Hey Simear,
It's great that you're looking into this now - year 11 is a fantastic time to figure out what works and doesn't in terms of your personal studying
Reading notes can be a quick of gaining some understanding but generally it doesn't prepare you well for assessments as it's easy to skim over the words rather than truly understanding the content and most people find it highly ineffective. If you want to continue reading notes I recommend that you ensure you do it with something else.
Examples of this include:
- after reading a page explain it to someone. This could be a parent, friend or even a pet - the important thing is that you try to teach it. This helps you remember the content more strongly and can identify gaps in your understanding
- ask questions on sticky notes and look up the answers or ask a teacher (or us) to clarify what the answers are - this helps you engage with the content more deeply and throw more meaning behind it.
- create diagrams and memory aids for what you've learnt (memory aids could include mnemonics, flashcards, and mind maps)
- complete related practice questions (this is one of my favourites). Generally people leave practice questions until after they have learnt the content but I found that this strategy worked well enough for me that I would also do practice questions before I learnt the content. Practice questions are great because they help you understand how you're likely to perform on exams and tests, they force you to realise if you don't understand something, and they help with your memory and understanding of the content.
My favourite study methods are teaching others and testing myself, but some people find that other methods work better for them so I recommend you use this time to experiment with what works best for you. If you want to get more ideas, we also have articles on studying for QCE which you can find
hereHope this helps and let me know if you have any more questions!