We are all given sagacious study advice as students: “Make sure to read the chapter at least thrice.” “Read through your notes every day.” “Practice makes perfect so make you do enough of it.”
As well-intentioned as these study tips may be, a lot of these commonly purported can actually be doing you more harm than good. Here is a lowdown on some of these bad study habits that are actually hurting you as a student.
- Having a study buddy helps
- Take lots of notes
- Keep refreshing your memory
This is said to be the one of the most popular study tips. Educators and parents often feel that studying in groups can help balance strengths and weaknesses.
The only benefit that studying with someone else can bring about is that you stay responsible, but that’s about it. Knowing that someone is waiting for you in the library at 11am will definitely make you accountable enough to show up. But cracking those tough math theorems with a study buddy hardly means that you would be able to do them by yourself if left to your own devices, like during an exam.
It’s a healthy habit to have class buddies so you are on track and still responsible with your study habits. But if you work on difficult problems together, revisit them in a couple of days to test your own understanding.
Note-taking is an truly an art. If you are someone who meticulously hangs on to every word the teacher says and writes it down, you are not exactly practicing good stud habits.
Having reams and reams of notes can make it difficult to actually differentiate between what is good-to-know and what is need-to-know. You may be wasting time on gorging too much information, and a lot of it unnecessary.
Read up on note-taking skills and learn creative recording strategies like making diagrams and bulleted lists to record information in a way that’s easily digestible.
All too often, you have crammed something fluently enough that you have it on the tip of your tongue. Experts call this “fluency illusion”. What it means is that just because you can recite it effortlessly now, it’s not to say that you will not forget it later.
Research has shown that when something is easy to recall, the more likely it is that you will forget it during crunch hour.
To remedy this, simply learn it the first time during class, read it again at home and give yourself a test after a few days. Brush up on the topic if needed and retest.
