Successful Studying

You cannot acquire ability in a moment. You can only become good at something by actually being actively involve and getting down to the nitty-gritty of the problem. The reason you go to school and study is to learn from the experience of other people. In order to inherit their achievements and make them yours, you have to walk the paths they trod. You will acquire ownership only after having understood and putting that understanding into practice.


The 9 Step Of Successful Studying 

Step 1: Set Very Clear Goals
Many students think that the first step to studying should be to read their notes or their textbooks. I believe that before you do that, the first thing you must do is to set very clear goals on the results you want to get for the subjects your are studying. How many 'A's are you going for?

This is very important because the goals you set will determine how you study and therefore your results! If you set a goal to score 100% in mathematics, will you study very differently as compared to setting a goal to score 60% instead? Of course! When you are going for 100%, your brain knows that it cannot afford to make a single mistake. Chances are, this will cause you to study every relevant point in the syllabus! As a result, you may score that 100% and if not, you will get 90% or more!

What's even worse is that when you do not set a goal, your brain will automatically lock on to the lousiest score it can get away with (i.e. 50%). That's suicidal!

Step 2: Planning & Scheduling
You can set all the fantastic goals you want. But you won't achieve them unless you come up with a plan and schedule your time so that you will know when to do what.

Step 3: Taking Consistent Action
Everybody can set goals and develop great plans and schedules. However, it is the students who are able to get themselves to take consistent action everyday who produce great results. It is the ability to constantly follow through everyday to read their textbooks, make their notes and revise that makes the difference.

Step 4: Power-Reading For Information
This is one super learning strategies. You must begin by power reading textbooks and relevant reading materials for important information. Remember that not all the words in a textbook are important. You need to extract only the words (Keywords) that give you the informations.

Step 5: Mind Mapping
After gathering all the information-rich key words, you must then make whole-brain notes called mind maps that hep you re-organize the information in a way that saves you time and activates your brain power.

Step 6: Super Memory
The next step is to use Super Memory techniques to easily and effortlessly absorb all the important information. Many educational systems are moving towards higher order thinking and away from pure memory based questions. However, remember that unless you can absorb and retain information, you will not be able to use it in higher level critical thinking! Before you can achieve level two, you must always master level one first.

Step 7: Magic Of Application
You can memorize all the facts and figures perfectly, but unless you can apply your knowledge to the many different types of questions that are set in the examination, you will not score an 'A'.

Step 8: Exam Preparation
The last super learning strategy is knowing how to prepare for the examinations. This starts two months before the examinations.

Step 9: Taking the Exam 
The last yet most important step in the successful learning process is taking the examination. Remember, examinations are a game.

These nine steps are just an overview, in later posts I will go in more detail.