Learning. Life.

Preparing for an open book test is a bit different to a closed book test. The emphasis isn’t on memorising as much – although it’s still worth doing that – but your main focus is on understanding and preparing notes to take into the test. 1. Understand the materials Your aim is to have a [...]

Hint: they’re not as easy as you might think. My Helpdesk students have an open book test coming up (evil laughter … more evil laughter … maniacal laughter). I hate to tell you, but open book tests aren’t easy. I thought might help you to know how I think about open book tests, and why [...]

What?! OMG!! Oh well, I’ll worry about that when I’ve done all my assignments. Right? Wrong. Sorry. Most of your assignments are due almost at the end of term, which only gives you one week to study before exams. It’s certainly possible to study only for that week, and pass – if you’re very (very) [...]

My aim is to help you study smarter, not harder. Here’s some simple things you can do that will improve your test and exam performance without studying more. Honest The day before the test: Go over all of your notes, skim through the text book and thoroughly review everything. Pack your bag with everything you’ll [...]

Previous posts in this series: 1. Know thyself 2. Use it or lose it Why write study notes: 1. Less to revise: Textbooks have a lot of information that helps you understand; once you understand, you only need reminders Your notes will have information that is now second nature to you Some of your notes [...]

Previous post in this series: 1. Know Thyself. Now that you know your learning style, the next step is to use it. If you didn’t take the learning style test in part one, here it is again. Auditory and read/write learners have it easiest in western education settings, which often involve listening, talking, writing and [...]

Test season is upon us again! This is the first in a series of posts to help you study easier, not harder. The single best thing you can do to study easier is to learn using your own preferred learning style. Are you visual? Do you learn best from pictures, color and shape? Maybe you’re auditory – [...]