Studying tips

It's not about how long you study, but how many times you retrieve the material. Instead of memorizing for an hour straight, study for bursts of 20 minutes.

You can't passively look at your notes, and hope that it will all stick. Studying is an active process. This is why I also advocate taking notes by hand. Not only does writing encode the information better, in order to take written notes, you have to actively process the information, and sort out the relevant from the irrelevant information.

Make connections. When you're going over information, recall anything and everything you can think that it relates to. None of this stuff works in isolation.

Ask questions. Before you dive into the material, try to ask questions related to the topic that could realistically be answered after reading. And don't ask bullshit questions that only require you to find definitions. Ask questions that you genuinely want to know the answer to, and require you to process and organize information before answering.

Use dirty tricks. I had to memorize the names, composers, eras, genres, and other facts of over 100 pieces of music for an exam. One of the songs was Hound Dog by Willie May Thornton. I remembered by saying that the singer has a thorn in her ass, and that's why she's howling like a dog. Thorn=Thornton, and now I'll never forget it. It doesn't have to make sense to anyone else. It just has to make sense to you.

Pull information cold. When you're away from your studies, just pull up what you can. Anything. Just while you're doing something else, just try to pull information while your mind is cold.

There is no easy way to study. If you want to remember things, you need a strong brain. The only way you get a strong brain is by exercising it.

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>>17141778
Thank you for your really helpful post.
Really appreciate that one.

>>17141816
I'm guessing that's what you're having to memorize?

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>>17141835
Ha, no.

I'm a Math/CS major.

I learned to study at age 18. I had to memorize the menu and ingredients to get a job at a lunch counter.
In school I could just figure out the answer to most things based on knowledge I had gleamed from books/documentaries/etc, political correctness, and subtle clues the teachers left in the tests
When I was finally faced with something I had 0 knowledge of I just copied down the name of each burger and it's ingredients 20 times on a sheet of paper
that's how you memorize. copy the phrase down over and over again and you'll memorize it. I still do it in uni today.