STUDY GUIDE: Coolmate's Top 6 Study Techniques for Year 11 and Year 12 😀
I have reflected on my journey through Year 11 and would like to share with you six study tips/ techniques I found useful and helped improve my marks. I hope these help other students to improve their marks too in their final years of school. ;)
(I am a year 11 student and these are thoughts)
1. Start Early:
This is the most prominent study technique that I have found to be very useful and it was really helpful in helping me increase my productivity and results. By starting early on my assessments, I had the opportunity to formulate ideas and draft these ideas and keep drafting. By starting assessments/ study early, you can create more time near the end of each term to consolidate your assessment and get knowledgeable feedback from your teachers, peers and family members. 8)
2. Be Consistent:
By being consistent throughout the whole Preliminary/ HSC year, I found that I saved myself SO much time. By creating study notes through the year for each subject, not only did I consistently revise content each week, but I also saved myself a multitude amount of time. The reason I was saving time is due to the fact that at the same time of creating notes, I was also creating study notes/ materials that will prove very helpful for upcoming exams and/ or assessments. :D :D
Now, you may ask, “I constantly have HEAPS of assignments and never enough time to create study notes, how can I do this?”. My answer to the question would be to split up your study. What I mean by this is to not only focus on one assignment for a few weeks, but rather split it into chunks and do half of the time for notes, and the other half of the time for the assessment. You end up getting two things done in time. 8)
3. Ask HEAPS of questions:
I always have a goal everyday whenever I go to each of my classes and that is to ask at least one or two questions per class. If something didn’t make sense to me, I would put my hand up and ask the teacher, “Why does _____ happen?” or “How would I go about answering _____?”. If I still did not understand I would ask the teacher to explain it a different way. This indeed helped me so much, because it helps you to think extensively and you never know, you may face an exam question on the exam day that was that exact question you asked and you will be able to answer it. :)
A Quora question explains just some of the benefits of asking questions:
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-benefits-of-asking-questions-in-class
4. Have a Balance:
A quote by, Jim Rohn, stated, “Your body is the only place you have to live.” What Jim was trying to say was, you must look after your body otherwise it become overloaded and eventually leading to you being “burnt out” (in HSC terms). This is true with food as well! :)
I would recommend the Pomodoro Technique for the balancing of study as it is a technique that I have taken advantage of this year and for me it has proven quite effective. According to this website https://www.verywellmind.com/understanding-the-primacy-effect-4685243 it explains that our super intelligent brains only really remember the first and last items of a sequence of information. For example, when studying, you are more likely to remember the first information block and the last information block. This is the reason why many will say take a 5-10 minute break after about 35 mins of studying as it will assist the retention of information! When you are on your break, refuel yourself with food and water, then do something that you are interested in for this time. ;D ;D
5. Add A Little Bit More Each Time
How do you differentiate yourself from your cohort? Just add a little bit each time, add a little bit more, come back and add a little bit more. This will indeed differentiate you from the rest! This is because it demonstrates that you have an extensive depth of knowledge. This applies to all subjects with heaps of content and various types of assignments. For example, adding that extra bit of effort/ extra information could push you into that Band 5 or 6 range. 8)
6. Submit As Many Drafts As You CAN!
The drafting process can be a long but rewarding journey; especially for English! ;D By reviewing drafts, you can improve on the things that you are either unsure about or having not included enough information can be pinpointed. I found this technique quite useful throughout this year and saw big improvements in the quality of work being produced. ;D