and GIVEN you a practice test.
Or, there may be one at the end of your textbook chapter.
But if not, you need to show some initiative, and make one for yourself.
You have all the tools you need to do this, between your class notes, your reading notes,
and your homework assignments.
You might be tempted to search online for a practice test, which is okay….but there’s
no guarantee that it will cover the same material in the same amount of depth
as your specific class.
I STRONGLY recommend making your own.
In your notes, you have all kinds of facts.
Ideally, as part of reviewing your notes, you wrote yourself questions about these facts.
If you haven’t already done this, do it now.
For example, here in your notes it says the American Civil War began in 1861.
Write that in the form of a question: When did the American Civil War begin?
Question 2 - when did it end?
Question 3 - What was the name of the first Battle of the Civil War.
Question 4 - Where did that battle take place?
Question 5 - How many casualties in that first battle?
etc. etc.
You get the idea.
Turn all those facts into questions.
Again, if your teacher gave you a practice test, you’re ahead of the game.
But it’s still a great idea to test yourself with your notes using the
“turn the facts into a question” trick.
It’s something GREAT STUDENTS do.
Don’t forget about your homework assignments.
These are another source of practice questions.
Every question you answered on your homework could appear on your test, in some form.
Especially if your test is in a STEM subject - math and science - your homework sets are
a good source for the types of problems you need to be able to solve.
Now, take that pretest.
Yes, BEFORE studying.
We want to just get a baseline to see how much you know RIGHT NOW.
Don’t stress about it, just take the questions as quickly as you can
without agonizing over every one.
You’re trying to find out what material do you know FOR SURE,
and what material do you still need to work on.
Check your practice test against an answer key.
At this point, you might get a 50%.
DON’T FREAK OUT!
This is actually great news.
That means you only have to study 50% of the material!!
There’s half of the material you already know!
The next step is to focus on the material you missed on that practice test.
Once again, DON’T restudy the topics you got correct.
This can be a hard habit to break.
It feels nicer to keep getting questions right.
But you need to be okay with that uncomfortable feeling of getting things wrong.
You simply don’t have time to re-study material you already know.
It would be like - you’re running a race, and you’re halfway there.
You don’t turn around and re-run the first half of the race, do you?
No, that would be crazy, and you’d lose.
You keep running forward, towards the finish line.
And that means focusing on the topics that REMAIN.
Let’s take another look at our list of topics, and put a checkmark next to the ones we got
correct on the pretest.
We’re great about the conditions that led to the American Civil War, and the names of
the generals and other leaders, but we tend to miss the correct dates of all the battles.
That’s a memorization issue, and there’s nothing better for that than flashcards.
So we’ll make flashcards for all those battles.
What else did we miss - ah, here’s one whole topic, the economic impact of the war, that
we just completely spaced on - maybe you were sick that day and missed class, or you forgot
to do your homework on that topic, so it’s no wonder you missed those questions.
Don’t be sad looking at this list of topics you missed.
It’s actually great news, because it means don’t have to study EVERYTHING.
Just these specific topics.
By the way, make sure you’re taking breaks between all of these steps.
It’s no good trying to cram all your studying into one day.
You really need to break up your studying into much smaller chunks,
about 20-30 minutes, max.
After that, you need to take a little break, walk around, drink some water, practice the
piano - do something totally different to rest your brain.
After a good rest, make those flashcards.
Take a break.
Then...do that missing homework assignment.
Another break.
Reread your class notes on that topic you really flubbed on the practice test.
Then, take another break.
Remember, you’re not cramming - you’re studying a little bit at a time, each day
leading up to the test.
Write out a schedule for yourself, spreading it out over the two weeks
leading up to the test.
After you have studied the topics you missed on the first pretest - take another pretest.
Not the whole thing - just the questions on the topics you missed the first time.
If you have two completely different practice tests, that’s great.
But if not, it’s perfectly okay to re-use your first pretest.
After all, there are only so many ways you can ask for information like “how many people
died in the American Civil War.”
(It’s 620,000, by the way).
This time, you should have done much better on those topics.
At this point, maybe your score will be something closer to an 80 or 90%… and now it’s up
to you to decide - do you have the time to devote to getting an even higher score.
I know some people feel like they have to get perfect scores on every test.
That is an admirable goal, but you shouldn’t devote all your time to studying for THIS
ONE TEST, if it means you don’t have time to do your reading for another class, or your
homework that’s due tomorrow.
You really do need to make some tough decisions sometimes about how to spend your time wisely.
Personally, I know that if I am getting under an 80%, there are some
serious gaps in my knowledge.
So I would do one more round of studying - maybe this time, I’d team up with a friend where
we quiz each other on the specific material that we each need to study.
What I need to study may not be the same as what my friend needs to study, so we have
to swap pretests and make sure we’re both getting what we need.
This can work great if you have a like-minded friend who is also serious
about being a great student.
Most of your studying should be on your own.
But sometimes, it can be easy to fool yourself into thinking you know more than you do.
A friend who can call you on it can help you do a better job.
Now go out there and ace that test.
Show them what you know.
It’s all part of being a GREAT student.
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