How to Study for a Test

When & Where• Regular time• Regular place• Quiet• Organized• Few distractions: no TV, phone, games, etc.• Daily…review notes for entire unit/chapter

Gaps• Look for gaps…things you don’t understand• Use your book to help fill in your gap notes• Have a study buddy’s contact info so can

call/text to ask questions• Ask your teacher the next day

How much• Multiple nights • No cramming just the night before• Short bursts with breaks• 20 min maximum for each burst• We tend to remember what we study 1st & last• Night before: read through all materials at

least once• Right before: skim through notes if given time

Memorization Strategies

Flashcards

• Great for large amounts of information• Need to be concise (to the point)• As study them, stack into 3 piles: ‘ones I know’, ‘ones I

kind of know’, ‘ones I don’t know’• Continue to read through the ‘kind of know’ & ‘ones I

don’t know’ & add to the ‘ones I know’ pile as you learn• Once have them all in the ‘ones I know’ pile, read

through all of them again to double-check• If needed repeat the process• Also great to carry with you to practice, dinner, on the

bus, etc.

Mnemonic Strategies

Mnemonic Devices• Any learning technique that

helps you remember facts• Connects the information

you are trying to learn with something simpler or familiar to you

• Example: Arable. Break it down to you “are able” to grow things.

Acronyms• Make a word from the 1st

letter of each word to be memorized

• Example: HOMES to remember the 5 Great Lakes of Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior

• Activity: List 2 Acronyms and what they stand for

Strategies

Acrostics• Make phrases/sentences in

which the 1st letter of each word works as a cue to help recall the words you are trying to remember

• Example: Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally to remember math order of operations (PEMDAS)

• Activity: Using your vocab words, create 2 acrostics

Narrative• Make up a story with the list

of words throughout the story

• The more ridiculous or silly, the easier it is to remember

• Example: Next slide

Narrative Example

• Word List: Rustler, Penthouse, Mountain, Sloth, Tavern, Fuzz, Gland, Antler, Pencil, Vitamin

• Narrative: A Rustler lived in a Penthouse on top of a Mountain. His specialty was the three toed Sloth. He would take his captive animals to a Tavern where he would remove Fuzz from their Glands. Unfortunately, all this exposure to sloth fuzz caused him to grow Antlers. So he gave up his profession and went to work in a Pencil factory. As a precaution he also took a lot of Vitamin E.

• Activity: Using as many vocab words as you can (minimum of 5), create a short story

Strategies

Rhymes• Make up rhyming words or

songs related• Examples:

– In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

– 50 States Song

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uUFeVKeKRQc

– Activity: Use 2 of your vocab words to rhyme with a clue of their meaning

Mental Pictures• Make up a picture in your

head or on paper about the topic that you can later picture in your head

• Example: French word ‘pain’ means bread so picture a loaf of bread screaming in pain when you eat it

• Activity: Using one vocab word, create an image

Studying for Math

• Math takes practice• Best way to practice is by doing problems• Multiple step problems:

– If you can do when someone walks you through it, you only partially know it

– If you can do when you look at the steps in your notes/book, you only partially know it• Figure out which step you get caught on• Practice more problems

– If you can do ALL the steps without any assistance, then you are likely to know it

– Try explaining how to do it to someone else; if you can teach it to someone else then it’s much more likely you know it

From the Psychological Science in the Public Interest Journal

• Here are the 5 study skills that Dunlosky and team found to be the most effective:

• Elaborative interrogation: Answering why a fact is true• Self-explanation: Explaining what a section of text or an

example problem means to you• Practice testing: Testing yourself on the material you are

trying to learn• Distributed practice: Spreading your studying out over

several sessions• Interleaved practice: Mixing different kinds of problems

together when studying

QUESTIONSHandout