GradeUP! Challenge #24: When You Study – the How is More Important Than the What

College in Four Years GradeUP! Challenge, Mentoring Students, Success In College, , , , , ,

examsIn Challenge #23 I talked about the importance of diet, rest and exercise in preparing for your final exams. In this post – we get down to work. The first thing you should know is that how you study is more important than what you study. You know what was covered in your classes and what you need to know for your finals – at least you should if you’ve been taking the GradeUP! Challenge this semester! Now you’ve got a semester of material to study and the challenge is knowing how to study all it all to be ready for your tests. Here’s how you do this successfully:

  • Give yourself enough time to study. I put this first because many students are doing more than just going to school – you may be working one or more jobs and taking a full load this semester. You have to carve out more time at the end of the semester to study for your tests and this means making some tough decisions about how to balance work, school and your personal life. Put school first at this critical time in the semester, you can rebalance your schedule when finals are over.
  • Organize, organize, organize – spend time pulling together everything you need to study and organizing it so you’ve got what you need when the time comes. Two o’clock in the morning is not the time to find out you don’t have what you need to study for a test the next day.
  • Start out studying for understanding – not memory. Read and study to thoroughly understand what you’re responsible for. It’s much easier to remember material and concepts you really understand instead of unrelated facts, figures and formulas. The concepts you understand are the ones that stick with you after class is over. When you leave college and seek employment based on what you learned in college, this is what you’ll have to show for the time, effort and money spent in class this semester.
  • Use the study tips in GradeUP! Challenges #5, #6, #7 , #8 and #15 to make your study time count so, when you see test questions and problems based on what you studied, you’ll be able to recognize them and come up with the right answers.

All previous GradeUP! Challenges are available on the GradeUP! Challenge Week-by-Week page.

Be sure to take advantage of the free eBook giveaway of College in Four Years through Friday, April 24. You’ll find details on the eBook Giveaway here.