I personally make color-coded "cheatsheets" usually for units or concepts. For instance, for my research methodology class in psychology, I would make a color-coded one-sheet paper that covered terminology in the chapters and emphasized lecture notes.
I used to make flashcards, but honestly they require too much unnecessary work to make. I also have written mock essays about topics just to make sure I understand concepts enough. I did IB in high school, so I'm used to elaborating on everything.
Oh yes, IB is most certainly a conglomeration of pain staking redundancy and all around BS'ing content, I've gone through it before. Writing essays is fantastic for practicing your writing as well, I agree with that; not just for conceptual clarity as you said, but also because of the fact that nothing can really prepare you for composing essays as well as raw practice.
Oh haha, I completely agree. IB was very redundant and very much about "playing the system." But one thing that it really helped me with, like for instance, was with explaining concepts. In IB bio, for instance, we had objectives that we would have to explain about. I know that helped me way more than AP Bio's flashcards and stuff.Originally Posted by tchaikovsky
Jeez 50+ in the class? I had University lectures that consisted of 425+ students in each class. I wanted to go to grad school but various things scared me off, one of which is the massive amount of marking that grad student TAs are given. Basically the profs do not do a whole lot of marking except for finals and give the papers and exams to the grad students to mark based on the marking rubrics. Eff that noise lol. I know what you mean by some people are stupid and lack the effort though, we were given an assignment once when the students were to mark 2 psych papers that our fellow students had written (marks were then evaluated by actual grad student TAs to make sure the marking was good) and boy oh boy the papers I got and even the ones my friend's read made us really question how they were even accepted into University. I was quite good in some of my courses as well and when people asked me stupid questions I had to hold back mentioning it was a stupid question. You would think something as blatant as a prof saying "study this material specifically" would mean students would read it but no they just fail the exam then complain they were not given any warning about topics.Try it, it's really not. Especially when there's 50+. You also get disappointed by how badly many students go, their lack of effort and sorry, but stupidity!
As for my personal study habits when I was in school I found the only method that worked well for me was to reread everything. If I could go through my pack of notes, which was hundreds of powerpoint slides in each subject, 2 or 3 times before an exam I would roll out of the test with my B+ to A grades. If I did not get the time to reread the material that couple of times my mark would simply not be as high as it could have been. Repetition is the key to the important long term memory store for exams. How you achieve that repetition is up to the individual, I need to reread things and another person may need to write material out. Whatever you do make sure there is some form of repetition to make your memory systems recognize that material as "important".
The one method that ever worked for me was typing out all my notes onto my computer, organizing them.
I'd take my notebooks, with my laptop, to the library. After getting all comfy, I'd open up Word and start typing out all my notes, organizing them as I went. After that, I'd do a version of what was said before...just repeating everything. However, I'd have to do it in a place where I had absolutely NO DISTRACTIONS. If there was something going on around me, my brain wouldn't soak in the information.
Most important thing (although this kinda is sort-of off topic but not really) is to not stress the day of the test. Stressing out will make you forget stuff you tried to study/remember. Just take a deep breath, and relax. C:
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