Dos And Don'ts Of Study

Effective study is completely dependent on the individual; different things work for different people. Hopefully by your last year of senior school you have been able to work out some techniques that work for you. However, the MyGuru team has put together some helpful tips that helped us excel at school and should help most people to succeed in their final exams.

DO:

Write your own notes
One of the best study techniques we can pass on! Keep really detailed notes for each course, all in your own words. Break down topics into questions types and set a method for each. Pick questions you have trouble with in each topic and write worked solutions to refer to. 90% of the benefit from notes comes from writing them yourself, 10% from reviewing them. In order to write notes on something, you need to understand it – writing your notes puts that understanding into your head, and offers an easy way to review it later.

Using someone else's notes will only enable you to review the information you don't understand because you haven't written your own notes – they're mostly useless!

Handy Hints:
1. Try to make them pretty! If they look good, you are going to be more motivated to keep reading back over them.
2. Organise them according to the syllabus dot points and tick of the dot points once you have written notes covering that assessed component.
Divide work into smaller tasks
Try breaking up your tasks for the night (both teacher set work and your own study) into smaller, more manageable sized chunks. Write them all down in a list and as you get one done, tick it off. The little sense of satisfaction you will get will push you to do the next one and so on. By breaking them up, each task doesn't seem as long or as hard. It will also reduce your tendency to procrastinate if you have a clear list of what you've got to do.
Read notes out aloud
Studies suggest that you retain about 10% of the information you read, however this increases to 30-40% when you read and hear the information. So, don't just read your notes, read them out loud. You may feel silly, but it is shown to be more effective. You may also want to try recording you saying them out loud and listening to it during times you don't normally study (like while walking to school). This means you're even more likely to remember all the stuff you need to know!
Explain concepts to someone else
Studies suggest that we retain approximately 90% of what we read, hear and do. How can you “do” concepts? Teach someone else! It could be someone in your class or even parent - it doesn't matter. In the process of explaining to someone else you will often discover gaps in which you are not confident in, or the person will ask why, and you will realise you aren't actually sure and need to find out.
Practice answering questions under time pressure
Exams are not a test of how much you know, but rather how much you can show you know in a set time frame. It doesn't matter if you can solve any problem anyone's ever given to you, if you can't do it under timed conditions you are not going to get a good result. Get used to working under time pressure, so you don't panic or run out of time when you get into assessments.
Find a range of exams to practice with
Sourcing exams written by other schools or external companies is incredibly important as it allows you to get used to different styles of writing and questions. Your final exam won't be written by your teacher, so get used of some of the different ways the same question can be asked! One way to do this is by contacting any friends you have at other schools and asking to trade exams.
Know your formula sheet
Your formula sheet should be your best friend by the end of the year. It is there the help you. Make sure you know what every single character on it means, how to use it and when to use it! Many students don't see the formula sheet until their final exam, and don't know what's on it. The formula sheet should be a quick way to remind you of a formula, not a something that helps you answer the question by going “not that one, maybe that one, not that one…that one!”
Learn how to use your calculator
We hate to break it you, but you can't avoid this – it's extremely important! Calculator assumed/resource rich/tech active sections of the exam are designed thinking that students are calculator proficient. There are not enough marks or time allocated for you to be able to do things by hand (that's what the calculator free section is testing). Your calculator is supposed to make your life easier, learn how to use it as it provides some super easy shortcuts!
Concentrate on the concepts you hate
We've all got at least one topic that the very thought of makes us cringe. Most often we don't like them because we are not good at them. Don't spend your time constantly doing the topics you could do with your eyes closed, but instead spend more time nutting out the topics you struggle with. It may even end up becoming your best topic after some work!
Use MyGuru!
MyGuru is an awesome study resource! At your fingertips are students who have excelled in their studies, and are ready to share their knowledge with you. Plus it's completely free!

If you have a specific question, jump straight onto the Q&A page – a Guru will respond promptly.

If you get stuck on a question in a past exam, jump online, search for the question and there is most likely a video with a Guru working through it for you. Not there? Post on the Q&A forum and a Guru will make one. It's that easy and we are here to help you out. So take advantage of this fantastic study resource!

DON'T:

Be afraid to ask questions
There are no stupid questions – seriously! If you get stuck, go and ask someone. There are so many places you can go to for help. Ask your teacher or the Gurus at MyGuru! Don't feel like you're alone, many students will be having the same problems as you!
Be afraid to ask for more resources
If you struggling on a particular topic, you might go through all the questions provided in the textbooks and worksheets you have access to. If you're not ready, don't waste questions from practice exams; try asking your teacher if they have more resources. Mathematics has been around for a long time, and there are many old textbooks with relevant questions that teachers have access too.
Simply rote learn formulae
Success in mathematics subjects comes from understanding the theory behind the formulas you use. Substituting into formulas may work for a few questions, but as soon as the question looks a bit different you will get stuck. Constantly ask yourself 'Why am I doing this?' and if you don't know, seek help! Knowing why will allow you to tackle more of the challenging and creative questions that examiners come up with.
Study on your bed
Yes, we know, your bed is so comfy! But research and shows it's not good for most people. Your brain associates items with actions, e.g. your desk with concentration and study and your bed with relation and sleep. If you start trying to study on your bed:
1. Your study will not be as effective as your brain thinks it's time to relax, and,
2. You will often struggle to get to sleep, because your brain is now slowly associating your bed with study and concentration.
Although the pull is strong, you must resist!
Re-do entire chapters in your textbook as Study
In an exam, you are not going to have a page of questions all on one topic. Half the challenge in an exam is identifying the topic – often you have to deal with questions that combine together multiple topics to truly test your knowledge. Textbook chapters most often contain multiple questions of the same type, so you end up doing the same thing over and over again. This means you stop processing what exactly you're doing each time – which won't help in the exam as you're not given 5 “warm up questions” before each assessed one.

At MyGuru we strongly recommend doing practice exams as these get you to test multiple topics at the same time. If you've run out of those or don't feel up to doing one, jump around random chapters of your textbook for revision.

Note: doing entire chapters CAN be useful if you've identified it as being a 'problem topic' for you. In this case, you can't go on autopilot after a few questions, because you need to think about it each time, being weaker at the topic. Working through an entire chapter will help you get your head around how to do the questions you find hardest.
Look at the answers while doing practice exams
Real exams are so much harder than practice ones – the real ones always seem to forget to attach the second half of the exam! Cheating at home, will give you a false indication of how well your study is going. Everyone makes justifications to themselves – they're not looking straight at the answer, they're just looking for a bit of “inspiration” for how to approach the question. But half the struggle of doing an exam is working out what the question is asking and how to do it – the other half is doing it. If you look at the answers you're skipping half the exam!
Completely cut yourself off from friends and fun
The days are long, but the year is short. Friends and extracurricular activities provide relief from stress and help you to keep a clear head. Many students choose to temporarily delete their Facebook, but when used as a relaxation tool in moderation social networks can be beneficial. You should only cut yourself off as a last resort if you simply can't control yourself.

Friends can also be useful directly in your studies. If you have friends doing your subjects, often it can be helpful to collaborate and help each other. As we previously suggested, explaining things to each other is one of the best ways to study.

One of the worst things you can do, is cut yourself off from everything but schoolwork to “focus of year 12” as you will end up burning out and/or procrastinating. Ultimately, it's your final year of school and you probably only get to do it once – don't waste the experience only on study.