Study Tips

 Hello there,

For my final blog post, I felt it was only appropriate to leave you with some of my favourite study tips (as it seems everything has been cancelled this year, except exams of course).

I extend my sincerest apologies as today I am aware that I am giving you up, letting you down, running around, deserting you, making you cry, saying goodybe, telling a lie and hurting you (Rick Astley would not approve). 

 Here's my recipe for exam preparation/studying...

  1. Avoid multi-tasking – Focus on one subject at a time and if you are changing to study a different topic, take a break in between to separate the two. Multi-tasking clouds memory retention and makes study efforts scattered and inefficient. Only clowns balance plates.
  2.  Get creative – Brains work in mysterious ways. Find what works for you. I have friends who make up songs, dances or poems to help them remember content. For me, I find that acronyms stick best in my mind. Take the key word from the piece of information and use the initial of that letter to form part of your sequence. I have used this since my National 5 exams and it’s never failed me.
  3. Get rid of your phone – Personally, when I am studying I need to give my phone to a family member or lock it away in a drawer at the other end of the house as I find it too tempting to scroll for hours instead of studying. Minimise your distraction.
  4. Make it visually appealing – Black and white text in a boring font on a piece of paper isn’t particularly memorable. Use highlighters, sticky notes, pictures, diagrams, anything to break up chunky text. Generally, I like to find pictures that pertain to the information I am trying to learn as your brain draws parallels between the image and the content and can help you regurgitate the necessary information on exam day!
  5. Study Groups – This isn’t for everyone and if I’m being honest, it’s not the best for me as I love a chinwag and struggle keeping on task when I’m with pals. However, studying in a group does undoubtedly provide new perspectives, resources and you can draw inspiration from each other. It also does make studying more fun and gives you people to bounce ideas off or share advice. I couldn’t have gotten through university without my wee support network (subtle shoutout, you know who you are). Your strengths will be another person’s weaknesses and vice versa, utilise each other’s talents.
  6. Learn what type of learner you are – Everyone retains information differently; I’ve included a link to a website where you can learn which channels of learning suit you best. This means you can streamline your studying activities to the avenues which you gain the most yield from and stray from the types of learning which don’t complement your learning style. https://www.oxfordcollege.ac/learning-type-quiz/ 
  7. Read out loud – This is a personal favourite method of mine. Reading aloud the material, helps you to understand the content as opposed to learning it. You almost convince yourself of what you are saying and on exam day, even if you can’t remember your essay, you at least understand it which makes any argument far more persuasive.


I genuinely just want to thank everyone who has interacted or engaged with this blog. Hopefully I've managed to help you in some aspect or even make you chuckle a little bit. I wish you all the best. 

Thank you so much, 

Matthew x 

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