what’s your study schedule? do you have any study tips, especially irt exams? i have a bunch of important ones coming up in may and you seem like a very smart person who gets good grades, so if it’s not too much trouble i’d really like to know!

scenicroutes:

hey hun! here are a few things that i’ve found helpful for studying:

• strict workflow – set the timer to 20 minutes for work and 10 minutes for a break, fill out the website blacklist with everything that might distract you, and let ‘er rip
• selfcontrol – same deal, but more effective blocking software. this is for when you absolutely need to get shit done. you can set the timer for up to 24 hours, but i think it’s more effective if you use it in 2-3 hour blocks, with half-hour breaks in between.
• habitrpg – i have struggled with procrastination all my life and this is the only thing that has ever actually worked – you plug in your to do list and the website treats completion of the to do list like a game, with you scoring points to buy armour and pets every time you complete a task. absolutely brilliant.
• i’m a social science major, so my go-to method for studying for exams is to re-read every assigned reading and take detailed notes, then re-read those notes, along with my lecture notes, the morning of the exam. this has worked for me for every writing-based exam i’ve ever taken.
• if it’s a theory-based exam – something like a political philosophy course – i’ll just read the material slowly and closely, and any notes i take will be very general.
• if it’s something where a lot of specific knowledge is required, my notes will be /incredibly/ detailed. like, i once took a public administration course where the textbook was pretty much just a lengthy explanation of how canadian bureaucracy works and which people in which offices do which things, and my entire study period was spent writing down names and offices and roles and memorizing them.
• i have much less experience with math exams but what works best for me is just doing as many practice problems as i possibly can, over and over and over again until the algorithm for solving the problem is second nature. and, like, feel free to use the textbook as a crutch at this stage, use whatever aids you want while you’re practicing. don’t, like, force yourself to work through a problem without looking at any instructions – use training wheels until you get the feel of it, and then take your bike out for a nice, long spin to make sure you’ve got the hang of it.

i hope that helped hun! best of luck, you’ll do great!