Psych! Using Psychology to Pass That Test
I have to say the most important lesson I have learned in high school is how these simple psychology tips can improve not only your learning, but your overall grades in school.
Tip #1 Sleep
The amount of sleep before you take a test is crucial, but did you know that by studying before you go to bed, it will enhance your remembrance of the subject greatly. It is said that sleep helps create new connections in the brain so if you were to study right before you go to sleep, you would better understand the material the next day. Sleep refreshes your brain, a study once proved that a simple fifteen to thirty-minute nap can help greatly when studying. Sometimes that what we need is that little break to restart and refresh our brains before we cram more material in it.
Tip #2 Know Your Learning Style
From the start of middle school, teachers have been pretty much burying us in short quiz papers meant to find our learning style. The main learning styles are visual, auditory, verbal, physical, logical, social, and solitary. If you don’t know you’re learning style, there are countless of online and print out quizzes that you can take. Once you find out your learning style, the next step is to incorporate your learning style not only into your studying, but your note taking as well. If you’re a visual learner, once you get home, you can draw quick pictures or comics to help you remember a word or concept. If you’re a social learner, it might be best to find a group to help you study, as you thrive when there are people around you (just remember to stay on topic!) If you’re like me, and learn best seeing it in action, you can either ask the teacher to show you or go online where you can see how it works in a real life concept.
Tip #3 Story Time
Throughout your high school and college career Mnemonics should become your best friend, and once you know how to use them to your advantage, you two will become inseparable. Mnemonics are devices such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations that assist in remembering something (via dictionary.com). The best way to utilize them to remember something is to first think of the first thing that pops into your brain, for instance when I see the word Karyotype, the first word that pops into my brain is “Karin” and from there I weave a story only I could remember, in which I put hints to the definition incorporated into the story. For instance, the definition of a karyotype is “a method of organizing the chromosomes of a cell in relation to number, size, and type” (via phschool.com). I could create a story such as “Karin, a dear friend of mine, loves to organize, when she went to organize her closet, she first counted all her clothes, then organized them by their type then size." We use Mnemonics across all subjects, a famous one used in math is “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” to remember the order of operations. The story you weave doesn’t have to make sense to other people as long as it makes sense to you, and its helping.
Tip #3 Procrastination is Not Your Friend
The more days you spend studying, the more likely you are to remember the content. Everyone is guilty of putting things off till the last minute However, when you put off studying till the last minute, you end up putting everything you just crammed into your brain into your short term memory. Your short term memory may hold the information till you take the quiz, but shortly after, throws out that knowledge. When you study repeatedly for multiple nights. You end up putting the information in the godly long term memory slot of your brain where you will be able to remember it when your teacher gives you that pop quiz three weeks later or that pop quiz that he/she gives you the next week.
Tips to Save a Life
These tips may or may not help, but they have worked for countless students so don’t knock ‘em till you try ‘em. If these tips helped you at all, then the best thing to do is share them with a friend so, you just might save them from failing that next quiz/test.