← Arii's STUDYING 101:

Or, my personal thesis on how to study.

Why it matters:

Information and knowledge are power, especially in the modern day. Giving your all into learning, both what you're required to, and to what you find interesting is the best way to take advantage of that. Education is a right in the United States, and in AP's case someone is being payed to train you through college level courses for FREE. Giving your all into that is a no-brainer to me.

If you don't care, that's completely fine - I'm not going to come after you with a textbook. However, I'll kindly say that you're missing out on something that's deeply satisfying and worthwile.

Studying is a relatively low-stakes activity that can yield high rewards in life, in college, trade school, or the job market, the ability to understand and work in an increasingly interconnected world is priceless.

So, let's talk about how to do that activity effectively.

Studying:

Defined by Oxford meaning: Application of the mental faculties to the acquisition of knowledge.

But defined by myself meaning: Playing with material in meaningful ways until you're able to understand it and recall it.

There are two major stages in studying, aquiring the knowledge, and actively recalling it. These introduce, and build up familiarity with a concept until it's second nature.

The human brain is fantastic at building up understanding. Do you remember when 5x2 was a difficult problem for you? Now, when you look at that, you instantly know that it's 10. Our goal in studying is to turn a shaky concept or material into a no-brainer, where you can't get it wrong.

Acquiring Knowledge:

Let's start with input. Most of the time, you learn concepts in a class, through reading, lecture, or video.

You can make the input even more effective by pairing it with output, like doing a brief overview of the topic before starting in on it, and learning the kind of questions that'll be on your exams before you even learn your content.

When taking notes on lectures or on textbook sections, I like to use shortenings for different words to write faster, like "gov" for government, or "ssafr" for Sub-Saharan Africa. This helps you to write faster, just make sure you have a "translation guide" - especially if you tend to forget what your shortenings mean. When it comes to notes, I do all of mine by hand. This has been proven to strengthen memory of notes due to the kinesthetic aspect of writing.

For textbook notes, they eventually get highlighted and converted to an Anki deck for frequent review as I approach exams. For lecture notes, I rewrite and highlight them at the end of a unit to then be converted to Anki.

Sometimes, refreshing the base of your knowledge can be helpful - especially when you find you don't understand a certain section (note that active recall methods can diagnose these problem areas!)

For AP Classes (Ranked by Usefulness):

• Content and Exam Descriptions (Everything AP Will Ask You)
• Heimler's History (WONDERFUL For History)
• Khan Academy (Great For Math, Just Fine for History)
• Crash Course (Less AP Focused, But Just Fine)
• Oversimplified (Yes, Really. He's Great for a Quick, Humorous Review. He Doesn't Have Everything Though)
• Great American Yawp (APUSH Textbook w/ Additional Resources)
• Gilder Lehrman (Just Fine History Resources)

Active Recall:

Does rereading a section help you remember it? Yes, it will. But will you remember it a week from when you read it? No. The key missing here is active recall, where you test yourself by pulling information out of your memory instead of just passively rereading things. This helps to put the information into your long-term memory, as well as being much more effective. 10m of active recall is much less effort for a much higher reward.

This can be achieved through 3 major methods:

• Triggering the information with a quick stimulus. (FSRS)
• Utilising what you've learned in a practical manner. (Past Papers)
• Teaching what you learned to someone else. (Feynman Technique)

Triggering:

Utilising:

• AP Classroom (MCQs and Practice FRQs)
• CrackAP (Self-Evaluating MCQ Practices)

Teaching:

Overall:

Other Tips:

My biggest tip is that the method you use is the best method. I offer a lot of tips that work for me or that I've tried, but they may not all apply to you. If you have a method that's great for you, prioritise that! My tips serve as other things to try in the inbetweens.

Procrastination and Productivity:

When studying, the hardest thing to do is to start, but once the ball is rolling, the rest falls into place. Motivation isn't everything, but it is a powerful kickstarter. I like to remind myself of the privilege I have to study, and the purposes for which I'm studying to get "the ball rolling".

Sometimes that doesn't work though. In that case I like to trick my brain into doing things by setting up my area for worktime and giving myself the option to "just leave" - even after I've prepped my music, websites, space, and assignments. At this point, I don't want to just leave, as all the prep work would've been a waste.

A couple of other tips I have are:

• Motivation always runs out, so make it a routine! Study for a set amount of minutes at a set time every day, build a system that works for you.
• Giving yourself rewards after studying, such as time to relax. For every thing you have to do, do one thing you want to do after!
• Pavlov yourself. Have something you do only when you're about to study. Like drinking a certain kind of drink, or working in a specific place.
• Having a visual tracker, like checkboxes you fill in when you study.
• Being proactive. Start larger projects as early as you can. Act like they're due that night and GET THEM DONE.
• Do not let perfection get you. Better a messily written horrible looking outline that's done rather than a perfectly highlighted notes sheet with nothing on it.
• Fake deadlines, try to work as quickly as you can in a set amount of time.
• "Beat" your highscore. I personally track the minutes I study per-day, and like to hit a certain threshold. On weekends I try to "beat my record" by studying as much as I can FEASIBLY AND WITHOUT BURNOUT in a day.
• If you don't want to start, take 5 seconds, and then just start.

Focus:

These methods are all great, but with human monkey brain, are easily skirted around. The best method for focus, in my opinion, is having an accountability partner. Speak with a friend, parent, or someone else and explain to them what your goals are for the session of work you're going to do - do the work - and if you got distracted, or didn't do everything, tell them what you did and did not do. Telling someone you're going to do something makes it that much more high stakes to actually do it. (You can also do this by yourself by writing down your goals and reflecting afterwards, but I find speaking to someone to be much more effective).

Exam Prep:

• Mark the day when you have it, and plan a daily review for each day. Maybe this is one of the methods I mentioned above? (wink wink nudge nudge).
• Start EARLY! As early as you can!
• Run mock exams with the exact time limitations and format of the test on the weekends or when you have time.
• Target topics you know that will be on your exam in order of how little you know them. If you know Spanish Colonialism like the back of your hand but struggle to understand Pre-Colombian Exchange societies, focus on the latter! Review all of your things if you can, but focus on what you know you don't know.
• Help others out! Do they struggle with a certain topic you know like the back of your hand? Do you not understand something they use with ease? Explain things to eachother.
• Remember that no, you aren't cooked. You'll do great - if you study. If you study to the best of your abilities, you'll do the best you can do, but if you don't study at all - that's an issue.

Lists and Organization:

For task priority and organization I like to use Moscow - Must, Should, Can and Won't. Must includes things that need to be done by that night or the next day, and come first. Should includes tasks that would be wise to do, like upcoming deadlines that aren't pressing yet. Can includes things I could clear out, but that aren't necessary. Won't includes tasks that may be distractions, or are unnecessary in the moment. I complete them in Moscow order. (This system is rather similar to the Eisenhower Matrix, of important and necessary tasks, but this mneumonic sticks in my brain better).

When it comes to planning studying and homework - many times you'll hear "eat the frog". This means to do your most difficult and time-consuming task first. Although I get the point of this, I find that starting with a short and easy task gets me motivated and into a mode of focus where I can "eat the frog". Most of my to-do lists for a study session are structured like this:

• Easy, short task (5m or less).
• Difficult, high focus, long task.
• BREAK
• Medium difficulty, long task.
• BREAK
• Medium difficulty, high focus task.
• Medium difficulty, high focus task.

I'd recommend taking breaks between long or high focus tasks - as well as grouping similar tasks together. If you have a lot of tasks, choose 5 to focus on.

I particularly like to set goals for myself in a study session, with a goal for "high" "mid" and "low" productivity. For instance, high might be getting 7 tasks done, mid might be 5, and low might be 3 tasks done.

Music:

Timing Intervals:

Personally, I don't use Pomodoros anymore as they tend to interrupt my focus - I find that working for a few hours and then taking a 10-20m break works best. The main thing I'd say if you work without a timer is to TIME YOUR BREAKS. Otherwise it's very easy to get lost for an hour cleaning your room.

It really depends on what you have to do in a given day, and when you can study, but 2-4 hours of solid study time is a great goal.

Breaks and Rest:

When studying make sure you get up and eat, hydrate, and stretch regularly. Working for 8h a day before the night of an exam will not make you pass it! The best method to do well is to study consistently for good chunks of time, and to get adequate rest inbetween. If you plan on having a study day with 6h of studying or more, make sure to take at least an hour long break at some point.

In Summary:

I hope you found some interesting new ways think about studying, as well as some tips to try. Thanks for reading my nerdy rant about learning!