"When you were (or if you are now) in college or highschool, what stuy method worked best for you?"

As a college Sophomore you probably have figured that out by now.

 

I have a photographic type memory. I can see the words on the page and sort of re-read them in my mind. But when I take notes they are all over the page. Little jots of data and I will generaly circle them. Draw a star beside them, put exclamation points. To look at my notes you’d think all I was doing was just doodling. But when I go back to them, it’s more like one big picture.

 

I learn best by hands-on-experience. That coupled with a manual, or some other form of instruction EXCEPT for the lecture. I’m a good listener when it comes to human needs, but not when it comes to a lecture. LOL

 

My advice to you. Is to take one subject at a time.

for the math I think the best thing to do is to give yourself practice problems that will cover each of the areas that you have learned. Make sure you have a way to know that your answers or your methods are done correctly. But math is like music - you need to practice.

 

Government and Bio are a little different.

I think an outline is a great learning tool. Write the words. Write with pen or pencil -whichever you prefer. Writing is better than using your computer to make notes. Writing the words is different than using a yellow highlighter. It forces you to determine what is really important. Yellow highlighters can end up making an entire page of notes YELLOW. :-) But when you put pen to paper your brain retains more. IMO.

 

For Bio espeically I’d go through each Chapter. Look at section headings. Pick out one or two statements that summarize. Read and DO the Study Guides if they are provided. Even if you’ve been taking notes all semester long I’d have whatever text you used handy. Also your labs. I hope your instructor has given you some clue as to what may be covered in the exam. Pay attention to that. If not, you should figure that the lab work is definitely going to be part of the exam.

 

Even if you think it helps. No TV, no radio, no iPod - IOW no distractions. Study for 30 to 40 minutes and then give yourself a stretch. Take a quick walk around the rooms, run things through in your head, but move around a bit. Give yourself a definite break after three or four hours of study. Get out for a meal or something. Don’t do things that are hugely distracting, like a movie or a novel. Just allow what you’ve learned to be floating around your thoughts and don’t try at this time to take on something new.

 

Breathe! It’s important. Not too much caffeine. Eat properly and at the right time. Give yourself plenty of time. Cramming should be saved for those very last minute final summaries, not trying to learn the whole semester in one sitting. ;-)

 

I'm not going to give you any widgets because I don't want you to be distracted by trying to learn "how" to study when what you need to do is STUDY. LOL

It always depended a lot on the topic at hand for me, so I'm glad you included that information.

For math, do a lot of problems. Math is something you do more than something you study. What also helps is looking at edge cases. When do you use the given technique? When do you not? What are the pitfalls? What does it mean that you can or can't use this method? How could you change the problem slightly to be able to employ the method or not employ the method?  Look for the edge cases and you'll understand the methods you're using more thoroughly. This way you're learning the principles as well as getting the computational skills practice.

For government, tell the story. If you can, tell it to someone who's really inquisitive and answer all of their questions along the way. If not, you can still say it out loud. Tell it in order. Make a list from memory and fill in the details orally. Often saying things out loud makes me realize where more of the gaps in my knowledge are, so I can go back and fill in the blanks afterward. What was the idea behind the law or event? What was different about it coming about? Why did this happen when it did? What was it designed to do? What was the result? Did it work? How was the concern addressed afterward?

For biology, draw, draw, draw. See if you can draw all the diagrams you can from memory and label and talk through how things work. Then go back and check with your book and notes to see what you're missing. Redraw the diagrams you need to and relabel. Do it again from scratch.  After doing that make sure you've covered all the chapters, and fill in any blanks from questions at the end of chapters and things you've highlighted in your notes.

All this assumes you've kept up --at least somewhat-- throughout the semester and that this is review. That's pretty crucial. In general, get enough sleep each night. Give yourself plenty of study time each day in a comfortable environment. For me this was sometimes home, sometimes a coffee shop, sometimes the library, sometimes a friend's house. Do what seems to work best at the time. Review again each topic the night before the exam right before going to sleep. Be proud of yourself for all you have learned.
I hope this helps.
Cyndy

When I was in college, the first thing I tried to do was to figure out if the teacher’s focus was going to be the book or class notes.  This helped focus my effort.  When I did my reading in the texts, I’d highlight the main and important points.  When I reread my class notes, I’d highlight the most important parts of them as well.

Then when exam time came, I’d reread just the highlighted parts several times.  The last rereading would be just before I went to sleep the night before.  For some reason this really seemed to solidify things for me. 

After I’d had one exam from a teacher and saw their "style," I would also try to anticipate what kinds of questions might be on the test.  For teachers who tended to ask more fact-based, short-answer questions, I’d really brush up on the points I highlighted.  For essays, I spent some time thinking beyond the fact to how they might be interpreted or applied.  Actually, we should be thinking about that in everything we learn, but unfortunately some times efficiency trumps knowledge-building.

I find it helpful to take all the info and break it down into flow charts (but then again, I am a visual learner). Biology is easy to do this with. As for math, I tend to memorize formulas, but picture them in my head. If you work out many examples, then you should remember them with ease.