Hey Elcee,
Firstly, just making sure you know that your scores this year won't count in your study score at all; only when you start 3/4 next year will your SAC scores and rankings have an impact. So far, you haven't lowered your chances at all so you'll be fine
Study techniques1. Make notes. The most important thing with this is not to just essentially 'copy and paste' by using the same order or words. Put stuff in your own words. Make notes out of as many sources as you can so you've got to figure out how to sort, group and fit your different bits and pieces of knowledge together (there are heaps in the Notes section and on the internet). Research bits you don't quite understand, and add in explanations. Essentially, actively make YOUR OWN notes, taking time and effort to do so. Instead of just reading your notes when you study, make sure you're always adding or rearranging stuff, never just passively reading.
2. Do practise questions, if you can get your hands on any. Go through answers afterwards to check what you could have done differently/better.
3. Use flashcards or other methods of active recall, e.g. choose a topic and write out all you can think about it without notes, and then check it with notes so you can find the bits you got wrong or missed out. Also, teaching a [patient] friend/dog/teddy bear/mirror is great too.
Check out Anki, an awesome flashcard app!
Here's how it works if you're interested
Anki shows you cards at intervals, based on how well you know the content.
1. You create a 'deck' of cards through the app. You can add any card to the deck at any time.
2. Daily, you go through the flashcards the app chooses to present to you.
3. For each flashcard in turn, you are shown the word you need to define/describe.
do your best to answer it – you can record your voice answering it, and the recording will be deleted as soon as you move to the next flashcard.
4. It then shows the answer (you can compare with your recorded voice)
5. You rate how well you answered it; based on how well you answered it, it will decide in how many days you'll next be shown that card.
It's a really great app, but may take you some time to learn how to navigate it. You must also be willing to go through it daily, or else the cards begin to pile up overwhelmingly – any you haven't addressed on one day are added to the next day's bunch.
4. Make posters out of important concepts if you're a visual learner, you know, mindmap stuff, pictures, fancy fonts etc. Then stick them up on your toilet door or locker or wherever.
5. Be silly
. Dramatically declaim your notes aloud in weird accents. Sing things to tunes you know. Create actions or symbols to go along with certain concepts or definitions. Record your notes in weird voices and listen to them on the train or while you're lying in bed procrastinating. Find videos to watch, or even make your own videos.
6. Make sure you UNDERSTAND a concept before you rote learn it. If you don't get what's going on and just feel like you're learning words, get help from your teacher, reread your textbook, and most importantly, research it or ask questions. It makes it far easier to learn, and definitely more worthwhile. Bio's not a subject where rote-learning is that important - if you understand how something works, you can generally make up a definition as being word-perfect isn't important. (THIS IS STEP 1 in terms of importance.)
7. Do one of those visual-auditory-kinaesthetic tests if you feel like it, search for lists of study techniques relevant to the type of learner you are. Google for good study techniques, I'm sure there's heaps of really valuable stuff out there. Idk, I never actually looked or ever tried anything fancy, in reality my study method was 'make notes, keep researching and adding to them or changing the font colour when I'm bored' and then do some prac questions...
Yeah anyway, I just glanced at the studies section of a blog I follow and found
this article, don't know what it's like but looks maybe useful
All the best
Home
Help
Search
Login
