Category: How Tos’

Figuring out a time and place to do your homework and study is of the utmost importance. Once you have figured out when to do your homework, the next question is where to do it.

Things You’ll Need:

•    A place to study 
•    Possibly a computer 
•    Pen or pencil 
•    Notebook paper 
•    Text

The library is a good place to study.

A good study area should have a desk or table big enough to spread out books, notes, worksheets, etc. without them all being on top of each other. You do not want to make a mess, but you also do want to have ample room to work.

Make sure you have plenty of light. Ideally, you will near a window with an overhead light and perhaps even a small reading lamp. 

Most important in choosing a study location is finding a place that is relatively free from distractions. That means no TV on in the room, no brothers or sisters running by, no phone conversations to listen in on, and no instant messenger or emails to keep you busy. 

Whether or not you listen to music while you study depends on your personal preference. You may choose to ignore any phone calls, or turn off your cell phone, and forget about the urge to go and get a snack every ten or fifteen minutes.

Depending on your home, you may be able to find this area at the kitchen or dining room table, or in your bedroom. You may be able to set aside a study space in your basement or an office in you home. Some people find their homes too filled with distractions, and prefer to take their studies to the local library.

Wherever you choose, it is best if you can study in that same place all the time. If you can study in this same location consistently, your mind will get used to this being a focused and important place. When you enter this area, you will know it is time to get down to business. Your pens and pencils, paper, erasers, stapler, calculator, and anything else you use often can be kept nearby. Also, you can keep them in a bin or bag which can be pulled out whenever you need them. This will avoid having to stop studying to collect supplies.

Having this dedicated study spot will help you get down to business and focus more easily on getting your work complete.

Using a computer saves time if typing a report for school.

It’s four o’clock…you know what that means…time to do homework. You scour the house looking for a pencil. Then you need a pencil sharpener. Ten minutes later you find one. Finally you sit down to start your homework. Where’s the calculator? Dad’s desk? Brother’s bedroom? Once found, you discover that it is low on batteries…there have to be some in the house…but where? If you find your typical study session unfolding like this, then here are a few suggestions to make you finish your homework with ease…

You can waste a lot of time looking for homework supplies and making sure they are ready to be used. OR, you can use a homework box or supply kit of some kind to keep it all together. Then, when it comes time to do homework, everything is in place for you. No running around, no scouring the house. 

Any kind of box will do. You can use a storage tote, an old shoe box, or even a drawer. The key is to keep everything you need in there, ready to go. Make sure the tote or box is placed conveniently in your study area. It should not move from the spot. 

Make sure siblings and family members know that these supplies are for homework, and not for other activities. Those supplies should stay there, and only be used for homework. You may want to label it so there is no confusion as to its purpose. 

Pencils and crayons should be sharp, calculators fully equipped with fresh batteries, markers with lids tightly attached. Here’s a tip, since your parents are always offering to help with your homework but it is up to you to do the work, suggest that they take responsibility for keeping the supply kit full and in working order. 

When it comes to studying, there are few people that want any more struggle or stress than is necessary. Keeping all materials and supplies handy and ready to go will make your studying not only go smoother, but possibly quicker. And who wouldn’t want to shorten the time they need for studying?

A tutor or friend can be helpful for a difficult subject.

Learning to concentrate while studying and doing work is a skill that will be used for the rest of your life. The art of concentration is to eliminate any possible distractions and completely focus on the task at hand. Many students will read through material and discover that they have no idea what they have just read. Or, they will attend lectures and have difficulty paying attention to what is being said. Here are a few suggestions to help you stay focused and boost your grades…

When scheduling study times, try to stick to a consistent and efficient routine. Try to avoid studying one day late at night, and the next in the afternoon. Write in your planner or calendar when you will study so as not to have conflicts. 

Always study in a quiet environment. If you haven’t already, find a designated study spot free of distractions. If you live in a noisy house or dormitory, this may mean heading to a study room or even the library. 

When you need a study break, do something different from you have been doing, and in a different area. Get up and walk around in another room. Listen to music for a few minutes. Grab a snack. Try to take a break every hour for about 10 minutes. 

Every student struggles with day dreaming while studying…thinking about plans for the night or tomorrow’s basketball game. To avoid daydreaming, ask yourself questions about the material as you study it, which will keep your mind focused.

If you have trouble focusing during classroom lectures, look over the notes of the previous lecture and read the course material pertaining to the lecture beforehand so you can anticipate the main ideas that the instructor will cover. Additionally, show outward interest during lectures. Have an attentive expression and posture. This will self-motivate internal interest. Also, resist distractions by sitting in front of the room away from disruptive occurrences and classmates and by focusing on the instructor through listening and note taking. 

Just a few minor adjustments in your studying habits will go a long way in improving grades and concentration.

Use your time wisely.

Think about how you find a name in a telephone book. You don’t read any more than necessary to find the name. Maybe you use your finger to guide your eyes. This type of reading is known as scanning. Skimming uses the same type of skill mechanically but a different skill mentally. In scanning, you know what you are looking for; in skimming, you don’t.

Since you don’t know exactly what you are looking for while skimming, prepare yourself by reading the title, source, author, and any pictures; then question yourself, –who, what, when, where is this likely to focus on? With a questioning mind direct your eyes down the column of print, or in a zigzag, if the lines are quite long. Look for exact names of people, places, things, ideas, numbers and words like therefore, whenever, until, because, and instead, to clue you to how and why.

When you first start to learn to skim you may see only the words in bold type, italics, digits, or capitalized words. Soon you will note new or unusual vocabulary. As you become an efficient skimmer your span of perception will develop and your ability to make closure will increase.

Skimming is a step you should always take before you read any article of factual or practical narrative. You will soon be able to detect most important facts, strange vocabulary, and words that are clues to important relationships.

It’s a good practice to skim everything in mass media after reading the title and first paragraph. You may get all the information you want. This keeps your skimming skills from deteriorating, or will give you the practice you need to develop necessary skills. 

Skim everything you intend to read before you make a final decision to read, discard, or study the material.

Skim all highlighting and develop a read-skim pattern to use for rapid review. And don’t overlook this! Reviewing frequently and rapidly is the best way to memorize (or simply remember information) from notes and long text assignments. Skimming is a very useful tool for studying, so learn it and use it!

How to use your brain to study.
Confused about what to write down in your notebook during class? Get stressed when preparing for tests and looking over your notes? Here are some suggestions to take you from the beginning of the studying process in the classroom, to the end, or the test itself.

Read assignments before heading to class. This will build your background for the information that will be presented in class. It helps you be familiar with the vocabulary and concepts. This is especially helpful if you are unfamiliar with the subject matter. As you read, underline and highlight important information. If you don’t have time to read the entire assignment, at least look over introduction paragraphs, bold words, and summaries. This will give you a good overview of the information.

Although it seems obvious, you need to go to class and take notes. Most professors or teachers lecture during class periods, emphasizing points of importance. Head to class ready to be attentive and write during the entire class. Don’t stop taking notes until the lecturer is finishing. Pay particular attention to the end of the lecture, as professors will cram information into this part to finish up for the day. Use abbreviations; get details and main ideas to get complete notes.

While the notes are still ‘fresh’ in your mind, look over them and make any additions or corrections as soon as possible after class. Be sure to make note of any parts you didn’t understand or missed. Ask either the professor or a friend via email or before the next class period to get the missing information. 

Try to pass your first test in each class to boost self-confidence. Make up a list of study questions and definitions and practice reciting this information aloud, either to yourself or someone else. Don’t wait until the last minute study. Rather, study for short periods over several days. Of course, you will want to review the night before a test.

Finally, test day arrives. Use these strategies during your exam to make all your hard work worthwhile. Read directions carefully before you begin. Take a few minutes to look over the test, then answer all the questions you know first. This will help you get sure points and builds confidence. Don’t leave any blanks; it is better to guess if you don’t know. Watch your time, and manage it accordingly. Don’t rush, but don’t go too slow. Take a few minutes at the end of class to look over your test to be sure you have answered all question

Tips & Warnings

•    Study in a place that’s comfortable and offers help, like in a library
•    Research your topic before writing about it
•    Never study for too long without frequent breaks
•    Never study if you’re tired and at the point of exhaustion

..time to do homework. You scour the house looking for a pencil. Then you need a pencil sharpener. Ten minutes later you find one. Finally you sit down to start your homework. Where’s the calculator? Dad’s desk? Brother’s bedroom? Once found, you discover that it is

Traditional ways of studying isn’t cutting it in class? You may want to try a different approach.

Things You’ll Need:

•    An open mindset 
•    Good rest 
•    Go to class!

Do a quick review of materials before each class. Read the next chapter that will be presented before the class. This reduces the chance that you will get lost and confused during lecture, and will give you more opportunities to participate.

Don’t write everything down! There is a misconception that one’s performance in class is positively correlated to the amount of notes you take. Taking good notes is one thing, but sometimes trying to write down a lot of things distracts one from the learning process. Write the essentials, then put down your pen and actually listen to that guy talking at the front of the class.

Keep it up! It is much harder to catch up once you have fallen behind, so invest in your classes by getting things done early. It will actually save you time in the long run

We’ve all heard it before: don’t cram. Don’t wait for the last minute. You won’t retain as much, you’ll tire yourself out and it just won’t work. It’s far better to develop strong daily study habits that’ll keep you revisiting material often, and without the stress.

This is all excellent advice. It’s also advice that I never followed, not once in the whole length of my college career. Instead, I developed ways to be an excellent last-minute studier, and not only did I graduate college, I managed to make the Dean’s Honor list a few times.

Based on what I learned, here’s a few tips to help you discover how to study for a test at the last minute, and optimize those few, precious hours before a big test.

If you know your study habits suck, don’t miss class. Okay, so if you’re the type of person who doesn’t have good study habits, you may not have good class-attending habits, either. But if you can make yourself go to class on a regular basis, you won’t have to study nearly as much, and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect on tests.

Cram with others (especially if you’ve missed class). Being somewhat antisocial, I didn’t learn the value of group study until I was well into my junior year, but everything they say about it really is true. You will remember more from a group study session because it’s more like a social conversation – watching and listening to other people in an interactive environment will make things stick more than reading them on your own.

If you’re a class skipper, you can also glean from the people who have been faithfully attending. However, if you do this, always be thankful and don’t do it often – people who work hard will soon get fed up with your mooching!

Make flash cards – and use them correctly. As a quick learning tool, flashcards are a lifesaver, but only if you use them well. The big mistake I see people making with them is to just run through them incessantly, continuously reviewing cards they know while repeatedly drawing a blank on the ones they don’t know.

Try this instead: go through your stack and remove the cards that you know. Continue going through the remaining cards and removing them as you get them right until there are no cards left. Rinse and repeat. Also, if the stack of cards you don’t know is huge, break it up into manageable sections, then combine the smaller decks as you master them. Ideally, you should be able to go through your cards and get everything right on the first try, then put the cards away for a little while, then come back and do it again.

Write song lyrics

Music has an extraordinary power to stick in our heads, because it connects more deeply with different parts of the brain. This is why we all sing the alphabet song when we’re trying to organize files in the right order.

Just take a tune you know, any tune at all, and make up new lyrics for it using the information you need to remember. It doesn’t have to be good, you just have to be able to sing it to yourself until you remember it. Once you can do that, you won’t forget it.

Use silly, abstract memory triggers. Another great trick that’s worth the silliness is to come up with any kind of weird mental story or picture that’ll cement concepts in your head, or connect one thing to another.

For example: when I was seven, my mother taught me this trick as I was learning to identify the 50 U.S. States. She pointed to the edge of Idaho and observed that it looked a bit like an old man’s face, maybe even that of Santa Claus, which would help me remember the state’s name because…Idaho-ho-ho.

This sort of thing seemed embarrassingly silly to me, even as a seven-year-old. But it really, really works.

Take breaks

You may think that with only a few hours before the big moment, you’ve got no time to lose. However, you’ll get much, much more out of the time you spend studying if you take breaks and distract yourself. I recommend the occasional 15 minute break every couple of hours or so, and if you can, play a little video game or watch something short and entertaining on your favorite video sites. Things like this are immensely refreshing. But avoid chatting with friends during these breaks – it’s far too easy to get caught up in a long conversation and lose track of time.

Don’t lose sleep – much

Along similar lines, all-nighters are likely to cause your brain so much stress and exhaustion that you not only forget everything you’ve learned, you don’t have the mental capacity to properly read, write, spell, or fill in little circles. A far better bet is to get started studying as early as possible, stay up late, get a few hours of sleep, then wake up early and get another hour or two in just before the test (which you can now take with a somewhat fresh mind). Having a little sleep between these two study periods will also give you a great chance to find out which things you’ve retained from the studying the night before, and to brush up on the ones you haven’t.

Eat. Being hungry triggers stress, which makes it very hard to think and remember things. Snacking lightly while studying will not only make the experience more enjoyable, it’ll make it more effective.

More importantly, have breakfast before the test, or whatever meal comes right before. Take your study materials with you if you have to. Avoid too much starch and sugar, and be sure to have lots of protein.

To improve your grades you’ll have to spend some time in your textbooks.

Changing school grades takes a certain level of commitment. From week to week and from semester to semester there will be many opportunities to improve grades, and many opportunities to hurt the improvements made. If one is committed, consistent and patient, grades will slowly and steadily begin to improve.

Things You’ll Need:

•    Planner 
•    Notebooks 
•    Binders 
•    Computer access

Improving Your Grades

Tell the teacher that you would like to improve your grades. Ask for feedback on where you need the most improvement. Express your commitment to becoming a better student and prepare your teacher to change her mind about you.

Buy a notebook for each individual class that you’re taking. Arrange papers and assignments for each class in separate binders. Organize and label your notes in a way that is easy to understand, access and study from.

Take good notes during class time to make sure you stay alert and retain information for homework or projects that are sure to come later on. Stop the teacher and ask a question if you do not understand something that was said.

Form a study group with students in your class who have better grades than you do. Dedicate at least two hours every other day to sit with your study group and go over class material. Create interesting ways to study so that no one becomes tired or bored.

Track your progress with your teacher. Ask your teacher for an update every two weeks on how your papers, presentations and tests are coming along.

Find interesting ways to delve deeper into school topics than your teacher expects you to. Watch movies, read books or listen to music relevant to what you’re studying. Get to know your material on an intimate level

With the vast availability of published works nowadays, avoiding plagiarism can be a challenge. Yet by following these guidelines, it is possible to make smart choices that will steer you away from the horrors of plagiarism.

Things You’ll Need:

Put the words of the other sources immediately into your own words. By doing this within the note taking process, it will help to prevent from direct copying within the actual paper.

Examine the words within your paper. If they seem overly convoluted and difficult to understand, then it is likely that they are not worded best in your own style. However, if you do understand the essence of your own words, and one idea seems to flow into the next, then this is a good indication that you captured the ideas of the other sources, but worded them in your own way.

Use parenthetical citations at the end of each sentence that contains an idea that is not your own. Parenthetical citations work to display where the source of credit derives.

Place a bibliography at the end of the paper. Bibliographies are very important because they display all of the sources you utilized in order to come up with your ideas in the paper.

Free check for plagiarism www.grammarly.com

Many students develop a knot in their stomach when they are assigned essay questions. Essay questions can either be for a homework assignment, or actually given as test questions. Essay questions should not be cause for alarm. Instead, students just need to know how to correctly answer essay questions in order to earn the best grade. Here is a step by step guide about answering such questions.

Get it Right!

Make sure to read the entire essay question. If there are separate parts to the question, take note of these and be sure to answer them. An incomplete answer to an essay question is a sure way to receive a low score.

Brainstorm your answers to the essay question. Make sure that these answers can be backed up through facts that you can write about in your anser. Think of keywords that highlight what you want to say, and jot them down on a piece of scratch paper.

Begin answering essay questions with a statement that summarizes your answer. Then go in more detail about the points you are writing about.

Finally – Don’t Lose Marks Because of Simple Negligence and Rushing (because your friend has finished and is leaving the venue???)

Good Study Help

Read over your answer and look for any mistakes in spelling or grammar. Check to make sure that you haven’t left any part of the essay question unanswered.