I’ve always believed that anyone can get straight As – they just need to learn the study skills so they know what they need to do, then put enough time aside to do it.

Some people are taught the right study skills in high school, which gives then a head start; some people have to learn for themselves when they hit uni – but they can be learnt, and fairly easily, too.

Colin used the GTD system to manage the time side – I use GTD too and love it – but any time management system that works for you (as long as it really does work for you) is fine.

How can you tell if your time management is working for you? Easy: are you getting the things that matter to you done? If so, cool. If something’s slipping – work, health, assignments, quality time with family, life goals – then it needs tweaking.

Blogs can be written by anyone – experts, teachers, writers, or just ordinary people. There are blogs on every topic imaginable, from apple growing to zoology. People write blogs to share information, keep an online journal, or connect with people with similar interests. This blog is about sharing things I’ve learnt about learning.

Why blogs are great for students: You can find blogs related to your courses, about studying, and about your interests. They are a great way to keep up to date with new developments, get insights and learn new things. Because the information is in short doses it’s quick to read and easy to remember.

You can also start to build connections with people in your area of interest by reading blogs and adding useful comments, and by blogging yourself.

How to find blogs:

1. Use Google’s blogsearch
2. Look at technorati
3. Once you find a blogger you like, follow their blogroll (a list of blogs they read & recommend) & other blogs they quote.

I absolutely recommend that you find a selection of good blogs in the topics you’re studying, and about general study skills.

Once you’re following a few blogs, you’ll find you don’t want to check a dozen websites every day – so the next post will explain “RSS feeds” and “feed readers”, which allow you see new posts from all your blogs in one place.

For more information about blogs, here’s a great video explanation of what they are and why they’re useful from commoncraft.

Enjoy!

What it is: del.icio.us is a “social bookmarking” site. When you’re surfing the internet, and want to go back to a page,
you probably save it to your Favorites or Bookmarks, right? Instead you can save it to del.icio.us, which is online, not on your computer. You can then access it on any computer – I’m constantly coming across things at home for school, and vice versa.

That’s handy, but what’s even cooler is that you can share your bookmarks with others (you can also choose to keep it private). So my friends can see what I’m reading.

Why this is great for students:

1. You can access the pages you bookmark from home at school, and vice versa.

2. If your lecturer uses del.icio.us they can bookmark useful sites for you (to see mine, go to http://del.icio.us/1kim)

3. You can use the bookmarks for research – my o my!

When you find a blogger in your area of interest, check out theirdel.icio.us bookmarks. You can also see who else has bookmarked the page, then look at their bookmarks, and so on, and so on (I’ve circled this bit in the screenshot above).

You can also search from the del.icio.us website, say on “project management” and follow the trail from there. Instead of doing a basic google search, you’re limiting your search to sites that people already think are useful. Cool, eh?

I absolutely recommend that you check it out. I can’t believe how many useful sites I found in one day using this – it would previously have taken me days to find this much research. It’s wonderful. Of course, it can get addictive, so you have to know when to cut off.

Here’s some more information that you might find useful:

• A simple explanation of del.icio.us at eduGuru
• Top 10 ways to use del.icio.us (the top few are a bit techie, but keep reading).
• There’s heaps of cool del.icio.us apps and ideas at Lifehacker or Quick Online Tips.

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 need: pens (take more than one), notes, paper, water, tissues, etc. Get everything else you need together – like your wallet, car keys and clothes. You’ll start the day calmer, and have everything that you need with you.
• Please, please pack more than one pen. Someone’s always runs out: don’t let it be you.
• Check the time and place of the test – even if you think you know.
• To help you think better and sleep better -
  • Eat healthily
  • Avoid caffeine and nicotine. If you’re addicted, you’re going to need it to stay normal, but keep an eye on it.
  • Get a bit of exercise (but don’t overdo it)
  • Spend a bit of time relaxing
• Get a good night’s sleep. It’ll help you think better the next day.

On the day of the test:

• Get there early, and check out where the test room is; make sure you know how to get there.
• Avoid caffeine and nicotine as far as possible again. These make you more nervous, which is not what you want!
• Keep calm, and try to relax if you’re getting nervous. Take a walk, and purposefully breathing slowly & deeply.
• Do any study that you feel will help you, but keep relaxed about it.

When you get into the test room:

• Choose a desk wisely. If you’re easily distracted by others, consider sitting up the front. If you like to be able to rest your eyes by looking into the distance, sit by the window – not in the middle of the class, where the examiner might think you’re looking at other peoples’ work
• Get out everything you want to have with you, and put it on the desk. Tissues and water are a really good idea!!
• Relax – there’s nothing more you can do now. Breath deeply and slowly.
• Listen to all instructions, and follow them.

When you are told you can start the test:

• Read the front page – note how long the test is and any other instructions.
• Find out how many marks are in the test, and work out how many minutes per mark
  • e.g. 50 marks & 60 minutes = a mark a minute, with some time at the end to go back.
• Read through all the questions before you start to write. This allows your mind to start working on the last questions in the background.
• Start with the easiest question. You can usually answer test questions in any order you like. Answering an easy question makes you feel good, and so makes it easier to answer other questions. It also starts getting you “on a roll” or “into the zone”. And your brain can work away at the hard questions in the background.
• Jot down the key points on the test script or answer booklet (you can cross them out when you’ve finished). You can then structure your answer better. I’ve had students pick up marks when they didn’t finish the answer, but hadn’t crossed out the list – they got marks for the points they hadn’t added in yet. Things that are crossed out aren’t marked.
• Answer the question: know what key words like describe, explain, discuss, compare & contrast and illustrate mean, and then do that.
• … the whole question: Answer all parts of the question – if you’re asked to explain something, using an example, then make sure you have (a) explained and (b) given an example. No matter how wonderful your explanation is, you won’t get the marks for the example unless you give one.
• … and nothing but the question: If you’re asked to discuss Operational Feasibility, don’t add in Technical and Legal Feasibility too, to show what you know. The examiner knows what the answer should be, and is comparing your answer to that. There may be marks for defining Operational Feasibility and mentioning the key questions for operational feasibility, but there will be no marks for other types of feasibility. Don’t waste your time.
• Keep answering the questions that you can, leaving the hard ones ’til last.
• When the time is up for each question, stop. If it’s a minute a mark, and a 10-mark question, after 10 minutes, stop. Seriously. After the first few minutes you probably got out most of the important information, so you’re into diminishing returns for your time – each mark is harder and harder to get. You’re better going on to a new question, where you can get more marks, quicker. Mark the question on your test sheet so that you know to come back to it later if you have time.
• When you can’t think of an answer, relax. Seriously. Exam nerves or anxiety caused by not knowing the answer triggers our fight-or-flight response, and the brain switches into “react” mode, out of “recall”. Try your best to relax, and you might find memories coming back. You might let your mind wander for a few minutes, to see if you come to the answer laterally. Don’t give in to the fight-or-flight response by leaving.
• If you don’t know, guess. Please! Unless you will lose marks for a wrong answer (and this should be clearly noted on the test script), you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Even if you pick up half a mark, it’s worth it.
• When you’ve finished, read over your answers and check that you’ve answered all parts of all questions.
• Stay til the end, unless you’re absolutely sure you have answered all the questions 100% correctly (hint: you won’t have). Often inspiration strikes after you’ve been sitting there relaxing for 10 minutes.

Of course, you’re still going to need to study to pass

Hope this helps,

What are your top test taking tips? Please add a comment to let me know.

• 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 will be irrelevant; at the start of the course you won’t have been able to tell what is important and what isn’t, so you probably wrote it all down (you should have, anyway).
• Some of your notes, handouts and the textbook won’t be examined – if you’re sure, leave them out.

2. You can make them to suit your own learning style.

3. You can include information from classes (notes, handouts and slides), the text book and your reading & research in the same place.

So study notes are really, really useful, and it’s much easier to study from one set of notes, in a style that suits you, than from information all over the place which doesn’t suit you. So …

How to make study notes:

1. Make them suit your preferred learning style.

2. Show main points clearly then be able to see more detailed notes. This lets you find information quickly and test yourself by hiding the detail. Here’s a simple way to lay out notes:

However … just before the test, I recommend revising your complete notes and the textbook again, to add back in any context or additional information you’ve been skipping over.

I’ll try to write another post over the weekend with some hints about what to do in the test room, for the Project Management students who have their test on Monday.

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 reading text books. With any luck your teachers, lecturers and tutors will add in activities for visual and kinaesthetic learners as well. But what is most important is what you do for your own study time: basically, the trick is to do activities which suit you best. Here are some ideas:

Visual: draw study notes that use pictures, diagrams, mind maps , flow charts instead of a list of steps, colours (highlight your notes, use different coloured pens and pencils), shapes, use whiteboards to draw pictures or mind-maps, draw diagrams or pictures, or colour-coded answers to answer possible questions.

Auditory: discussion groups, listen to lectures, download podcasts on the topic or create your own, make up ryhmes, poems or songs to memorise a list (and repeat them aloud), explain the concept or recite a list to the dog (they’re great listeners), answer possible questions aloud.

Read/Write: write study notes, read them and re-write them, write words that describe diagrams or pictures, use whiteboards to write lists and notes, write out answers to possible questions.

Kinaesthetic: physically do something – at all costs, don’t just read the textbook and your notes! Doing anything helps – use whiteboards to write or draw answers to possible questions, write study notes, type them on the computer. If you’re doing an applied subject, actually do the skills taught – so to learn Project Management, actually choose a really small project (like fixing the toaster) and do the techniques taught – create a Brief, do a plan, identify risks and monitor your progress against the plan.

There’s lots of ideas on the web for different learning styles: for example see here and here and here, or google “learning style”.

I’ve discussed the basic VARK styles, but there’s other classifications of learning styles – you can find out more about them in the articles above if you’re interested.

In the next few posts I’ll talk about some study methods that can benefit everyone, then move on to some tricks for when you’re actually sitting the test.

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 – you learn best by listening?

How about read/writing – from looking at words, and/or writing them?

Or kinaesthetic – you learn best by doing something always?

When learning to do something physical, like use a hammer or a computer, doing it is the best way. But when given a choice, would you prefer to dive in and do it, or maybe talk about it, read about it or look around first?

Have a think about the things you choose to do in your spare time – do they involve looking at things or creating images; listening to people or music; reading or writing; or doing things? You may have two or more preferred styles, or you may have a significant preference for one style.

Your preferred style doesn’t mean you can’t learn in the other ways – just that you’ll learn easiest and best in your preferred way. I’m highly auditory, so I learn best by going to classes and from discussions. Skipping class is therefore a really bad idea for me. I remember something I’ve heard much better than something I’ve just read (although I have a secondary preference for reading and writing). I certainly remember words better than images, because I’m not at all visual.

On the other hand, my husband is visual and kinaesthetic. Because learning styles have a wider impact than just in study, this creates interesting problems for us!

Take this learning styles test to find your own learning style, then browse the information on the website to find out more about how you learn best, and how to do that when studying for a test.

In the next few posts we’ll get in to what you can actually do to study easier, not harder.