study tips 2020

Study Tips For 2020 With Erica

Last week we met up with Erica, a former full-time BrightSparkz team member with more than 9 years’ teaching experience, to chat about study tips!

2020 has been a difficult year, with many interruptions to schoolwork and changes to both the curriculum and the test and exam setup. Here are Erica’s top tips for how to ace your exams or final tests in 2020:

  1. Know how your memory works: 
    • Turn short term memory into long term memory using repetition. 
    • Different study tips and methods will influence storing.
  2. Know your study style: visual, auditory or kinesthetic. 
    • For visual learners, images and colours work best; 
    • Auditory learners learn best with songs, podcasts and repeating out loud; 
    • For kinesthetic learners, writing out notes helps. 
    • Most younger learners are kinesthetic and need to learn while moving.
  3. Give yourself enough time to study: 
    • Cramming prevents information from moving from short term memory to long term memory.
  4. Repeat your work out loud
    • This has been proven to be a good way to encode information for multiple learning styles.
  5. Do old exam papers
    • Questions are repeated, so you’re likely to know how to answer them. 
    • You’ll also develop familiarity with the style of the paper and prevent panic. 
    • This will also allow you to identify areas you need to work on.
  6. Find someone to explain your work to: 
    • Parents, friends via Zoom or in a socially-distanced environment. 
    • Teaching someone else ensures you really understand the work.
  7. Make sure you take breaks and exercise
    • This will give you the energy to continue studying and allows your brain to keep focusing. 
    • Exercise also gives you endorphins! 
    • Take a 10 minute break every hour. 
  8. In an exam, answer the questions that you know the answers to first
    • This will give you some guaranteed marks, as well as a confidence boost!
  9. Know how to manage your panic: 
    • Take deep breaths to calm yourself down. 
    • Pack your bags the night before. 
    • Ensure you get enough sleep the night before a test or exam.
  10. Don’t leave blank spaces: answer all the questions, your answer might be right!
  11. Check the time allocation
    • Don’t spend too much time on questions that aren’t worth many marks. 
    • Check the mark allocation to ensure that you give enough facts in your answer to justify receiving as many marks as possible.
  12. Fill gaps in knowledge caused by interrupted schooling: 
    • Use past papers to “reverse-engineer” the information that you know. 
    • Get a tutor to help you with work you’re uncertain about. 
    • Use the exercises in your textbook to help you too.

If you’re still at a loss for how to study, our 2 hour online or in-person Study Skills Crash Course is a quick and easy way to learn more about how your memory works, find out what your learning style is, and learn the best study methods for you. Find out more about our Study Skills Crash Course!

 

Written by Tessa Cooper, BrightSparkz Staff & Blog Writer

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